"Oh, we breakfasted together," said Lynch, with a wry smile; "charming little repast. But I picked up enough to pay for my winter’s stabling." Beecher glanced at the clock, which was approaching the hour. "Waiting for the opening?" "Yes." His glance followed Beecher’s with a sudden concentration, and, taking up a matchbox, he struck a match and threw it away. "Waiting to see if I can escape working another year." Beecher, comprehending that sympathy would be distasteful, picked up the morning papers. The scareheads were alive with the note of panic: a dozen banks were threatened with runs; a rumor was abroad that the Atlantic Trust and two other great institutions might close their doors within the next twenty-four hours; an interview with Majendie protested against the action of the Clearing-house, asserting the recklessness of the move and the solvency of the Trust Company; a riot was feared on the East Side, where the small Jewish depositors, always prey to alarms, were in a state of frenzy; vague, guarded hints of further actions to be expected by the Clearing-house against another prominent chain of banks, and a report that John G. Slade was to tender his resignation, were joined with rumors from the office of the State Examiner of Banks that there might be grounds for the criminal prosecution of certain officials. The telephone rang. Lynch went to the receiver, arranging his pad methodically on the table. Beecher stopped reading, listening to the broken threads. "All right, go ahead." ... "How much?" ... "Whew! Give me the Northern Pacific figures now." ... "Yes—yes—I see." ... "Something of a break, isn’t it?" ... "All right." ... "No—that’s all in the game. Thank you. I’ll send my check to-day. Thanks." He put up the receiver, glanced curiously at the clock, which marked twelve minutes after ten, and studied the pad. Beecher had never been intimate with Lynch, but he liked him and his standards of Britannic phlegm. He belonged to that curious freemasonry of men, an indefinable, invisible standard of association, but one that cannot be counterfeited. "How did you come out?" he said carelessly. "About as I expected. The market has gone wild." Bo Lynch poured out a morning peg, adjusted his cravat critically in the mirror, and took up his hat. "Lunching at the club?" "Not to-day." "It’ll be a cheerful funeral. So long." After his departure Beecher studied the jotted figures on the pad. In the twelve minutes of the opening, Lynch had lost a clear thirty-two thousand dollars. By the time he had dressed and breakfasted, he had answered the telephone a dozen times, messages from men he knew, anxious to learn if his intimacy with young Gunther had brought him any valuable information; inquiries as to the effect on his personal fortunes, and rumors of individual losses.