It was when city men began to return from their summer holidays that a slight whisper floated round the halls of Mammon which sent a shiver up and down the backs of shrewd people here and there. The whisper was to the effect that the Bank of England was in trouble. On three separate occasions within as many weeks, the bank rate had been raised, and now stood at so high a figure that it threatened to check enterprise and speculation during the approaching autumn, when everyone had hoped business would mend in the city. Cautious bankers began calling in their loans, which is a bank’s method of shortening sail. Ambitious projects were being abandoned here and there through fear of shortness of money. Companies whose promoters looked forward to a successful flotation before Christmas, were held over. Affairs in the city were stagnant, and weather-wise people feared worse was to come. About the beginning of October a sinister rumor went abroad, founded on a highly sensational article in a New York yellow journal. This rumor, on account of its origin, was discredited at first, but presently the world came to learn that there was too good a foundation for it. The New York paper said that as soon as the financial amateurs of the British Parliament had placed on the statute books an Act commanding the Bank of England by the first of January to maintain its gold reserve at a hundred million of pounds, a powerful syndicate of financial experts had been formed in Wall Street for the cornering of gold. Wheat had often been cornered, to the great benefit of some one individual either in New York or Chicago, and to the universal loss of a hungry world, but no one had hitherto attempted to corner gold. Wheat could not be produced at will. Once the sowing was done, the mathematicians could estimate very accurately, given a full crop, the maximum number of bushels of wheat likely to be placed on the market the coming autumn, and to this amount no man could add, because the production of wheat depended on the slow revolution of the seasons. With gold it was different: gold could be produced summer and winter, night and day, therefore no individual, be he as rich as Midas, and no syndicate, however powerful, had heretofore dared to attempt the cornering of gold. Wheat was consumed year by year, but gold was practically everlasting, preserved in the shape of ornaments, bullion, plate, and what not. Old coinage, minted centuries before the birth of Christ, was still in existence, and although a few grains of wheat grown in the time of the Pharaohs rested in the palms of certain mummies, the great bulk of year before last’s wheat was already ground and baked and eaten. It would seem, then, that the boldest financial coup ever attempted had been successfully accomplished by the men of Wall Street. This, however, the New York paper pointed out, was not the case. Tremendous as might be the consequences of the corner, there was, after all, little risk to the operators.