The failure of American Match the next morning was one of those events that stirred the city and the nation and lingered in the minds of men for years. At the last moment it was decided¹ that in lieu of calling Cowperwood’s loans Hull² & Stackpole had best be sacrificed, the stock-exchange closed, and all trading ended. This protected stocks from at least a quotable decline and left the banks free for several days (ten all told) in which to repair their disrupted finances and buttress³ themselves against the eventual⁴ facts. Naturally, the minor⁵ speculators throughout the city—those who had expected to make a fortune out of this crash—raged and complained, but, being faced by an adamantine exchange directorate, a subservient⁶ press, and the alliance between the big bankers and the heavy quadrumvirate, there was nothing to be done. The respective bank presidents talked solemnly of “a mere⁸ temporary flurry,” Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel went still further into their pockets to protect their interests, and Cowperwood, triumphant⁹, was roundly denounced by the smaller fry as a “bucaneer,” a “pirate,” a “wolf”—indeed, any opprobrious¹⁰ term that came into their minds. The larger men faced squarely the fact that here was an enemy worthy¹¹ of their steel. Would he master them? Was he already the dominant¹² money power in Chicago? Could he thus

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