CHAPTER II.
The Second Day.
When the news went out in Chicago at the end of the first day, that Coin, the little financier, had answered satisfactorily all questions that had been asked him, the old gold men hooted at it, and said that no one but boys were there to confront him.
The morning papers except The Times and Record published a garbled account of what had actually taken place. The Tribune and Herald were editorially loaded with abuse.
The editor-in chief of The Tribune was a Mr. Van Benthuysen. He had been told by the owners of that paper to write an argument in favor of the gold standard. In an editorial of thirty lines he called bimetallists "fraudulent free silverites," "blatant orators," "blatherskites," "thieves," "swindlers," "repudiators," "dishonest, trickey, brazen charlatans," "malignant lunatics," repeating some of these choice epithets several times.
The next day one of the proprietors called his attention to this editorial and asked him why he did'nt write an argument. His reply was: "Argument! that's the only argument there is!"
On the morning of the second day when Coin arrived at the Art Institute, he found the hall full of people, most of them middle-aged and old men.
