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When, next morning, he could bring himself to read the papers, the disaster appeared before him in its exact proportions and tremendous scale.

That speech, that statesman-like speech, had never been delivered—and for the best of reasons: Popocatapetl had unbosomed first! In the wild fall of prices nothing had done more to ruin the market than the heavy selling of agents acting on account of Theocritus C. Benson. There were dozens within the roaring walls of the building in Wall Street, thousands in the anxious streets without, who saw in the Benson selling yet another move of diabolical cunning proceeding from that Napoleonic brain. His agents had done their work thoroughly and well. They had anticipated his orders with such promptitude that no stock was left unsaleable upon their hands, and when, before the end of that black day, Popocatapetls were offering at the cost of haulage, they could proudly say that every interest of their client’s in the ruined concern had been disposed of. And Theocritus C. Benson, henceforward known as the Earthquake King, was left with no unsaleable paper upon his hands, but on the contrary with a solid cash result equivalent to at least three cents on the dollar of his yesterday’s fortune. This it is to be faithfully served in the intricacies of modern speculation!