CHAPTER XVIIIAnother month passed by. Montague was buried in his work, and he caught butfaint echoes of the storm that rumbled in the financial world. It was a thing which he thought of with wonder in future times—that he should have had so little idea of what was coming. He seemed to himself like some peasant who digs with bent head in a field, while armies are marshalling for battle all around him; and who is startled suddenly by the crash of conflict, and the bursting of shells about his head.
There came another great convulsion of the stock market. Stewart, the young Lochinvar out of theWest, made an attempt to corner copper. One heard wild rumours in relation to the crash which followed. Some said that a traitor had sold out the pool; others, that there had been a quarrel among the c
