On August 4, 1896, the city of Chicago, and for that matter the entire financial world, was startled and amazed by the collapse of American Match, one of the strongest of market securities, and the coincident failure of Messrs. Hull and Stackpole, its ostensible promoters, for twenty millions. As early as eleven o'clock of the preceding day the banking and brokerage world of Chicago, trading in this stock, was fully aware that something untoward was on foot in connection with it. Owing to the high price at which the stock was "protected," and the need of money to liquidate, blocks of this stock from all parts of the country were being rushed to the market with the hope of realizing before the ultimate break. About the stock-exchange, which frowned like a gray fortress at the foot of La Salle Street, all was excitement--as though a giant anthill had been ruthlessly disturbed. Clerks and messengers hurried to and fro in confused and apparently aimless directions. Brokers whose supply of American Match had been apparently exhausted on the previous day now appeared on 'change bright and early, and at the clang of the gong began to offer the stock in sizable lots of from two hundred to five hundred shares. The agents of Hull &
Stackpole were in the market, of course, in the front rank of the scrambling, yelling throng, taking up whatever stock appeared at the price they were hoping to maintain. The two promoters were in touch by 'phone and wire not only with those various important personages whom they had induced to enter upon this bull campaign, but with their various clerks and agents on 'change. Naturally, under the circumstances both were in a gloomy frame of mind. This game was no longer moving in those large, easy sweeps which characterize the more favorable aspects of high finance. Sad to relate, as in all the troubled flumes of life where vast currents are compressed in narrow, tortuous spaces, these two men were now concerned chiefly with the momentary care of small but none the less heartbreaking burdens. Where to find fifty thousand to take care of this or that burden of stock which was momentarily falling upon them? They were as two men called upon, with their limited hands and strength, to seal up the ever-increasing crevices of a dike beyond which raged a mountainous and destructive sea.
At eleven o'clock Mr. Phineas Hull rose from the chair which sat before his solid mahogany desk, and confronted his partner.
"I'll tell you, Ben," he said, "I'm afraid we can't make this.
We've hypothecated so much of this stock around town that we can't possibly tell who's doing what. I know as well as I'm standing on this floor that some one, I can't say which one, is selling us out. You don't suppose it could be Cowperwood or any of those people he sent to us, do you?"
Stackpole, worn by his experiences of the past few weeks, was inclined to be irritable.
"How should I know, Phineas?" he inquired, scowling in troubled thought. "I don't think so. I didn't notice any signs that they were interested in stock-gambling. Anyhow, we had to have the money in some form. Any one of the whole crowd is apt to get frightened now at any moment and throw the whole thing over. We're in a tight place, that's plain."
For the fortieth time he plucked at a too-tight collar and pulled up his shirt-sleeves, for it was stifling, and he was coatless and waistcoatless. Just then Mr. Hull's telephone bell rang--the one connecting with the firm's private office on 'change, and the latter jumped to seize the receiver.
"Yes?" he inquired, irritably.
"Two thousand shares of American offered at two-twenty! Shall I take them?"
The man who was 'phoning was in sight of another man who stood at the railing of the brokers' gallery overlooking "the pit," or central room of the stock-exchange, and who instantly transferred any sign he might receive to the man on the floor. So Mr. Hull's "yea" or "nay" would be almost instantly transmuted into a cash transaction on 'change.
"What do you think of that?" asked Hull of Stackpole, putting his hand over the receiver's mouth, his right eyelid drooping heavier than ever. "Two thousand more to take up! Where d'you suppose they are coming from? Tch!"
"Well, the bottom's out, that's all," replied Stackpole, heavily and gutturally. "We can't do what we can't do. I say this, though: support it at two-twenty until three o'clock. Then we'll figure up where we stand and what we owe. And meanwhile I'll see what I can do. If the banks won't help us and Arneel and that crowd want to get from under, we'll fail, that's all; but not before I've had one more try, by Jericho! They may not help us, but--"
Actually Mr. Stackpole did not see what was to be done unless Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel were willing to risk much more money, but it grieved and angered him to think he and Hull should be thus left to sink without a sigh. He had tried Kaffrath, Videra, and Bailey, but they were adamant. Thus cogitating, Stackpole put on his wide-brimmed straw hat and went out. It was nearly ninety-six in the shade. The granite and asphalt pavements of the down-town district reflected a dry, Turkish-bath-room heat.
There was no air to speak of. The sky was a burning, milky blue, with the sun gleaming feverishly upon the upper walls of the tall buildings.
