J. Rufus was cheerful, nay, happy, complaisance itself.
"Certainly, Mr. Rush," he said heartily; "a thousand if you want it. Just step over to the bank with me till I draw the money," and they walked out of the door.
With a sigh the flabby man laid the long-suspended jack of hearts upon the queen of spades.
"Hear the big guy tossin' over a thousand like it was car fare," he observed. "If I had a piece of lead pipe I'd follow him."
"What do you suppose his graft is?" queried the watcher at the game.
"He's made his money off poor people; that's what!" announced Ed Nickel. "How else does a man get rich?"
Wallingford had good cause to survey his friend with amused wonder.
"How you have aged, Blackie," he chuckled. "What has turned you gray in a single month?"
"Beating it," replied Blackie, hoarsely. "Did you see that guy just now look around and give me the X-ray stare?"
"He was only admiring your handsome make-up," retorted J. Rufus. "What's got your nerve all of a sudden?"
"Nerve!" scorned the other. "Say, J. Rufus, when I cut my finger I bleed yellow, and the mere sight of a brass button gives me hydrophobia. They're after me, dear friend of my childhood days, for going into the oil-well industry without any oil wells, and you're the first human being I've seen in three weeks that didn't look like he had the iron bracelets in his pocket. Even you're a living frost. Fora minute you gave me that glad feeling, but when you said to come around to the bank and I could have a thousand, I knew it was all off. If you'd had it, nothing but paralysis would have stopped you from putting your hand in your pocket and making a flash with the two hundred I wanted. I have to make a quick get-away from this town or have the door of a nice steel bedroom locked from the outside!"
Solemnly J. Rufus drew from his pocket his total supply of earthly wealth, a ten-dollar bill and the change he had received at the cigar store.
"I'll give you the ten," he offered, "although I'm glued to the floor myself."
"I can see it, for your sparks are gone," said Mr. Daw, glumly looking his friend over from head to foot as he pocketed the ten. "How did the beans get spilled? I thought there was a fresh crop of your particular breed of come-ons every morning."
"I'm overtrained," explained J. Rufus with cheerful resignation. "I used to be able to jump into a town with ten dollars in my pocket, and have to lock myself in my room to keep 'em from forcing money on me faster than I could take it; but I've lost my winning ways, I guess. The fact of the matter is, Blackie, Ineed an oculist. I can't see small enough since the big blow-up. I had climbed too high, and when I tumbled off the perch I fell so hard I couldn't see anything but stars. A dollar is small as a pea now, and perfectly silent, and it takes at least a thousand to emit even a faint click. I can't learn to pike again."
"I wish I could learn anything else," complained Mr. Daw in disgust. "Why, blind-men's tincups look like fat picking to me, and my yellow streak shows through so strong that I cross the street every time I see a push cart; I'm afraid the banana men will make a mistake and pull my fingers off. Say! See that mug over there on the corner with his back to us? Well, that's a plain-clothes man. I know him all right and he knows me. It's Jimmy Rogers and I can't hand him a sou to plug his memory!"
Blackie was visibly distressed and edged around the corner.
"I should say you had developed a saffron streak," observed J. Rufus, eying him with a trace of contempt. "I wouldn't have known you till you spoke. Come on and we'll go right straight past Jimmy Rogers."
He put his hand behind Blackie's elbow to take him in that direction, but to his surprise Daw shrank back.
"Not for mine!" he declared. "I know I'm due, but I won't go till they come after me. Why, J. Rufus, do you know we're all that's left of the old bunch? Billy Riggs, Tommy Rance, Dick Logan, Pit Hardesty—all put away, for stretches of from five to twenty years! And Jim, mind what I say; our turn's next! There, he's turning this way! I'm on the lope. Me for the first train out of town. Good-by, old man."
He shook hands hastily and, drawn-chested, plunged down the side street at a swift pace. Wallingford looked after him and involuntarily expanded his own broad chest as he turned in the direction of his hotel. He looked back at Ed Nickel's cigar store after a few steps, and hesitated as if he might return, but he did not. On the way he counted five such establishments, and he peered keenly into each one of them. They were all of a little better grade than the one he had visited, but none of them was stocked in such manner as to tell of wholesale purchases and cash discounts. Suddenly he chuckled. At last he had the detail for his heretofore vague idea, and it was a draught of strong wine to him. He had been the high jester of finance, always, and once more the bells upon his cap jingled merrily. Inspired, hewalked into his hotel with a swaggering assurance entirely out of keeping with the lonely two dollars in his pocket. The clerk had been instructed to look after Wallingford, for though he had been an extravagant guest for within a day of two weeks, no one but the bellboys and waiters had seen a penny of his money—and his bill was nearly two hundred dollars. The clerk firmly intended to call to him if he strode past on the far side of the lobby, as had been his custom in the past two or three days; but he did not need to call, for J. Rufus approached the desk without invitation, beaming as he turned toward it, but growing stern as he neared it.
"The wine I had served in my rooms last night was vile," he charged. "If I cannot get the brand of champagne I want, have it perfectly frappé when it gets to my apartments, and secure better service all around, I shall pay my bill and leave!"
The clerk touched a bell instantly.
"Very sorry, Mr. Wallingford," said he. "I shall speak to the wine steward about the matter at once."
J. Rufus grunted in acknowledgment of this apology, and with a feeling of relief the clerk surveyed that broad back as it retreated inimmeasurable dignity. There was no need to worry about the money of a man who took that attitude. On the way to his suite, however, J. Rufus, as he handed the elevator boy a quarter with one hand, drew down his cuff furtively with the other, under the impulse of a sudden idea, and, grinning, looked at his cuff button. It was diamond studded, and he ought to be able to raise at least twenty-five apiece on the pair.
Mrs. Wallingford was sewing when her capable husband came in. Something in the very movement of the door caused her to look up with an instant knowledge that he brought good news, and a sight of his face confirmed the impression. She smiled at him brightly, and yet with a trace of apprehension. There had come over her a curious change of late. Her color was as clear as ever, even clearer, for it seemed to have attained a certain pure transparency, but there seemed, too, a slight pallor beneath it, and her eyes were strangely luminous.
"I got the fog out of my conk to-day, Fanny," he said exultantly. "It seemed as if I never would be able to frame up a good business stunt again, but it hit me at last. How do you like this place?"
"I can't tell," she slowly returned. "I haven't seen much of it, you know."
"You will," he laughed. "You may pick out any part of it you like, because I think I'll settle down here for good."
She looked up with a little gasp.
"Then you're going into a—arealbusiness?" she faltered.
"A hundred of them," he boasted. "I've just decided to rake off half the profits of all this town's cigar stores, except a few of the best ones, and stay right here to collect. The hundred or more ought to yield me one or two dollars a day apiece. Looks good, don't it?"
"I'm so glad," she said simply. It never occurred to either of them to doubt that he could do what he had planned, and just now she was less inclined than ever to inquire into details. She sat, her hands folded in the fluffy white goods upon her lap, with a deepening color in her cheeks.
"I'll tell you why I'm glad we are to settle down at last and have a real home," she said suddenly, and, arising, advanced to him and shook out the dainty article upon which she had been sewing, holding it outstretched before him so that he could gather its full import.
"What?" he gasped.
She nodded her head, half crying and half laughing, and suddenly buried her head upon his shoulder, sobbing. He clasped her in his arms, tiny white garment and all, and looked on over her head, out of the window at the gathering dusk in the sky where it stretched down between the tall buildings. For just one fleeting second a trace of the Eternal Mystery came to awe him, but it passed and left him grinning.
"I'd just been figuring on a new house," he observed, "but I guess I'll have to plan it all over now."
He led her to a chair presently, and went back to the window, where he stood until the darkness warned him that it was time to dress for dinner. The meal finished, he sat down to write, tearing up sheet after sheet of paper and crumpling it into the waste basket until far into the night, and later he sent down for a city directory, making out a list of cigar stores, dropping out those that were printed in black-face type; but whatever he did he paused once in a while to turn toward that tiny white garment upon the table and survey it with smiling wonder.
In the morning he called upon a job printer of reputation, and then he went again to EdNickel's cigar store; but this time he dashed up to the door in a showy carriage drawn by two good horses. The same flabby man sat in the corner playing solitaire as if he had never left off, and the same apathetic young man with the dent in his hat was watching him. The split cigar mold had not yet grown together, though Ed Nickel still held its two parts matched tightly in his left hand. Upon the entrance of Wallingford the magnificent, however, the three graven figures, glancing first upon him and then upon the carriage, inhaled the breath of life. The solitaire player suddenly pushed his cards together and began shuffling them over and over and over and over, though he had not yet exhausted the possibilities of the previous game. The apathetic young man stood up to yawn but changed his mind after he had his mouth open. Ed Nickel bowed, smiled and hurried behind his counter.
"What will you take for your business, Mr. Nickel?" asked J. Rufus, throwing a coin on the case and tapping his finger over the box from which he had purchased the cigars the night before. Freshly shaven, he wore a new collar, a new shirt with fine, crisp cuffs, and a new silk lavender tie—also plain new cuff buttons.
Ed Nickel's ears heard the astounding question, but Ed Nickel's mind did not grasp it, for Ed Nickel's hand went on mechanically into the case after the designated cigars. It secured the box, it brought it partly out—and then dropped it just inside the sliding door. The hand came out and its fingers twined with those of the other hand.
"What did you say?" asked Mr. Nickel's mouth.
"How much will you take for your business?" repeated J. Rufus.
Mr. Nickel looked slowly around his walls, past the dust-hung wire screen to the dingy back room, under the counter, into the case, over the sparsely filled shelves.
"I don't know," he said, his eyes roving back to those of J. Rufus. "Besides the stock and fixtures, there's the good will, the trade I've worked up, and the call for my Nickelfine and the Double Nickel, my leading ten-cent cigar. I'd have to take an invoice to set a price on this business."
"I know," laughed J. Rufus with a wink, "but you can invoice it with your eyes shut and we can lump the rest of it. Say five hundred for the stock and fixtures and three hundred for the good will, which is crowding it some."
Ed Nickel's cupidity gave a thump. Eight hundred was a good price for his business, especially in this location. He had often thought of moving. In a better location he would do a better business; he was sure of that, like every other unsuccessful merchant; but of course he objected.
"Make it a thousand and I'll listen," he proposed.
J. Rufus looked about the place coldly.
"No," he decided. "I'd be cheating the consolidation."
Mr. Nickel immediately woke up another notch.
"What consolidation?" he wanted to know.
"The one I spoke to you about yesterday," said the prospective buyer, and picking up the coin he had tossed down he tapped with it on the glass.
Thus reminded, the benumbed one brought out the delayed box and Mr. Wallingford lit one of the cigars.
"I'm going to finance a consolidation of all the smaller cigar stores in the city," he then explained. "I expect to buy several for spot cash and put in charge of them managers who know their business. The rest I am going to allow to purchase shares in the consolidation,with the value of their stock and good will, so that altogether we shall have a quarter-of-a-million-dollar corporation. With this enormous buying power I intend to get the lowest spot-cash discount on all goods, manufacture a few good brands, cut rates and control the cigar business of this town. But I'm going to be fair to every man. I'll give you eight hundred dollars for your business, in cold coin."
The day before, had any providentially sent stranger offered Ed Nickel eight hundred dollars in real money for his store, he would have jumped at the chance, and with the purchase price would have opened a better one in some other part of the town. Now it suddenly occurred to him——
"And if I don't sell or come in I get froze out, I suppose," he gloomily opined. "That's the regulation poor man's chance. But how are you going to work this consolidation, anyhow?"
"The same plan upon which all successful organizations are put together," patiently explained the eminent financier whose resplendent carriage was waiting outside. "For instance, five of us organize a holding company. Having incorporated for, say, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I buy your business for eighthundred dollars in stock of the new corporation, fit it up new till it glitters, and put you in charge of it. A hundred other stores go in on the same proposition, their valuations varying according to their location, their stock, and the volume of business their books can show. You get a salary of just as much as you can prove you're making now, and every three months the business is footed up and a dividend is paid. The difference is just this. The cigars for which you now pay thirty-five dollars a thousand, you will get for twenty-eight and less, and so on down the line. Your profits will be increased nearly a hundred per cent., and all financial worry will be lifted off your shoulders."
Ed Nickel suddenly awoke to the fact that the flabby solitaire player was pressed closely upon one side of the eminent financier, and the apathetic young man upon the other, both drinking in every word, and quivering.
"Come in the back room," invited Mr. Nickel, and on two reeking stools, with tobacco scraps strewn all about them, they sat down to really "get together." Patiently the energetic man of wealth went over the proposition again, point by point, and the cigar maker enumerated these upon his fingers until he got it quite clearin his mind that his business was not to pass out of his hands at all. If it was put in at a valuation of eight hundred dollars, he received a salary equal to his present earnings for taking care of it, and also the net profits on eight hundred dollars worth of stock. It was a great scheme! It would put all the goods he wanted upon his shelves. It would brighten up his place of business and he would no longer have the aggravation of knowing that rich dealers, just because they were rich, could buy cigars a shameful per cent. cheaper than he could. Moreover, there sat Wallingford, a wonderful argument in himself! When he had fully grasped the idea Mr. Nickel was enthusiastic.
"Of course I'll come in!" said he. "Surest thing, you know!"
"Suit yourself," said J. Rufus, with vast indifference. "I have a little agreement that I'll bring around in a couple of days to let you see, and then you may finally decide. By the way, Mr. Nickel, I may need you for one of the original five incorporators, and as a director for the first year."
Mr. Nickel hesitated.
"That'll cost me something, won't it?" he wanted to know.
Mr. Wallingford laughed.
"A little bit," he admitted. "But there are ways to get it back. For instance, as one of the directors I do not suppose there would be any particular harm in selling your business to the consolidation for a thousand in place of eight hundred."
The first stock subscriber to the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation became as knowingly jovial as the genial promoter.
"It listens good to me," he declared, and shook hands.
The big man got up to go, but turned and came back.
"By the way," said he, "I don't know the cigar men in this town, and if you have a couple of friends in the business who would like to help form this incorporation with the same advantages you have, let's go see them."
Mr. Nickel was already throwing off his apron and eye shade, and now he took his coat and hat from their hook.
"I've got two of them, and they ain't too darned smart, either," he stated, showing wise forethought in that last remark; then, putting the flabby man in charge of the store, he went out androde in that carriage!
In the smart carriage Mr. Wallingford took Mr. Nickel and his two friends down to his hotel for lunch to talk over the final steps in the great consolidation. The chief thing the three remembered when they left the hotel was that they had been most liberally treated in the matter of extravagant food and drink, and that the lunch had cost over twenty dollars! Also they recalled that the distinguished-looking head waiter had come over to their table half a dozen times to see that everything was served at the proper minute and in the pink of condition. Nobody but a rich man could command that sort of attention, and they left the table not only willing but thankful to take any business tonic this commercial genius should prescribe. As they passed the desk, the manager called Mr. Wallingford to him, and the great promoter, instantly bidding his friends good-by, promised to see themto-morrow. Then he walked back to the manager.
"Good morning, Senator," said that official, shaking hands. "How are they treating you? Nicely?"
"Very well, indeed," replied Wallingford, "except I'd like to have corner rooms if I could get them."
"I know; you spoke of that last week. I've been trying to secure them for you, but those apartments are always dated so far ahead. I think the corner suite on the second floor will be vacant in a day or so, though, and I'll let you know. By the way, Mr. Wallingford"—this in the most pleasantly confidential tone imaginable—"I'm afraid I'll have to draw on you. The proprietor is a little strict about his rules, and you have been here two weeks to-day."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Wallingford, very much surprised. "I'll have to look after that," and he reached out his hand with courteous alacrity for the bill which the manager was handing to him. Without the quiver of an eye-lash he glanced over the items and stuck the bill in his pocket. "I'm glad you spoke of it. I'm rather careless about such matters," and he walked away in perfect nonchalance.
The telegraph desk mocked him. There was not a soul he knew to whom he could wire with a certainty of getting money, and if he pretended to wire he must certainly produce quick results. Instead of making that error he walked out upon the street briskly. Half way to Ed Nickel's cigar store he paused. Mr. Nickel was not yet ripe, and it would be folly to waste his chances. Thinking most deeply indeed, he strolled into a cigar store of far better appearance than any he had yet visited. The place was a-quiver with life; there was much glitter of beveled plate mirrors; there were expensive light fixtures; the shelves were crowded with rows upon rows of cigar boxes, and at a most ornate case stood three rather strikingly dressed men, playing "ping pong" on a mahogany edged board that was covered with green baize. He had seen these boards before, but they were all set away behind counters, for this game—of dice, not of balls and paddles—was strictly taboo. A moral wave had swept over the town and had made dice shaking for cigars, as well as every other form of gambling, next door to a hanging offense. A heavy-set young fellow, with a red face and a red tie and red stripes in the thread of his broad-checked clothing, was at the endof the counter, half behind it, scoring the game. He was evidently the proprietor, though he had his hat on, and he asked Wallingford what he wanted.
"I don't know your brands, so I'll leave it to you," said the large man, with a pleasant smile. "I want a nice three for a half, rather heavy, but not too tightly rolled."
The proprietor gave his customer a shrewd "sizing-up," as he promptly set out three boxes of different brands. Evidently the general appearance of Wallingford satisfied him that the man asked for this grade of cigars because he liked them and could afford them, for after the selection had been made the salesman observed that it was quite pleasant weather, looking Wallingford squarely in the eyes and smiling in sheer goodfellowship with all the world. He then renewed his attention to the "ping pong" game, and Wallingford, aimless for the time and occupied with that tremendous puzzle of the hotel bill, stood by and watched. A policeman came through, but no one paid any attention.
"Hello, Joe!" he said affably to the man in charge, and passed on into the back room. As the door of this was opened the sharp click of ivory chips came through, and Wallingford heard one strident voice say, "I'll raise youten." A brisk and gimlet-eyed young man came out a moment later with a fifty-dollar bill, for which he got change.
"How you making it, Tommy?" he asked perfunctorily of one of the men who were shaking dice.
"Rotten!" said the dice shaker. "I've won ten two-for-a-quarter cigars that have cost me four dollars."
"I'd blow the game," advised the young man with a bantering laugh. "Shoot somebody for the four and quit double or even."
"I'll do it," said the man addressed as Tommy. "Fade me, Joe?"
"Any amount, old man," said the proprietor nonchalantly, and taking four dollars from the cash register he left the drawer open. "How do you want to be skinned?"
"First-flop poker dice," said Tommy, picking up the leather box which Joe had slammed upon the board, and rattling the five dice in it.
One turn apiece and the proprietor picked up the money. Tommy silently threw a five on the case.
"You other fellows want in on this?" he asked.
J. Rufus suddenly felt that mysterious thing called a "hunch" prickling in his wrist.
"How about letting a stranger in?" he observed, considering himself far enough west for this forwardness.
With a smile he made ready for that lightning glance of judgment which he knew would be leveled at him from three pairs of eyes at least.
"I'd rather anybody would have my money than Joe," said the man next to him, after that brief but pleased inspection and after an almost imperceptible nod from the proprietor. "Joe's a robber and we none of us like him."
"I don't think I like him very well myself," laughed Wallingford, throwing down his money, and, having accepted him, they judged him again from this new angle. He was a most likeable man, this big fellow, and an open-handed sport. Anybody could see that. It would make no difference to him whether he won or lost. All he wanted was to be in on the game. Rich as the mint, no doubt.
In reality J. Rufus had but three five dollar bills in his pocket, but desperate needs require desperate remedies, and, in view of those vast needs, if he lost he would be but little worse off than he was now. Twice he staked his last five, and then luck steadily alternated between him and the proprietor. One at atime the three others dropped out, and the two winners were left confronting each other.
"Well, old man," said the proprietor to Wallingford, shaking the box up and down while he talked, and smiling his challenge, "we split 'em about even. Shall we quit satisfied, or shoot it off to see who owns the best rabbit's foot?"
Wallingford glanced down at the crumpled pile of greenbacks in front of him and made a hasty computation. He was sure that he had fully two hundred dollars, but he could not in decency quit now.
"I never saw a finer afternoon for a murder in my life," he declared.
"Shoot you fifty," said Joe.
In for it, Wallingford covered the bet, and by this time a throng of interested spectators was at his elbows. It was Wallingford's first throw, and four aces tumbled up. His opponent followed him with fours, but they were four sixes.
"Cover the hundred and be a real sport," advised Wallingford with a grin.
Joe counted the money in front of him. There was enough to cover the bet, with a ten-dollar bill left over. He threw down the pile.
"I'll press it ten," said he, and Wallingford promptly added a ten from his own stack.
Four aces again. Again the man who was called Joe threw four sixes.
"I'll just leave that bundle of lettuce once more," observed J. Rufus. "I've a hunch that you'll be sorry you saw me."
"I'm sorry now," admitted the other, "but I'll skin the money drawer rather than have you go away dissatisfied," and from the cash register he took two hundred and twenty dollars. "Now shoot your head off," he advised.
Wallingford, in perfect confidence, rattled the box high in the air and tossed the five little ivory cubes upon the baize; and a dash of cold water fell on his confidence. A single, small, lonely, ashamed-looking pair of deuces confronted him.
"Here's where we get it all-l-l-l-l back again," laughed Joe in much joy. "Somebody call the porter to throw this stranger out when I get through," and with a crash he dumped the box upside down, lifting it with a sweep. The dice rattled about the board, and when they had all settled down he leaned over to count them. There was a moment of silence and then everybody laughed. There was not even a pair. Wallingford's miserable twodeuces had won a two-hundred-and-forty-dollar pot. Gently he leaned over.
"How much of this spinach would you like to cover now?" he asked in soothing tones.
"Wait till I ask the safe," replied his antagonist, but at that moment the telephone bell just behind him rang and he turned to answer it. With almost the first words that he heard he looked at his watch and swore, and when he had hung up the receiver he turned to Wallingford briskly.
"Afraid I'll have to let you carry that bundle of kale for a while," he grudgingly admitted, "for I have to hurry over to the court or lose more than there is in sight right here. But for heaven's sake, man, remember the number and bring that back to me. I want it."
"Thanks," said J. Rufus. "If there's any left after I get through with it I'll bring it back," and he walked out, the admired of all beholders.
He headed straight for a bank, where he exchanged his crumpled money into nice, crisp, fifty-dollar bills, and then with profound satisfaction he strolled into his hotel and threw two hundred dollars in front of the manager. The circumstance, however, was worth morethan money to him. It meant a renewal of his confidence. The world was once more his oyster.
That evening, just as he had finished a late dinner, a boy brought a card to him in the dining room; "Mr. Joseph O. Meers."
"Meers!" read Wallingford to his wife. "That isn't one of the men I had to lunch, and besides, none of that bunch would have an engraved card. Where is he?" he asked the boy.
"Out in the lobby, sir."
Wallingford arose and went with the boy. Sitting in one of the big chairs was the "Joe" from whom he had won the money that afternoon, and the man began to laugh as soon as he saw J. Rufus.
"Soyou'reWallingford!" he said, extending his hand. "No wonder I wanted to hunt you up."
"Yes?" laughed Wallingford, entirely at ease. "I had been expecting either you or a warrant."
"You can square that with a bottle of wine," offered the caller, and together they trailed in to the bar, where, in a snug little corner, they sat down. "What I came to see you about," began Meers, while they waitedfor the wine to be made cold, "is this cigar dealers' association that I hear you're doping up."
"Who told you?" asked Wallingford.
Mr. Meers winked.
"Never mind about that," he said. "I get it before the newspapers, and if there's a good game going count little Joseph in."
Wallingford studied this over a bit before answering. That afternoon he had decided not to invite Mr. Meers into the combination at all. He had not seemed likely material.
"I want to give you a little tip," added Mr. Meers, observing this hesitation. "No matter what the game is you need me. If I see my bit in it it goes through, but if I don't I'll bet you lose."
"The thing isn't a game at all," Wallingford soberly insisted. "It is a much needed commercial development that lets the cigar store be a real business in place of a peanut stand. What I'm going to do is to consolidate all the small shops in the city, for the purpose of buying at large-lot prices and taking cash discounts."
"That's a good play, too," agreed Meers; "but how about the details of it? How do you organize?"
"Make it a stock company," explained Wallingford, expanding largely; "incorporate as the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation and issue each man stock to the value of his present business; leave each man in charge of his own shop and pay him a salary equal to his present proved clear earnings; split up the surplus profits every three months and declare dividends."
"That's the outside," commented Mr. Meers, nodding his head wisely; "but what's the inside? Show me. Understand, Mr. Wallingford, except for a little friendly gamble like we had this afternoon, I only run a game from behind the table. I do the dealing. I'm not what they call rich back in theeffeteEast, but I'm getting along pretty well on one proposition:I always bet they don't!"
"It's a good healthy bet," admitted Wallingford; "but you want to copper it on this deal. This is a straight, legitimate proposition."
"Sure; sure," assented the other soothingly. "But where do you get in?"
"Well, I'm going to finance it. I'm going to take up some of the stock and get my quarterly dividends. I'll probably buy a few storesand put them in, and I hope to be made manager at a pretty good salary."
"I see but I don't," insisted the seeker after intimate knowledge. "That all sounds good, but it don't look fancy enough for a man that's down on the register of this hotel for suite D. If you come in to get my store in the consolidation—"
"Which I don't know whether I'll do or not," interrupted Wallingford.
"Wait and you will, though," retorted the other. "If you come into my place of business to get my store into the consolidation, I say, how do you close the deal? I suppose I sign an agreement of some sort, don't I?"
"Well, naturally, to have a safe understanding you'd have to," admitted the promoter.
"Let me see the agreement."
J. Rufus drew a long breath and chuckled.
"You're a regular insister, ain't you?" he said as he drew a carbon copy of the agreement from his pocket.
Mr. Meers read the paper over twice. The wine was brought to their table and served, but he paid no attention to the filled glass at his elbow. He was reading a certain portion of that agreement for the third and fourthtime, but at last he laid it down on the chair beside him and solemnly tilted his hat to Mr. Wallingford.
"You're an honor to your family," he announced. "I didn't suppose there were any more games left, but you've sprung a new one and it's a peach!"
Wallingford strove to look magnificently unaware of what he meant, but the attempt was a failure.
"The scheme is so smooth," went on Mr. Meers with a heartfelt appreciation, "that it strained my eyesight to find the little joker; but now I can tell you all about it. It's in the transfer of the stock, and here's what you do. The consolidation buys my place for, say, five thousand dollars, and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it. That's what this paper seems to say, but that's not what happens. It'syouthat buys my place for five thousand dollars and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it, andyou, being then the temporary owner through a fake trusteeship, turn around and sell my business to the consolidation, the management of which is in your flipper through a board of dummy directors, fortenthousand dollars; and youhave our iron-clad contract to let you do this, though it don't say so! When you get through you have consolidated a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of business into a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar stock company, and you have a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of stock which didn't cost you a cent! Say! Have this wine on me. I insist! I want to buy you something!"
Slowly Mr. Wallingford's shoulders began to heave and his face to turn red, and presently he broke into a series of chuckles that expanded to a guffaw.
"I don't see how I ever won that five hundred from you this afternoon," he observed, and shook again.
"The pleasure is all mine," said the loser politely. "Now I'm sorry it wasn't a thousand. You're worth the money and I'm glad I came to see you. Count me in on the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation."
"All right, sign the paper," said Wallingford with another chuckle.
"Watch me sign it not," said Meers. "I'm too patriotic. I'm so patriotic that I hate to see all this good money go to a stranger, so I'm going to take sixty-two and one half thousanddollars' worth of that free stock myself. I declare myself in. You hear me?"
By the time Mr. Meers was through talking Wallingford was delighted so far as surface went, though he was already doing some intense figuring.
"I don't know but that it's a good thing you came to see me," he admitted. "However, I hope it don't strike you that I intend to give you half a nice ripe peach without a good reason for it. What do I get for letting you in?"
"That's a fair question. I guess you noticed that if we want to cut a melon or open a keg of nails over in my place we don't go down in the cellar?"
"I certainly did," admitted the big man with a grin.
"Well, that's it. I'm permanent alderman from the fifth ward, and every time they hold an election they come and ask me whether I want it served with mushrooms or tomato sauce. The job has belonged to me ever since I was old enough to lie about my age. What I say goes in the privilege line, and I guess a mere child could figure out what that privilege would be worth to the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation; the dice box privilege; the back roomprivilege with a nice little poker game going on twenty-four hours a day; faro if I want it. Besides, I'm coming in just because. Why, I'm the man that stopped the ping pong game in this town so I could have a monopoly of it!"
"How soon can you be ready to incorporate?" asked Wallingford, satisfied to all external appearances; for this man could stop him. "To-morrow?"
"To-night, if you say so."
Wallingford laughed.
"It won't spoil over night," he said; "but there's just one thing I want to know. Is there anybody else to cut in on this?"
In reply, Mr. Meers slowly drew down the under lid of his right eye to show that there was no green in it, and when they parted an hour or so later it was with mutual, even hilarious expressions of good will. Immediately thereafter, however, Wallingford retired within himself and spent long, long hours in thought.
The name of Meers was magic. It is quite probable that the magnetic Wallingford would have been able to carry through his proposed consolidation alone; but with the fifth ward alderman to back him his work was easy. A few of the small dealers were afraid of Meers, but they were also afraid to stay out; for the most part, however, they were glad to enter into any combination with him, particularly since it was tacitly understood that this would open up to them the much coveted "ping pong" privilege, an attraction which not only increased the sale of goods but gave an additional hundred per cent. of profit.
The first steps in the incorporation were taken the next day after the interview of Wallingford and Meers, and within a few days the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation was formally effected, even to the trifling little mummeries which covered the state's requirementof a certain percentage of "fully paid up stock." Wallingford's share of the initial expense was one hundred dollars, but he had no mind to give up any of his precious pocket money at this time.
"Suppose you just pay the whole bill yourself, and let us pay you," he suggested in an offhand way to Meers. "It looks so much better all in one lump."
Of course, Mr. Meers was agreeable to this eminently respectable suggestion; but when Wallingford handed over his own check it was dated a week ahead.
"If this won't do you I'll have to give up some cash," he explained with an easy laugh. "I'm having some securities negotiated back East to open an account here, and it may take three or four days to have it arranged."
Meers heard him with a curious smile.
"I beat a pleasant stranger's head off once for putting up a line of talk like that," he commented; "but, of course, this is different," and he took the check.
He had become an enthusiastic admirer of Wallingford's undoubted genius, and at nothing was he more amused than by the caliber of the three other incorporators who had been chosen. Stock valuations were at once made for these three, at an exaggerated estimate of the value of their concerns, and when they came to Meers himself the same plan was followed.
"For," said Wallingford, "to make this strong you have to come in just like the rest, and I have to take up the balance of the stock right now as trustee."
Meers balked a trifle at that.
"I never feel so cheerful as when I'm my own stakeholder," he stated frankly. "When I hold all the coin it's a cinch I'll get mine, but when somebody else holds it I keep trained down for a foot race."
"Fix it any way to suit yourself," offered Wallingford with a carelessness that he was far from feeling. "If you can figure out a better stunt, show it to me."
Mr. Meers tried earnestly to think of a better plan but was forced to concede that there was none.
"Oh, well," he gave in at last, "it don't matter. It's only for a week or so I'll have to rub salve on my fingers to cure that itch."
"Certainly," Wallingford assured him. "It won't take more than a week, after we get the stock certificates from the printers, to make all the transfers, and then we'll have from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty thousand dollars' worth to split up. If we can't make that yield us five or six thousand a year apiece, aside from salaries, the buying and manufacturing grafts and other rake-offs, we ought to have guardians appointed."
"Fine business," agreed Meers complacently.
That complacency, which meant forgetfulness of the fact that all the stock would be temporarily in Wallingford's hands and under his absolute legal mastery, was what J. Rufus wished to encourage, and to that end he arranged for "secret" meetings of the Retail Cigar Dealers during the constructive period. Here the promoter was at his best. Singly, his big impressiveness dominated men; in masses, he swayed them. Enthusiasm was raised to fever heat. Even the smallest among these men grew large. Individually they were poor; collectively they were rich. Outside the consolidation not one of them amounted to much; inside it each one was a part of a millionaire! In the business of cigar selling a new era had come, and its name was Wallingford! By the close of the second meeting, scarcely a small dealer in the town but had signed the cleverly worded agreement.
It was while the stock certificates were beingprinted that Wallingford, who almost lived in the resplendent carriage these days, drove up to Ed Nickel's place of business, at a time when both the flabby solitaire player and the apathetic watcher had gone out to whatever mysterious place it was that they secured food.
"I say, Mr. Vice President," asked Wallingford, addressing the amazingly spruced up Mr. Nickel quite as an equal, "do you know where I could buy a nice house? One for about fifteen thousand?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," regretted Nickel, pleased to be taken thus into the great Wallingford's intimacy, "but there ought to be plenty of them. I wish I could figure on a house like that."
"Stick to me and see what happens to you," advised Wallingford with no thought of the joke he was uttering. "There's no reason you shouldn't have anything you want if you just go after the big game. Watch me."
"But you've got money," protested the Vice President.
"Did I always have it?" demanded the eminent financier. "Every cent I have, Mr. Nickel, I made myself; and you can do the same. The trouble is, you don't go in big enough. You have only a thousand dollarsworth of stock in our consolidation, for instance. You ought to have at least ten thousand."
"I haven't the money," said Nickel.
"How much have you?"
"Just a shade over five thousand. Say, man, I'm forty-six years old and I been slavin' like a dog ever since I was sixteen. Thirty years it took me to scrape that five thousand together."
"Saved it!" snorted Wallingford. "No wonder you haven't but five thousand. You can't make money that way. You have to invest. Do you suppose Rockefellersavedhis first million? Tell you what I'll do, Nickel. Can you keep a secret?"
"Sure," asserted Mr. Nickel, with the eagerness of one who has never been entrusted with a secret of consequence.
"If you want it and will pay for it on delivery next Saturday, I can scheme it for you to take up an extra five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation; but if I do you must not say one word about it to any one until after everything is settled, or some of these other fellows will be jealous. There's Meers, for instance. He's crazy right now to take over every share of the surplus, but, betweenyou and I, we don't want him to have such a big finger in the pie."
"I should say not," agreed Mr. Nickel emphatically. "He's too big as it is. Why, he pretty near runs this town."
"He can't run the consolidation; I'll tell him that!" declared Mr. Wallingford with much apparent heat. "It'smyproject and I'll favor whoever I want to. But about this stock, old man. You think it over, and if you want it let me know by not later than to-day noon. If it isn't spoken for by that time I'll take it myself; but remember, not one word!"
Mr. Nickel promised, on his honor as a man and his self-interest as a favored stockholder, to say nothing, and Wallingford started out. At the door he turned back, however.
"By the way," said he, "when we get going I've made up my mind to push the Nickelfine and the Double Nickel brands. I've been trying those two boxes you gave me and they're great. But don't say anything. Jealousy, you know!"
Mr. Nickel put his finger to his lips and smiled and bowed significantly. Fine man, that Wallingford! Knew a good thing when he saw it, and easy as an old shoe in spite of all his money. Regular howling swell, too.
The regular howling swell was at that very moment on his rubber-tired way to the shop of Alfred Norton, where he made a similar proposition to the one he had made Nickel. In all his manipulating he had kept careful track of the gentlemen who had or who might have money, and now he made it his business to visit each of them in turn, to talk additional stock with them and bind them to inviolate secrecy. For three days he kept this up, and on Friday evening was able to mop his brow in content.
"Fanny," he opined, "you have a smart husband."
"That's the only fault I have to find with you, Jim," she retorted smiling. "What have you done this time?"
"I've just tapped Mr. Joseph O. Meers on the solar plexus," he exulted. "I'll show that gentleman how to horn into my game and take the rake-off that's coming to a real artist! He's dreaming happy dreams just now, but when I leave town with the mezuma he'll wake up."
"I thought you were going to stay here," she objected with a troubled frown.
He understood her at once, and reached over to stroke her hair.
"Never mind, girl," he said. "I'm as anxious now as you are to settle down," and heglanced at the fluffy white sewing in her lap; "but this isn't the town. I had a nice clean business planned here, but the village grafter tried to jiu-jitsu me, so I just naturally had to jolt him one. I'll clean up about a hundred thousand to-morrow, and with that I'll go anywhere you say and into any business you pick out. Suppose we go back to Battlesburg, clear off that mortgage on your house and settle down there?"
"Oh, will you?" she asked eagerly. "But who loses this money, Jim?" she suddenly wanted to know. "I'm more particular than ever about it just now. I don't want to take a dollar that isn't right."
Again he understood.
"Don't worry about that," he replied seriously. "This money is legitimate water that I am sopping up out of a reorganization, just like a Harriman or a Morgan. The drag-down I get is simply my pay as promoter and organizer, and is no bigger percentage than other promoters take when they get a chance."
He had never taken so much pains to justify himself in her eyes, and she felt that this was due to a new tenderness. What if the wonderful influence that was dawning upon their lives should make a permanent change in him?
There came a knock at the door. Wallingford opened it and was confronted by a tall and stoutly built gentleman, who wore a blue helmet and numerous brass buttons upon his clothes.
"Mr. Wallingford," said the caller, with a laborious wink and a broad brogue, "could ye step across to the Court House wid me a few minutes and sign them papers?" and when Wallingford had stepped outside, he added: "'Twas on account of the lady I told ye that, but on the level, I'm after arrestin' yez!"
"What's the charge?" asked Wallingford with a tolerant smile, knowing his entire innocence of wrong.
"Obtainin' money under false pretenses."
Wallingford whistled, and, still unworried, excused himself for a moment. His statement to his wife was characteristic.
"I'll be back in about an hour," he said, "but I don't feel safe with so much wealth in my clothes when I'm out with a policeman," and with a laugh he tossed into her lap practically all the money that he had—an even fifty dollars.
Of course Wallingford sent immediately for Joseph O. Meers, and that gentleman came at once.
"Lovely place to find your old college chum," the prisoner cheerfully remarked. "I wish you'd go find out what this charge is all about and get me out of this, Meers. It might hurt the consolidation if it becomes known. There's a mistake some place."
"Oh, is there?" Mr. Meers wanted to know. "I'll bet there ain't a mistake, because I'm the baby that secured the warrant, and I'm going to send you over. Tried to double cross me, didn't you?" he asked pleasantly. "Well, it can't be done. Any grafter that tries to hand me the worst of it is going to find himself sucking at the sour end of a lemon,——quick. So I was to be the mark, eh? Just because there wasn't a paper signed between us to show that I was entitled to half that surplus stock, you was going to sell the bunch of it and make a quick get-away. I was to be the fall guy for that nice little futurity check, too! You remember that little old hundred, don't you? Well, it got you. I was hep to you day before yesterday, but your date didn't run out on that check till to-day, so I waited; and I'm going to send you over the road for as long a stretch as a good lawyer can hand you. Now stay here and rot!" and Joseph O. Meers, highly pleased with himself, walked out.
Jail! Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford, to whom tufted carpets and soft leather chairs were not luxuries but necessities, looked around him with the nearest substitute for a "game" grin that he could muster, and the prophetic words of Blackie Daw occurred to him:
"Our turn's next!"
"It's a fine joke I played on myself," he mused. "Me that a few weeks ago had a million in sight and that two hours ago had a hundred thousand cinched for to-morrow, to lose out like this;and for a hundred dollars!"
That was the rub! To think that after all these years, during which he had conducted his pleasant and legally safe financial recreations with other people's money upon a scale large enough to live like a gentleman, his first introduction to a jail should be because of a miserable, contemptible hundred dollars!Whyhad he forgotten that check?Whyhad he been fool enough to think he could swear a lot of spineless jelly fish to secrecy?Whyhadn't he been content with half? It served him right, he admitted, and unless Meers relented, the penitentiary yawned its ugly mouth very close to him. At any rate, he was now a full-fledged member of the largest organization in the world—the Down and Out Club. It was queer thatin all this thought there came no trace of regret for what he had done; there came only regret for the consequences, only self-revilement that he had "overlooked a bet." His "conscience" did not reproach him at all, except for failure; for, monstrous as it may seem, to his own mind he had done no wrong! Nor had he meant any wrong! With no sense of moral obligation whatever—and no more to be blamed for that than another man is for being born hunchbacked—he merely looked upon himself as smarter than most men, doing just what they would have done had they been blessed with the ability. Only at last he had been unfortunate! Well, the joke was on him, and he must be a good loser.
The humor of the situation rather wore off when, after a night upon a hard pallet and a breakfast of dry bread and weak coffee, he sent a message to Ed Nickel and learned from that indignantly virtuous citizen that he would have nothing to do with swindlers! Then he sent word to his wife and the answer he got to that message was the last straw. Mrs. Wallingford had quitted the hotel early that morning! He was sure of her, however. She would turn up again in her own good time, but what could she do? Nothing! For the first time in his life,the man who had never thought to have need of a friend outside a few moral defectives of his own class, realized what it is to be absolutely friendless. There was no one left in all this wide world upon whom he could make any demand of loyalty. Blackie Daw a fugitive, Billy Riggs a convict, all the old clan scattered far and wide, either paying their penalty, or, having transgressed the law, fleeing from it, the universe had come to an end.
Hour after hour he spent in trying to think of some one to whom he could appeal, and the conviction gradually burned itself in upon him that at last he was "up against it." It was a bad mess. He had made no deposit whatever in the local bank upon which he had drawn that check, though he had intended to do so. Moreover, Meers, to prove fraudulent intent, could show his intended bad faith in the other matter between them; and besides all that the alderman cigar dealer had a "pull" of no mean proportions. It had seemed impossible, the night before, that he who had dealt only in thousands and hundreds of thousands should be made a felon for a paltry hundred. It had seemed too absurd to be true, an anomalous situation that a day would clear up and at which he could afterwards laugh. Even now he joked with theturnkey, and that guardian of social recalcitrants was profoundly convinced that in J. Rufus Wallingford he had the swellest prisoner upon whom he had ever slid a bolt. The policeman who arrested him and the judge who next morning remanded him for trial shared that opinion, but it was a very melancholy satisfaction. After his preliminary hearing he went from the city prison to a more "comfortable" cell in the county jail, to think a number of very deep thoughts. Not a friendly eye had been turned on him but that of Joseph O. Meers, who had come around to see the fun. Mr. Meers had been quite jovial with him, had handed him a good cigar and told him the latest developments in the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation. He was reorganizing it himself. It was really a good "stunt," and he thanked J. Rufus most effusively for having started it. This was "kidding" of a broad-gauge type that Wallingford, for the same reason that a gambler tries to look pleased when he loses his money, was bound to enjoy very much, and with right good wit he replied in kind; but in this exchange of humor he was very much handicapped, for really Meers had all the joke on his side.
Another restless night and another drearyday, and then, just as he had begun to sincerely pity himself as a forlorn castaway upon the barrenest shore of all living things, there came visitors for him, and the turnkey with much deference threw open his cell and led him out to the visitor's cage. His wife! Well, he had expected her, and he had expected, too, since this great new tenderness had come upon her, to find her eyes suffused with bravely suppressed tears as they now were; but he had never expected to see again the man who was with her. E. B. Lott! the man to whom he had once sold rights of way to a traction line which he had never intended to build! one of his most profitable victims!
"So they got you at last, did they, Wallingford?" said Lott briskly, and shook hands with him, positive pleasure in the meeting beaming from his grizzled countenance. "I expected they would. A nice little game you played on me up in Battlesburg, wasn't it? Well, my boy, it was worth the money. You really had a valuable right of way, with valuable franchises and concessions, and the Lewisville, Battlesburg and Elliston Traction Line is doing a ripping business; so I'll forgive you, especially since you're not an individual criminal at all. You're only the logicaldevelopment of the American tendency to 'get there' no matter how. It is the national weakness, the national menace, and you're only an exaggerated molecule of it. You think that so long as you stay inside thelawyou're all right, even morally; but a man who habitually shaves so close to the narrow edge is going to slip off some time. Now you've had your dose and I shouldn't wonder but itmightmake a man of you. Your fine little wife here, who hunted me up the minute she found out your real predicament, swears that it will, but I'm not sure. You're too valuable, though, to coop up in a penitentiary, and I'm going to buy you off. I can use you. I've been in the traction business ever since the first trolley touched a wire, and I never yet have seen a man who could go out and get a right of way for nothing, as you did, nor get it in so short a space of time, even for money. We expect to open up two thousand miles of lines this coming year and I'm going to put you on the job. I can't fix it to make you such quick riches as you can rake in on crooked deals, but I'll guarantee you will have more in the end. It's a great chance for you, my boy, and just to protect you against yourself I'm going to hire a good man to watch you."
Wallingford had already regained his breadth of chest, and now he began to laugh. His shoulders heaved and the hundred jovial wrinkles about his eyes creased with the humor of the thought that had come to him.
"You'd better hire three," he suggested, "and work them in eight-hour shifts."
Nevertheless there was a bit of moisture in his eyes, and his hand, dropping down, sought his wife's. Perhaps in that moment he vaguely promised himself some effort toward a higher ideal, but the woman at his side, though knowing what she knew, though herself renewed and made over wholly with that great new reason, though detecting the presence of the crippled moral sense that was falling back baffled from its feeble assault upon his soul, pressed her other palm over his hand protectingly and shook her head—for at last she understood!
Upon thistles grow no roses.