Curiously enough, quite a number of newspapers in whose actual service I was engaged, opened fire upon me and roundly abused me.
II There appeared upon the scene in Washington toward the middle of the seventies one of those problematical characters the fiction-mongers delight in.

This was John Chamberlin.

During two decades "Chamberlin's," half clubhouse and half chophouse, was all a rendezvous.
"John" had been a gambler; first an underling and then a partner of the famous Morrissy-McGrath racing combination at Saratoga and Long Branch.
There was a time when he was literally rolling in wealth.

Then he went broke--dead broke.

Black Friday began it and the panic of '73 finished it.