ten minutes after three
It was , to most people , a question of what might be made of what was left . The works remained , but , the public concluded , the iron and steel section , the heart of the thing , was unsound . Such is the communicable essence of fear . At ten minutes after three the directors met to face a situation which was , in all truth , serious enough . Philadelphia banks , smarting from loans made on Consolidated stock , had declined further credit . The first payment of a million dollars for steel rails was indefinitely deferred . Creditors , galvanized by the events of the day , poured in ceaseless demands that their accounts be liquidated , but moneys due the Consolidated for pulp had been realized and diverted into the building of railways and the construction of the rail mill .