then."

General Sneed despondently shook his head.

"It's no use, John," he said. "We're in the same business ourselves,
only this time we got the hot end of the poker. But he played it low
down on me, pretending to be friendly and all that." The two men did
not speak again until the carriage drew up at the brown stone mansion,
which earlier in the day Sneed would have called his own. Sixteen
reporters were waiting for them, but the old man succeeded in escaping
to his room, leaving John to battle with the newspaper men.

Next morning the papers were full of the news of the panic. They said
that old Druce had gone in his yacht for a trip up the New England
coast. They deduced from this fact, that, after all, Druce might not
have had a hand in the disaster; everything was always blamed on Druce.
Still it was admitted that, whoever suffered, the Druce stocks were all
right. They were quite unanimously frank in saying that the Sneeds were
wiped out, whatever that might mean. The General had refused himself to
all the reporters, while young Sneed seemed to be able to do nothing
but swear.

Shortly before noon General Sneed, who had not left the house, received
a letter brought by a messenger.

He feverishly tore it open, for he recognised on the envelope the well-
known scrawl of the great speculator.

DEAR SNEED (it ran),