the very substance of life itself; robbed of comfort now, robbed of that prospect of comfort in declining years which begins to look so sweet to people in middle life, who are the sort of people bankers come most to know and have sympathy with.
While the two men faced each other, a subeditor—who had marked some of the meaning of that first "flash," as well as noted his superior's agitation and whither he had gone bearing the flimsy in his hand—came hastily in with the more amplified account of what the United States Supreme Court had decided. Gaylord snatched and read it. It confirmed every implication his keen mind had seen in the first.
"What'll I do?" gulped Titmarsh, long trained to subserviency. Never had a piece of news affecting the welfare of Boland General come to him that he had not hurried with it to Scanlon for suggestion. He had printed or suppressed, garbled or construed, according to the effect of its publication upon the welfare of that great business operation of which every human being in the county was in some way or other a part. But Boland General was no more! It was no more than the remains of a bubble that had burst, which are not much. The two men exchanged glances; their eyes spoke before their lips could frame the words. They said: "John Boland is a dead one. The man whose personality has become a tradition, an institution—has fallen; that upreared, godlike figure has crashed to earth."
"Do?" blazed Jim Gaylord, independence of action flaming out in his decision as it had not done before in years. "Bulletin it! By God, bulletin it! It'll be every man for himself before night, and the devil take
