Men no longer tried to conceal their emotion. Some wept, some cursed, some laughed; but the most pitiful sight of all was the man who could do neither, the man with white lips and the strange hunted expression in his eyes who was looking Death in the face for the first time. A full quarter of an hour of the panic had spent itself before the dazed crowds in the broker's offices read the startling news that caused the big break. The ticker shrieked its message above the storm's din like a little laughing demon: "_The Van Dam Trust Company Has Closed Its Doors and Asked for the Appointment of a Receiver!_" "Impossible!" "A fake!" "Hell--it's a joke!" From all who read it at first came these muttered exclamations. It was beyond belief. The "Judge" was particularly emphatic. "Dot's a lie, chentlemens! Take my vord for it! Dey haf ninety millions on deposit." It took the second bulletin with particulars to convince them. Bivens had not kept his solemn pledge. The great bank had stood the run for two hours and closed its doors. And the work of destruction had just begun. At three o'clock, the doctor walked out of Dugro's office without a dollar. It was utterly impossible for a man of his temperament to realize it. The crash had come so suddenly, its work was so complete and overwhelming it seemed a sort of foolish prank Fate had played on him. He walked home in a state of strange excitement. He had seen many sights in his eventful life among the people of New York; never had he passed through a scene so weird, so horrible, so haunting as the five hours he had just spent among those men and women whom the struggle for money had transformed into raving, jibbering, snivelling maniacs. It was too absurd to be real. His own loss was appalling but at least he thanked God he was not mad. He yet had two good hands and legs. He could see, hear, smell, taste and feel, and he had a soul with five more senses still turned upward toward the infinite and eternal by which he could see the invisible and hear the inaudible. He felt almost happy by contrast with the fools he had left shuffling over the floor of Dugro's office. His own sense of loss was merely a blur. The revelation he had just had of the mad lust for money which had begun to possess all classes was yet so fresh and startling he could form no adequate conception of his own position. It was not until he entered his own door, and paused at the sound of Harriet's voice, that he began to realize the enormity of the tragedy that had befallen him. CHAPTER VII AT THE KING'S COMMAND