hindmost brick went, down would go the whole file.

There were ten Directors of the Dunderbunk Foundry.

Now, not seldom, of a Board of ten Directors, five are wise and five are
foolish: five wise, who bag all the Company's funds in salaries and
commissions for indorsing its paper; five foolish, who get no salaries, no
commissions, no dividends,--nothing, indeed, but abuse from the
stockholders, and the reputation of thieves. That is to say, five of the
ten are pick-pockets; the other five, pockets to be picked.

It happened that the Dunderbunk Directors were all honest and foolish but
one. He, John Churm, honest and wise, was off at the West, with his
Herculean shoulders at the wheels of a dead-locked railroad. These honest
fellows did not wish Dunderbunk to fail for several reasons. First, it was
not pleasant to lose their investment. Second, one important failure might
betray Credit to Crisis with Panic at its heels, whereupon every
investment would be in danger. Third, what would become of their
Directorial reputations? From President Brummage down, each of these
gentlemen was one of the pockets to be picked in a great many companies.
Each was of the first Wall-Street fashion, invited to lend his name and
take stock in every new enterprise. Any one of them might have walked down
town in a long patchwork toga made of the newspaper advertisements of
boards in which his name proudly figured. If Dunderbunk failed, the toga
was torn, and might presently go to rags beyond repair. The first rent
would inaugurate universal rupture. How to avoid this disaster?--that was
the question.

"State the case, Mr. Superintendent Whiffler," said President Brummage, in
his pompous manner, with its pomp a little collapsed, _pro tempore_.