The following morning as he stepped from his car in front of his office in the Fourth Avenue Building he heard the newsboys calling “Extra,” and he stopped to buy a Post Intelligencer before entering the building. The large headlines seemed fairly to scream the words, “Market Crashes—Stocks Falling Fast!” When he reached his desk he hurriedly called his broker, only to learn the words in the headlines were true—his holdings were going down in value rapidly.

He spent the entire day before the blackboard in the largest brokerage house in the city, where the busy clerks wearing ear phones were moving forward and backward on the platform before the board, changing the figures opposite each listed stock as new advices were received from far away New York.

When he finally stepped into his car to drive homeward, it was with a strained and drawn look on his face, and a tightness around his heart. The feelings of contentment and satisfaction of the previous evening seemed far, far away. What had happened, thought he, to change him from the carefree, happy host of the night before? Then he realized it was anxiety over his worldly possessions, which, because of the falling stock market, were now of uncertain value.

Unable either to eat or sleep that night, he left his home early the next morning for the downtown district, where he learned stocks were continuing to fall in value; and at the end of three days when the bottom had been reached, he knew all his savings of a lifetime had been swept away. Summoning what remaining courage he had, he sought his wife and tried to allay her fears with the assurance that even though his investments were now worthless, they still had their home. But he had forgotten for the moment