Gilman who believed in him, but the financial interests generally looked upon him as upon a business institution whose preservation was at least to be considered.
At times of supreme emergency like this, when the business failures were listed in each day's news like the casualties of a battle, a committee representing five important banks and trust companies was appointed to pass upon the condition of the Morris-Judson Automobile Company and determine its right to be assisted as a matter of public policy. When this committee's investigations were complete, George Judson was summoned before it. He went, outwardly calm, but trembling at the knees. Was he nominated for salvation or the scrap-heape Such solemnity argued the latter. The committee sat with grave, non-committal faces. George felt like a victim led out for slaughter. A sense of his helplessness brought a sweat of apprehension to his brow. This committee held the whole achievement of his past in their hands, from the first penny he had saved as a newsboy, to the last profit on the last car manufactured by the Morris-Judson Automobile Company.
A hand—he could not have told whose—motioned him to a chair at the long directors' table, and he sank into it.
"Mr. Judson," the bulbous-browed L. R. Blodgett, chairman of the committee and presi-
