A GREAT DISASTER.
Mr. Townsend left his home one morning, and was passing slowly along
the street, in the direction of his counting-room, when a business
friend, who was walking on the opposite side of the street, came
briskly over on seeing him, and asked, in an agitated voice,
“Have you heard the news from Philadelphia?”
“No; what is it?”
“The United States’ Bank has failed!”
The face of Mr. Townsend became instantly pale, and he caught hold of
an iron railing to support himself.
“Impossible!” he said, in a faint, husky voice.
“It is too true. Do you hold any of the stock?”
“Every dollar I am worth is there!”
“Every dollar! Surely not, Mr. Townsend!”
“I’m ruined! ruined! ruined!” murmured the wretched man, losing all
control of himself; “hopelessly ruined!”
“Not so bad as that, I trust, sir. A large percentage of the stock will
no doubt be paid.”
“When? Where? How? Hasn’t the Bank failed? And when did a bank fail and
a stockholder receive a dollar? Gracious heavens!”
And with this ejaculation, Mr. Townsend turned away and walked hastily
in the direction of his place of business, murmuring to himself,
“Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
At his counting-room he found a letter from a correspondent in
Philadelphia, announcing the failure of the Bank, but advising him by
all means not to sacrifice his stock, nor be alarmed at the low price
to which those interested in its depression would at first cause it to
fall. Mr. Townsend read over this letter, and then laying it aside,
murmured to himself, as he bowed his head upon a desk,
“Ruined! ruined! ruined!”
To this, and only to this conclusion, could his bewildered mind come.
But, at length, the very extremity and almost hopelessness of the
condition into which he found himself so suddenly reduced, aroused his
mind into a more active state.
“I must not sit idly here,” he said. “If any thing is to be saved, let
me try to save it. Not sell! Yes, I will sell at any price, turn the
proceeds into gold, and bury it in my cellar.”
Under this new impulse, Mr. Townsend, after calming himself by a strong
effort of the will, left his counting-room for the purpose of obtaining
information as to the actual condition of the Bank, the price at which
the stock was held, and the ultimate probable result, as determined in
the minds of those who possessed the most accurate information.
But he found every body astounded and bewildered at the unexpected
event. There was no quotation of the stock whatever, except at a very
low nominal price. Those who did, and those who did not, hold scrip,
alike spoke of the folly of selling at present. Every one said--“Wait.”
The merchant returned to his counting-room, more undecided than when
he went out, and feeling quite as deeply impressed with the idea that
all was hopeless. The next thoughts that began to pervade his mind,
were of his family. No one at home knew of the particular disposition
that he had made of his property. His wife and daughters might hear
of the failure of the Bank, without having their hearts filled with
alarm, or dreaming that, in this event, was foreshadowed their fall
from affluence to poverty. For the present, at least, he determined to
keep them in ignorance of the approaching danger, while he watched the
progress of events, and seized upon the first favorable opportunity to
clutch, with a vigorous grasp, the remnant of his shattered fortune.
To do one thing his mind was made up, and that was to sell so soon as
there should be any thing like a settled state of the market, and the
stock from a uniform quotation begin to decline in price. If there was
an advance, he would hold on until there came appearance of depression,
and then sell, and invest the proceeds in ground rents, the only
security in which he had now a particle of faith.
At last, the market became, to a certain extent, steady, but at
appallingly low rates. Even at these Mr. Townsend felt disposed to
sell, but every one said “No!” so emphatically, and so confidently
predicted an advance, that he hesitated and delayed, day after day,
week after week, and month after month, while the price still went
down, until shares that had cost him from a dollar and ten cents to
a dollar and twenty, were quoted at twenty cents nominally, and the
tendency still downward.
To describe Mr. Townsend’s state of mind during the few months that
this steady decline in the price of shares continued, would be
impossible. No man could be more wretched than he was. Carefully did
he conceal from his family the condition of his affairs, fearing all
the time to look his wife or daughters steadily in the face, lest they
should read the truth in his eyes.
In the mean time the precarious state of Mr. Townsend’s worldly affairs
became pretty well known in business circles, and all manner of
comments were made thereon. Every one could see and be astonished at
his folly in withdrawing his capital from commerce, in which he had
amassed a handsome fortune, and investing it in the stock of a single
institution, whose very name was a fraud upon the community, and ought
to have been a fact sufficiently conclusive to destroy all confidence
in its safety. Many were the conversations held on the subject, much
after this tenor:
“Poor Townsend, I pity him.”
“It’s more than I do, then. Any man who plays the fool, as he has,
deserves to lose his money. I have no charity for him. He had made two
or three hundred thousand dollars in fair, honest, regular trade, and
not content with that, must sell his ships and go to speculating in
western towns.”
“He was certainly very indiscreet.”
“Indiscreet! He was a fool! How any man, thoroughly educated as a
merchant, and in the habit of dealing in only such commodities as
possess an intrinsic value, could be so mad as to give forty or fifty
thousand dollars for lots in an imaginary western city, on the mere
word of a speculating sharper, passes my comprehension.”
“One of the strange occurrences of the present strange times. Had
Townsend much money in United States’ Bank stock?”
“Every dollar he is worth, I am told.”
“It can’t be possible! What could have possessed him to make such a
disposition of his property?”
“The blindest folly of which any man could be guilty.”
“But this stock was considered the safest in the country. You can
hardly blame a man for investing his money therein.”
“I blame any man for putting all he has in one adventure or security.
Nothing is absolutely certain here.”
“And you really think Townsend has beggared himself?”
“There is no doubt of it in the world. I have my information from those
who know. I don’t believe he is worth ten thousand dollars, if all he
has were turned into cash, and his debts paid.”
“He still maintains his old style of living.”
“Yes, but that will not last long. You’ll see a different order of
things before long. I can’t have much sympathy for him. Townsend, in
his best days, was a hard man, and never had the slightest sympathy for
one who happened to be unfortunate in business. You remember Elderkin’s
failure, about three years ago?”
“Very well.”
“I was one of the creditors, and attended all the meetings. Townsend
was the most unyielding of all. I shall never forget the insulting
language he used to poor Elderkin, who was honest at heart, if ever
there was an honest man in the world. Every one noticed it, and felt it
as an outrage. ‘No man who properly attends to his business,’ he said,
‘need fail.’”
“Indeed! That is his view of the case.”
“I have heard him express it more than a dozen times.”
“I wonder what he thinks now?”
“He has not changed his mind, I presume. Nothing in the history of his
own affairs, rightly viewed, would cause him to do so.”
“They who stand too high may chance to fall.”
“Yes; and the higher they stand, the more disastrous will be their
fall.”
“I wonder what old Pascal’s son thinks of all this?”
“Rather ask what Pascal himself thinks of it. In my opinion, there’s
a match broken off. Eveline ought to have secured her lover long and
long ago. She has had time enough. But I doubt not it is too late now.
Pascal loves money too well to let his son marry a portionless bride.”
“Won’t Henry consult his own fancy in the matter?”
“If he does, it will not run off in a tangent to that of his father’s,
I presume. He knows the value of money too well, indifferent as he is
about making it.”
“Eveline is a beautiful girl. I feel sorry for her.”
“So do I. But it can’t be helped. She’s somewhat proud and haughty. Her
sister Eunice is the flower of that flock. I don’t know a sweeter young
girl.”
“She ought to have been married long ago.”
“And so she would, I am told, if her father had not interfered.”
“To whom?”
“To some young man, who, not being rich enough, was not considered good
enough.”
“Then there is some chance for her now.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the young man loved her father’s money quite as
well as he loved her, and will now change his mind altogether. Ah me!
It is wonderful how a man’s views and opinions will alter under the
force of a money-argument.”
Thus the gossip ran.
As for old Mr. Pascal, to whom allusion was made in this conversation,
he had his eyes about him, and his ears open to all that concerned Mr.
Townsend. Long before the failure of the United States Bank, he had
seen enough to make him dissatisfied with the proposed alliance, and,
as has been shown, endeavored to induce his son to give up all idea
of marrying Eveline. Immediately upon the failure of the Bank, in the
stock of which he had some twenty or thirty thousand dollars invested,
he said to his son:
“Henry, nearly every dollar of Mr. Townsend’s property is locked up in
the stock of this institution.”
“It cannot surely be!” returned the son, evincing surprise and concern.
“It is true, Henry. Mr. Townsend has acknowledged it himself, and
declared that the failure had ruined him. You will see the necessity
for breaking off all connection with the family, and you had better do
it at once.”
“There seems something so mercenary and heartless in that,” said the
young man.
“As to its seeming, Henry, you have nothing to do with that,” replied
Mr. Pascal. “You are, certainly, not so mad as to think of connecting
yourself with this family now, when your position gives you the chance
of forming an alliance with one of the best and wealthiest in the city.
In six months, take my word for it, Mr. Townsend will be bankrupt. Are
you prepared to marry the daughter with that certainty staring you in
the face?”
“I hardly think I am.”
“Believe me that such a certainty exists.”
Under this assurance, Henry Pascal began the work of withdrawing
himself from the society of Eveline. The death of her brother caused
her to exclude herself from company almost entirely, so that he rarely
saw her abroad. To meet her, he had to visit her. Instead of calling
every week, and sometimes two or three times a week, his visits were
made at longer intervals, were briefer, while his manner was more
reserved.
There was something so deliberately heartless in this, that the young
man shrunk in shame from the image of himself that was reflected in his
own mind. The act lost him his self-respect; but such was the potency
of the influences acting within and without him, that he steadily
persevered in his design, until finally all intercourse between him and
Eveline was at an end.