"'Drina, dear child,' he said in a whisper""'Drina, dear child,' he said in a whisper"
She took his arm, laughing a low, pleased laugh, quite unconscious of all the havoc she was causing, never analyzing the moods of the night and the soul which were stealing over her too in an uncomprehended happiness.
"I think I could tell you anything, Bojo," she saidgently. "You seem to understand, and so much that I don't say too!"
All at once she slipped and flung back against him to avoid falling. He held her thus—his arm around her.
"Turn your ankle? Hurt?"
"No, no—ouf!"
A galloping gust came tearing over the snow, whirling white spirals, showering them with a myriad of tiny, pointed crystal sparks, stinging their cheeks and blinding their eyes. With a laugh she turned her head away and shrank up close to him, still in the protection of his arms. The gust fled romping away and still they stood, suddenly hushed, clinging with half-closed eyes. She sought to free herself, felt his arms retaining her, glanced up frightened, and then yielded, swaying against him.
"Drina—dear child," he said in a whisper that was wrenched from his soul. Such a sensation of warmth and gladness, of life and joy, entered his being that all other thoughts disappeared tumultuously, as he held her thus in his arms, there alone in the silence and the luminous night, reveling wildly in the knowledge that the same inevitable impulse had drawn her also to him.
"Oh, Bojo, we mustn't, we can't!"
The cry had so much young sorrow in it as he drew away that a pain went through his heart to have brought this suffering.
"Drina, forgive me. I wouldn't hurt you— I couldn't help it— I didn't know what happened," he said brokenly.
"Don't—you couldn't help it—or I either. I don't blame you—no, no, I don't blame you," she said impulsively, her eyes wet, her hands fervently clasped. He did not dare meet her glance, his brain in a riot.
"We must go back," he said hastily, and they went in silence.
When they returned Patsie disappeared. He entered the drawing-room and, though for the first time he felt how false his position was, even with a feeling of guilt, he was surprised at the sudden wave of kindliness and sympathy that swept over him as he took his place by Doris.
The next morning Patsie persistently avoided him. Instead of joining the skaters on the pond, she went off for a long excursion across country on her skis, followed by her faithful bodyguard of Romp and three different varieties of terrier. Bojo came upon her suddenly quite by accident on her return. She was coming up the great winding stairway, not like a whirlwind, but heavily, her head down and thoughtful, heedless of the dogs that tumbled over each other for the privilege of reaching her hand. At the sight of him she stopped instinctively, blushing red before she could master her emotions.
He came to her directly, holding out his hand, overcome by the thought of the pain he had unwittingly caused her, seeking the proper words, quite helpless and embarrassed. She took his hand and looked away, her lips trembling.
"I'm so glad to see you," he said stupidly. "We're pals, good pals, you know, and nothing can change that."
She nodded without looking at him, slowly withdrawing her hand. He rushed on heedlessly, imbued with only one idea—to let her know at all costs how much her opinion of him mattered.
"Don't think badly of me, Patsie. I wouldn'tbring you any sorrow for all the world. What you think means an awful lot to me." He hesitated, fearing to say too much, and then blurted out: "Don't turn against me, Drina, whatever you do."
She turned quickly at the name, looked at him steadily a moment, and shook her head, trying to smile.
"Never, Bojo—never that— I couldn't," she said, and hurriedly went up the stairs.
A lump came to his throat; something wildly, savagely delirious, seemed to be pumping inside of him. He could not go back to the others at once. He felt suffocated, in a whirl, with the need of mastering himself, of bringing all the unruly, triumphant impulses that were rioting through his brain back to calm and discipline.
At luncheon, Patsie proposed an excursion in cutters, claiming Mr. Boskirk as her partner, and with a feeling almost of guilt he seconded the proposal, understanding her desire to throw him with Doris. DeLancy and Gladys Stone started first, after taking careful instructions for the way to their rendezvous at Simpson's cider-mill—instructions which every one knew they had not the slightest intention of following. Boskirk, with the best face he could muster, went off with Patsie, who disappeared like a runaway engine, chased by a howling brigade of dogs, while Bojo and Doris followed presently at a sane pace.
"We sha'n't see Gladys and Fred," said Doris, laughing. "No matter. They're engaged!"
"As though that were news to me."
"Did he tell you?"
"I guessed. Last night in the conservatory." Headded with a sudden feeling of good will: "Gladys is much nicer than I thought, really."
"She's awfully in love. I'm so glad."
"When will it be announced?"
"Next week."
"Heaven be praised!"
In a desire to come to a more intimate sharing of confidences he told her of his fears.
"Louise Varney, a vaudeville actress!" said Doris, with a figurative drawing in of her skirts.
"Oh, there's nothing against her," he protested, "excepting perhaps her chaperone! Only Fred's susceptible, you know—terribly so—and easily led."
"Yes, but people don't marry such persons—you can get infatuated and all that—but you don't marry them!" she said indignantly. She shrugged her shoulders. "It's all right to be—to be a man of the world, but not that!"
He hesitated, afraid of going further, of finding a sudden disillusionment in the worldly attitude her words implied. A certain remorse, a feeling of loyalty betrayed impelled him on, as though all danger could be avoided by forever settling his future. Their conversation by degrees assumed a more intimate turn, until at length they came to speak of themselves.
"Doris, I have something to ask you," he said, plunging in miserably. "We have never really—formally been engaged, have we?"
"The idea! Of course we have," she said, laughing. "It's only you who wouldn't have it announced because—because you were too proud or some other ridiculous reason!"
"Well, now I want it announced." He met her glance and added: "And I want you to announce at the same time the date of the wedding."
He had said it—irrevocably decided for the path of conscience and loyalty, and it seemed to him as though a great load had shifted from his shoulders.
"Bojo! Do you mean—now, soon!"
"Just that. Doris, when this deal is settled up—and I'll know this week—I'm going to have close on to two hundred thousand—on my own hook, not counting what I'll get from the pool. I've plunged. I've put every cent I had in it or could borrow," he said hastily, avoiding an explanation of just what he had done. "I've risked everything on the turn—"
"But supposing something went wrong?"
"It won't! This week, we're going to hammer Pittsburgh & New Orleans down below thirty: I know. The point is now—when that's all safe—I want you to marry me."
"I have a quarter of a million in my own name. Father gave us each that three years ago."
He hesitated.
"Do you need that very much? I'd rather you'd start—"
"Oh, Bojo, why? If you've got that, why shouldn't I?"
He wavered before this argument.
"I would rather, Doris, we started on less, on what I myself have got. I've thought it over a good deal. I think it would mean a great deal to us to start out that way—to have me feel you were by my side, helping me. Itispride, but pride means all to a man, Doris."
"If I only used it for dresses and jewels—just for myself?" she said after a moment. "You want me to look as beautiful as the other women, and we aren't going to drop out of society, are we?"
"No. Keep it then," he said abruptly.
"I won't take a cent from father," she said virtuously, and was furious when he laughed.
"And you are willing to give up all the rest, now, and be just plain Mrs. Crocker?"
She nodded, watching him askance.
"When?"
"In May at the close of the social season—butterfly."
He had begun with a hunger in his heart to reach depths in hers, and he ended with laughter, with a feeling of being defrauded.
They stopped at Simpson's for a cool drink of cider and were on again, passing through wintry forests, with green Christmas trees against the creamy stretches where rabbit paths ran into dark entanglements. All at once they were in the open again, sweeping through a sudden factory village, Jenkinstown, stagnant with the exhaustion of the Sunday's rest.
"There, aren't you glad you didn't begin there?" she said gaily, with a nick of the whip toward the grim gray line of barracks that crowded against the street.
"You never would have married me then," he said.
"Oh, ask me anything but to bepoor!" she said, shuddering.
"She might at least have lied," he thought grimly.He gazed with curiosity at this glimpse of factory life, at the dulled faces of women, wrapped in gay shawls, staring at them; at the sluggish loiterers on the corners, and the uncleanly hordes of children, who cried impertinently after them, recalling his father's words:—"a great mixed horde to be turned into intelligent, useful American citizens!" Squalid and hopelessly commonplace it seemed to him, cruelly devoid of pleasure or joy in the living. But such as these had placed him where he was, with an opportunity to turn in a year what in the lifetime of generations they could never approach.
The spectacle affected Doris like a disagreeable smell.
"I hate to think such people exist," she said, frowning.
"But they do exist," he said slowly.
"Yes, but I don't want to think of it. Heavens, to be poor like that!"
"It's late; we'd better be going back," he said.
They came back enveloped in the falling dusk, Doris running on gaily, quite delighted now at the prospect of their coming marriage, making a hundred plans for the ordering of the establishment, debating the question of an electric or an open car to start with, the proper quarter to seek an apartment, and the number of servants, while Bojo, silently, rather grim, listened, thinking of the look which would come into some one's eyes when their decision was told.
At the porte-cochère Gladys and Patsie came rushing out with frightened faces. Fred had caught the last train home after a call from New York. Bojo,with a sinking feeling, seized the note he had left for him.
Roscy telephoned. There's a rumor that a group have been cornering Pittsburgh & New Orleans all this while. If so there'll be the devil to pay in the morning. Forshay's been wild to get you. Get back somehow. If in time get the Harlem 6:42 at Jenkinstown. In haste.
Roscy telephoned. There's a rumor that a group have been cornering Pittsburgh & New Orleans all this while. If so there'll be the devil to pay in the morning. Forshay's been wild to get you. Get back somehow. If in time get the Harlem 6:42 at Jenkinstown. In haste.
Fred.
"Can I make the 6:42 at Jenkinstown?" he cried to the groom.
"Just about, sir."
"Jump in."
"I'm so frightened! Telephone at once!" He heard Doris cry, and, hardly heeding her he looked about vacantly. Then something was pressed in his hand, and Patsie's voice was sounding in his ears. "Here's your bag. I packed it. Keep up your courage, Bojo!"
"Patsie, you're a dear. Thank you. All right now!" He took her hands, met her clear brave eyes, and sprang into the sleigh. A terrible sickening dread came over him, an unreasoning superstitious dread. He felt ruin and worse, cold and damp in the air about him, ruin inevitable from the first, the bubble's collapse as he waved a hasty farewell and shot away in the race across the night.
"What has happened?" he asked himself a hundred times during the headlong drive. A corner in Pittsburgh & New Orleans—that was possible but hardly probable. But if a corner had taken place it meant ruin, absolute ruin—and worse. The thought was too appalling to be seized at once. He reassured himself with specious explanations. There might be a flurry; Gunther and his crowd, who were in control of the system, might have attempted a division to support their property; but the final attack at which Joseph Skelly had hinted more than once as timed for the coming week, the throwing on the market of 100,000 shares—200,000 if necessary—must overwhelm this support, must overwhelm it. What was terrible, though, was the unknown—to be hours from New York, cut off from communication, and not to know what was this shapeless dread.
When they swung into Jenkinstown, orange lights from the windows cut up the snowbound streets in checkerboard patterns of light and shade: an organ was beginning in mournful bass from a shanty church; a cheap phonograph in a flickering ice-cream parlor was grinding out a ragged march. Through the windows, heavy parties still at the Sunday newspapers were gathered under swinging lamps. Thecutter drew up by the hovel of a station and departed, leaving him alone in the semi-darkness, a prey to his thoughts. A group returning after a day's visit trudged past him, laughing uproariously, Slavic and brutish in type, the women in imitated finery, gazing at him in insolent curiosity. He began to walk to escape the dismal sense of unlovely existence they brought him. Beyond were the mathematical rows of barracks—other brutish lives, the bleak ice-cream parlor, the melancholy of the evening service. It was all so one-sided, obsessed by the one idea of labor, lacking in the simplest direction toward any comprehension of the enjoyment of life.
The crisis he had reached, the threatened descent from the sublime to the ridiculous, brought with it that contrition which in men is a superstitious seeking for the secret of their own failures in some transgressed moral law. His own life all at once seemed cruelly selfish and gluttonous before this bleak view of the groping world and, profoundly stirred to self-analysis, he said to himself:
"After all—why am I here—to try and change all this a little for the better or to pass on and out without significance?" And at the thought that year in and year out these hundreds would go on, doomed to this stagnation, there woke in him a horror, a horror of what it must mean to fall back and slip beneath the surface of society.
He arrived in New York at three in the morning, after an interminable ride in the jolting, wheezing train, fervently awake in the dim and draughty smoking-car where strange human beings huddled over a greasy pack of cards or slept in drunken slumber.And all during the lagging return one thought kept beating against his brain:
"Why didn't I close up yesterday—yesterday I could have made—" He closed his eyes, dizzy with the thought of what he could have netted yesterday. He said to himself that he would wind up everything in the morning. And there would still be a profit, there was still time ... knowing in his heart that disaster had already laid its clutching hand upon his arm. The city was quiet with an unearthly, brooding quiet as he reached the Court, where one light still shone in the window of a returned reveler. Marsh and DeLancy came hurriedly out at the sound of his entrance.
"What's wrong?" he cried at the sight of Fred's drawn face.
"Everything. The city's full of it," said Marsh. "It leaked out this afternoon, or rather the Gunther crowd let it leak out. Pittsburgh & New Orleans will declare an additional quarterly dividend to-morrow."
"It's the end of us," said Fred. "The stock will go kiting up."
"We've got to cover," said Bojo.
"In a crazy market? If we can!"
"It may not be true."
"I've got it as direct as I could get it," said Marsh, shaking his head.
"Suppose there is a corner and we have to settle around 100 or 150?" said DeLancy, staring nervously away.
There was no need for Bojo to ask how deeply involved they were. He knew.
"Some one's been buying large blocks of it.That's known," said Marsh, calmer than the rest. "Ten to one it's Gunther's crowd. They had the advance information. Ten to one they've laid the trap and sprung a corner."
"No, nonsense! It's not as bad as that. If they're putting out an extra dividend, the stock's going to jump up—for a while. That's all. And then some one else may have a card up his sleeve," said Bojo, fighting against conviction.
"Call up Drake," said Fred.
Bojo hesitated. The situation called for any measure. He went to the telephone, after long minutes getting a response. Mr. Drake was out of town on a hunting trip; was not expected back until the following night. There remained Drake's agent Skelly, but a quick search of the book revealed no home telephone.
"Can you put up more margin?" asked Bojo.
DeLancy shook his head.
"I can, but it may be better to take the loss," said Marsh. "We'll have to wait and see. Quick work to-morrow! By the way, there's a call for you from Forshay to be at the office by eight o'clock to-morrow. Well, let's get a few winks of sleep if we can. Luck of the game!"
"I'm sorry," said Bojo desperately.
"Shut up. We're over age," said Marsh, thumping him on the back, but DeLancy went to his room, staring. The moment he was gone Marsh turned to Bojo. "Look here, whatever we do we've got to save Fred. You and I can stand a mauling. Fred's caught."
"If we can," said Bojo, without letting him knowhow serious the situation was for him. "How deep in is he?"
"Close to 2,000 shares."
"Good heavens, where did he get the money?"
Marsh looked serious, shook his head, and made no further reply.
At seven o'clock, when Bojo was struggling up from a sleepless night, Granning came into his room, awkwardly sympathetic.
"Look here, Bojo, is it as bad as the fellows feared?"
"Can't tell, Granny. Looks nasty."
"You in trouble too?"
Bojo nodded.
"I say, I've got that bond for a thousand tucked away," said Granning slowly. "Use it if it'll help any."
"Bless your heart," said Bojo, really touched. "It's not a thousand, Granny, that'll help now. You were right—gambler's luck!"
"Cut that out," said Granning, shifting from foot to foot. "I'm damned sorry—tough luck, damned tough luck. I wish I could help!"
"You can't—no use of throwing good money after bad. Mighty white of you all the same!"
When he reached the offices, he learned for the first time how deeply the firm had speculated on the information of Drake's intentions. Forshay was cool, with the calm of the sportsman game in the face of ruin, but Flaspoller and Hauk were frantic in their denunciations. It was a trick, a stock-jobbingdevice of an inner circle. Nothing could justify an additional dividend. The common stock had not been on a two per cent. basis more than three years. Nothing justified it. Some one would go behind the bars for it! Forshay smoked on, shrugging his shoulders, rather contemptuous.
"Hit you hard?" he said to Bojo.
"Looks so. And you?"
"Rather."
"You call up Drake. Maybe he come back," said Flaspoller, ungrammatical in his wrath.
"He won't be in," said Bojo, and for the twentieth time he received the invariable answer.
"The message was the end of hope""The message was the end of hope"
At nine o'clock Skelly's office called up. A clerk gave the message, Mr. Skelly being too occupied. Bojo listened, hoping desperately against hope, believing in the possibility of salvation in an enormous block to be thrown on the market. The message was the end of hope!
"Cancel selling orders. Buy Pittsburgh & New Orleans at the market up to 20,000 shares."
He tried ineffectively to reach Skelly personally and then communicated the order to the others, who were waiting in silence.
"If Drake's out, good-by," said Forshay, who went to the window, whistling. "Well, let's save what we can!"
The realization of the situation brought a sudden calm. Hauk departed for the floor of the Stock Exchange. The others prepared to wait.
"Match you quarters," said Forshay with a laugh. He came back, glancing over Bojo's shoulder at afew figures jotted down on a pad, reading off the total: "12,350 shares. I thought you were in only ten thousand."
"Twenty-three fifty Saturday," said Bojo, staring at the pad. "At 5 per cent. margin too."
"Lovely. What cleans you out?"
Bojo figured a moment, frowned, consulted his list, and finally announced: "Thirty-seven and one-half wipes me out nice and clean."
"I'm good for a point higher. I say, there's rather a rush on this office; have you got buying orders elsewhere?" Bojo nodded. "Good. Take every chance. What did we close at Saturday, thirty-one and one-half?"
"Thirty-two."
"Oh well, there's a chance." He looked serious a moment, turning a coin over and over on his hand, thinking of others. "No fool like an old fool, Tom. If I've been stung once I've been stung a dozen times! It's winning the first time that's bad. You can't forget it—the sensation of winning. Sort of your case too, eh? Well, come on. I'm matching you!"
An hour later, with the announcement of the additional dividend, they stood together by the tape and watched Pittsburgh & New Orleans mount by jerks and starts—5000 at 33—2,000 at 35½—1,000 at 34½—4,000 at 35¾—500 at 34.
"Having a great time, isn't it? Jumping all over the place. Orders must be thick as huckleberries. Selling all over the place so fast they can't keep track of it."
Flaspoller came in with the first purchase by Hauk, who was having a frantic time executing his orders.
"I've bought 2,000 at 34, thank God," said Bojo, returning from the telephone. "What's it now?"
"Touched 36: 10,000 at 35½—big orders are coming in. Thirty-six again. Lovelier and lovelier."
Back and forth from telephone to ticker they went without time for luncheon, elated at the thought of shares purchased at any price, grimly watching the ominous figures creep up and up, mute, paralyzing indications of the struggle and frenzy on the floor, where brokers flung themselves hoarse and screaming into knotted, swaying groups and telephone-boys swarmed back and forth from the booths like myriad angry ants trampled out of their ant-hills.
At two o'clock Pittsburgh & New Orleans had reached 42. An hour before Bojo had left the ticker, waiting breathlessly at the telephone for the announcement of purchases that meant precious thousands. At two-thirty the final dock of 500 shares came in at 42½. Mechanically he added the new figures to the waiting list. Of the $83,000 in the bank and the $95,000 which yesterday summed up his winnings on paper, he had to his credit when all accounts were squared hardly $15,000. The rest had collapsed in a morning, like a soap bubble.
"Save anything?" said Forshay, struck by the wildness in the young man's look.
"I can settle my account here, I'm glad to say," said Bojo with difficulty. "That's something. I think I'll pull out with around fifteen thousand. Hope you did better."
"Thanks, awfully."
"Cleaned out?" said Bojo, startled.
"Beautiful. Clean. Well, good-by, Tom, and—better luck next time."
Bojo looked up hastily, aghast. But Forshay was smiling. He nodded and went out.
Bojo reached the court still in a daze, unable to comprehend where it had all gone—this fortune that was on his fingers yesterday. Yesterday! If he had only closed up yesterday! Then through the haze of his numbed sense of loss came a poignant, terrifying recall to actuality. He stood pledged to Drake for the amount of $50,000, and he could not make good even a third! If the pool had been wiped out—and he had slight hopes of saving anything there—he would have to procure $35,000 somewhere, somehow, or face to Drake and his own self-respect that he could not redeem his own word. What could he say, what excuse offer! If the pool had collapsed—he was dishonored.
The realization came slowly. For a long while, sitting in the embrasure of the bay window—his forehead against the cold panes, it seemed to him incredible the way he had gone these last six months; as though it had all been a fever that had peopled his horizon with unreal figures, phantasies of hot dreams.
But the unblinkable, waking fact was there. His word had been pledged for $50,000 to Drake, to the father of the girl he was to marry. Marry! At the thought he laughed aloud bitterly. That, too, was a thing that had vanished in the bubble of dreams. He thought of his father, to whom he would have to go; but his pride recoiled. He would never go to him for aid—a failure and a bankrupt. Rather begDrake on his knees for time to work out the debt than that!
"How did I do it? What possessed me! What madness possessed me!" he said wearily again and again.
At eight o clock, when all the high electric lights had come out about the blazing window of the court, recalled by the sounds of music from the glass-paneled restaurant he went out for dinner, wondering why his friends had not returned. At ten when he came back after long tramping of the streets, a note was on the table, in Granning's broad handwriting.
Hoped to catch you. Fred's gone off on a tear; God knows where he is. Roscy and I have been trying to locate him all day. Hope you pulled through, old boy.
Hoped to catch you. Fred's gone off on a tear; God knows where he is. Roscy and I have been trying to locate him all day. Hope you pulled through, old boy.
Granning.
At twelve o clock, still miserably alone, tortured by remorse and the thought of the wreck he had unwittingly brought his chums, he could bear the suspense of evasion no longer. He went up to Drake's to learn the worst, steeled to a full confession.
In the hall, as he waited chafing and miserable, Fontaine, Gunther's right-hand partner, passed out hurriedly, jaws set, oblivious. Drake was in the library in loose dressing-gown and slippers, a cigar in his mouth, immersed in the usual contemplation of the picture puzzle.
"By George, he bears it well," Bojo thought to himself, moved to admiration by the calm of that impassive figure.
"Hello, Tom," he said, looking up, "what's brought you here at this time of night? Anything wrong?"
"Wrong?" said Bojo faintly. "Haven't you heard about Pittsburgh & New Orleans?"
"Well, what about it?"
Bojo gulped down something that was in his throat, steadying himself against the awful truth that meant ruin and dishonor to him.
"Mr. Drake—tell me what I owe you? I want to know what I owe you," he said desperately.
"Owe? Nothing."
"But the pool?"
"Well, what about the pool?" said Drake, eyeing him closely.
"The pool to sell Pittsburgh & New Orleans."
"Who said anything about selling!" said Drake sharply. "The pool's all right." He looked at him a long moment, and the boyish triumph, suppressed too long, broke out with the memory of Fontaine's visit. "I bought control of Pittsburgh & New Orleans at eleven o'clock this morning and sold it ten minutes ago, for what I paid for it, plus—plus a little profit of ten million dollars." He paused long enough to let this sink into the consciousness of the reeling young man and added, smiling: "On a pro rata basis, Tom, your fifty thousand stands you in just a quarter of a million. I congratulate you."
"Your fifty thousand stands you in just a quarter of a million."
The words came to him faintly as though shouted from an incredible distance. The shock was too acute for his nerves. He sought to mumble over the fantastic news and sank into a chair, sick with giddiness. The next thing he knew clearly was Drake's powerful arm about him and a glass forced to his lips.
"Here, get this down. Then steady up. Good luck doesn't kill."
"I thought they'd caught us—thought I was cleaned out," he said incoherently.
"You did, eh?" said Drake, laughing. "You haven't much faith in the old man."
Bojo steadied himself, standing alone. The room seemed to race about him and in his ears were strange unfixed sounds. One thought rapped upon his brain—he was not disgraced, not dishonored; no one would ever know—Drake would never need to know; that is if he were careful, if he could somehow dissimulate before that penetrating glance.
"I thought we were to sell Pittsburgh & New Orleans," he said vacantly, leaning against the mantelpiece.
"So did a good many others," said Drake shrewdly. "Sit down, till I tell you about it. Head clearin' up?"
"It's rather a shock," said Bojo, trying to smile. "I'm sorry to be such a baby."
"I warned you not to jump to conclusions or try any flyers," said Drake, watching him. "Of course you did?"
Bojo nodded, his glance on the floor.
"Well, write it off against your profits and charge it up to experience," said Drake, smiling. "Store this away for the future and use it if you ever need it, if you're ever running a pool of your own—which I hope you won't. It's been my golden rule and I paid a lot to learn it. It's this: If you want a secret kept, keep it yourself." He burst into a round, hearty laugh, gazing contentedly into the fire. "Wish I could see Borneman's face. Helped me a lot, Borneman did. You see, Tom," he said, with the human need of boasting a little, which allies such men rather to the child on an adventure than to the criminal, between whom they occupy an indefinable middle position, "you've come in on the drop of the curtain. You've seen the finale of something that'll set Wall Street stewing for years to come. Yes, by George, it's the biggest bit of manipulation by a single operator yet! And look at the crowd I tricked—the inner gang, the crême de la crême, Tom—exactly that!"
"I don't understand it," said Bojo, as Drake began to smile, reflecting over remembered details. He himself understood only confusedly the events which had been whirling about him.
"Tom, the crowd had figured me out for a trimming," said Drake, gleefully, caressing his chin. "They thought the time had come to trim old Drake. You see, they calculated I was loaded up with stocks, crowded to busting and ready to squeal at the slightest squeeze. Now getting rich on paper is one thing and getting rich in the bank's another. Any one can corner anything—but it's all-fired different to get Mr. Fly to come down to your parlor and take some stock after you've got it where you want it. That's what they figured. Dan Drake was loaded to the sky with stocks that looked almighty good on the quotation column, but darned hard to swap for cold, hard cash. That's what they figured, and the strange part about it is they were right.
"But—there's always a but—they hadn't reckoned on the fact that Mr. Me was expecting just what they'd figured out. That's what I told you was the secret of the game—any game—think the way the other man thinks, and then think two jumps ahead of him. Now if I was reasonably sure a certain powerful gang was going to put stocks down, and put them down hard, I might look around to see how that could benefit me at one end while it was annoying me, almightily annoying me, at the other. Now when them coyotes get to juggling stocks they always like to juggle stock they know about—something with a nice little pink ribbon to it, with a president and board of directors on the other end, that'll wriggle in the right direction when the coyotes pull the string.
"Now I'd been particularly hankering after Pittsburgh & New Orleans for quite a while. It was good in their old Southern system, but it looked mightybetter outside of it. In independent hands it could stir up a lot of trouble; sort of like a plain daughter in a rich man's house—no one notices her until she runs off with the chauffeur. That was my idea. Only Pittsburgh was high. But—again the but—if some particular breed of coyote would be obliging enough to run it down along with a lot of other properties on the market, I might pitch in and help them force it down to where I could pick up what I wanted from the bargain counter. See?"
"But you sold openly," said Bojo, amazed.
"Exactly. Sold it where they could see it and bought it back twice over, ten times over, where they couldn't. Very simple process. All great processes are simple, and it never dawned on those monumental intelligences that they were fetchin' and carryin' for yours truly until they woke up at six o'clock to-day to find while they were scrambling in the dark, the chauffeur had run off with Miss Pittsburgh!"
He turned and walked to the table desk, motioning to Bojo.
"Come over here, look at it." He held out a check for ten million dollars. "You don't see one of those fellows very often. Great man, Gunther. When he's got to act he doesn't waste time. Right to the point. 'We are satisfied you have control. What's your terms?' 'Ten millions and what the stock cost me.' 'We accept your terms,' Great man, Gunther. Suppose I might have added another million, but it wouldn't have sounded as well, would it? Something rather nice about costs and ten million!"
As he spoke, he had drawn out his check-book and filled out a check to Bojo.
"Well, Tom, this isn't ten millions, but it's some pin money, and I guess to you it looks bigger than the other. There you are—take it."
Bojo took it quite stupidly, saying:
"Thank you, thank you, sir!"
Drake watched the young man's emotion with tolerant amusement.
"Don't wonder you're a bit shaken up, Tom. Supposing you call up a certain young lady on long distance. Rather please her, I reckon."
"Why, yes. I wanted to do it. I—I will, of course."
"So you thought I was going to sell short Pittsburgh & New Orleans," said Drake with a roguish humor.
Bojo nodded, at loss for words, biding the moment to escape into the outer air.
"But, of course, Tom," said Drake slowly, with smiling eyes, "youdidn't tell any one, did you?"
Bojo mumbled something incoherent and went out, clutching the check, which lay in his hand with the heaviness of lead.
In the open air he tried to readjust the events of the night. He had a confused idea of rushing through the great hall, past the mechanical footman, of hearing Thompson cry, "Get you a taxi, sir!" and of being far down resounding pavements in the lovely night with something still clutched in his hand.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand," he said to himself. He repeated it again and again as a sort of dull drum-beat accompaniment, resounding in his ears, even as his cane tapped out its sharp metallic punctuation.
"Two hundredandfifty!" he said for the hundredth time, utterly unable to comprehend what had in one hour changed the face of his world. He stopped, drew his hand from his pocket, took the crumpled check and placed it in his wallet, buttoned his coat carefully, and then unbuttoned it to make sure it had not slipped from his pocket.
Drake had not asked him the vital question. He had not had to answer him, to tell him what he had lost, to own that he had gambled beyond his right. The issue he had gone to meet, resolved on a clean confession, had been evaded, and in his pocket was the check—a fortune! Certain facts did not at once focus in his mind, perhaps because he did not want to contemplate them, perhaps because he was too bewildered with his own sensations to perceive clearly what a rôle he had been made to play.
But as he swung down the Avenue past the Plaza with its Argus-eyed windows still awake, past a few great mansions with cars and grouped footmen in wait for revelers, at the thought of the quiet Court, of Roscoe and Granning, at the sudden startled recollection of DeLancy, the cold fact forced itself upon him; they had lost and he had won. He had won because they had lost, and how many others!
"How could I help it?" he said to himself uneasily, and answered it immediately with another question "But will they believe me?"
Suddenly Drake's last question flashed across him with a new significance. "Of course you didn't tell any one, did you?"
Why had he not asked him then and there what he had meant? Because he had been afraid, because hedid not wish to know the answer, just as he had evaded the knowledge that Doris in the first speculation had made use of Boskirk. Even now he did not wish to force the ugly fact—seeking to put it from him with plausible reasonings. After all, what had Drake done? Told him a lie? No. He had specially cautioned him not to jump to conclusions, warned him against doing anything on his own initiative.
"Yes, that's true," he said with a sigh of relief, as though a great ethical question had been disposed of. "He played square, absolutely square. There's nothing wrong in it."
Yet somehow the conviction brought no joy with it; there was something stolen about the sensation of sudden wealth which possessed him. He seemed to be scurrying through the shadowy city almost like a thief afraid of confrontation.
Yet there was the home-coming, the friends to be faced. What answer could he make them, how announce the stroke of fortune which had come to him! On one thing at least he was resolved, and the resolution seemed to lighten the weight of many problems which would not slip from his shoulders. He was responsible for Roscy and Fred—at least they should suffer no loss for having taken his advice. The others—Forshay, the firm, one or two acquaintances he had tipped off in the last days, the outsiders; they were different, and besides he did not want to think of them. His friends should not suffer loss—not even a dollar. They were a part of the pool, in a way. Of course they had had their friends, though he had sworn them to secrecy. At this point hestopped in his mental turnings, faced by a sudden barrier.
Had Drake knowingly used him to convey a false impression of his intentions, made him the instrument of ruining others in order to carry through his stupendous coup de force?
"If I thought that," he said hotly, "I wouldn't touch a cent of it!" But after a moment, uneasily and in doubt, he added, "I wonder?"
He came to the Court and hurried in. Lights were blazing in the bay-window, black silhouettes across the panes.
"Good God, supposing anything has happened to Fred!" he thought, suddenly remembering Granning's note. He burst upstairs and into the room. Roscoe Marsh was by the fireplace, gravely examining a pocket revolver, which lay in his hand. Granning was on the edge of the couch staring at Fred DeLancy, who was sunk in a great chair, disheveled and dirt-stained, a sodden, cold-drunk mass.
At the sight of Fred DeLancy, Bojo checked himself. A glance from Granning apprised him of the seriousness of the situation. He walked over to the huddled figure and laid his hand on his shoulder.
"Hello there, Fred. It's Bojo."
DeLancy raised his head, looked out through glazed eyes, and slowly withdrew his stare to the vacant fireplace, where a smoldering flicker drew his mind.
"Found him an hour ago in a hell over in Eighth Avenue," said Marsh. "Bad."
Granning beckoned him, and together they went into the bedroom, closing the door.
"All right now. Guess he'll stay quiet. Pretty violent when we came back," said Granning. "Wanted to throw himself out of the window."
"And the pistol," said Bojo, sick at the thought of what might have been.
"Yes, we found that on him," said Granning gravely. "Lucky he got drunk so quick, or that might have been serious." He hesitated and added: "He swears he'll kill himself first chance. Guess I'd better keep my eye on him to-night."
At this moment there was the sound of a scuffle from the den and a shout from Marsh. They rushed in to find him grappling with Fred, who was strivingfrantically to reach the window. For a moment the air was full of shouts and sudden scurrying.
"Look out, he's got that paper-cutter!"
"In his right hand."
"All right, I've got him."
"Throw him over on the couch. Sit on him. That's it."
Under their combined weights, DeLancy was flung, hoarse and screaming maledictions, to the couch, where despite objurgations and ravings Granning secured his arms behind his back with a strap and hobbled his legs. For half an hour Fred twisted and strove, raving and swearing or suddenly weakly remorseful, bursting into tears, cursing himself and his folly. The three sat silently, faces sternly masked, looking unwilling on the ugly spectacle of human frenzy in the raw. At the end of this time DeLancy became suddenly quiet and dropped off into sodden sleep.
"At last," said Granning, rising. "Best thing for him. Oh, he won't hear us—talk all you like."
"How hard is he hit?" said Bojo anxiously.
Marsh shrugged his shoulder and swore.
"How hard, Granning?"
"Twenty thousand or more," said Granning gravely, "and there are some bad sides to it." He shook his head, glanced at DeLancy, and added: "Then there's the girl."
"Louise Varney?"
"The same—mother has been camping on the telephone all day. Not a very calm person, mother—ugh—nasty business!"
"Rotten business," said Bojo, remorsefully. Hewent to the bay-window and stood there gazing out into the sickly night, paling before the first grays of the morning. He was subdued by this spectacle of the other side of speculation, wondering how many similar scenes were taking place in sleepless rooms somewhere in the dusky flight of roof-tops. Marsh, misunderstanding his mood, said:
"How did it hurt you? You pulled through all right, didn't you?"
Bojo came back thoughtfully, evading the question with another.
"And you?"
"Oh, better than I expected," said Marsh with a wry face. "I say, you're not—not cleaned out?"
Granning rose and with his heavy hand turned him around solicitously. "How about it, son?"
For hours Bojo had been debating his answer to this inevitable question without finding a solution. He drew his pocketbook and slowly extracted the check. "Gaze on that," he said solemnly.
Granning took it, stared at it, and passed it to Marsh, who looked up with an exclamation: "For God's sake, what does that mean?"
"It means," said Bojo slowly, "that I can tell you the truth now. We haven't lost a cent; on the contrary—" he paused and emphasized the next word—"wehave made a killing. We means you, Fred, and myself."
"I don't get it," said Marsh, frowning.
"The real object of the pool was not to bear Pittsburgh & New Orleans, but to buy it. If I let you sell short, it was only to get others to sell short. To-morrowI'll settle up with you and Fred, every cent you've lost, plus—"
"Bojo, you're lying," said Marsh abruptly.
"I'm not, I—"
"And you're lying badly!"
"What about that check?"
"That's all right; Drake may have done what you said, but you never knew—"
"Roscy, I swear."
"Hold up and answer this. Do you want me to believe, Tom Crocker, that you deliberately told me and Fred DeLancy, your closest friends, a lie, in order to get us to spread false information toourfriends, to ruin our friends in order to make a killing for you? Well, a straight answer."
Bojo was silent.
"No, no, Bojo; don't come to me with any cock-and-bull story like that—"
"Roscy, itisa lie. I was completely in the dark myself; but I won't touch a cent of it until your losses are squared, every dollar of them!"
"So that's the game, eh?" said Marsh, laughing. "Well you go plump to the devil!
"Roscy!" said Bojo, jumping up and seizing his arm. "At least let me square up what you lost. Hold up. Wait a second, don t go off half-cocked! Fred's got to be hauled out of this; it's not only bankruptcy, it's a darned sight worse—it's his word, his honor—a woman's money, too. You know him—he's weak, he won't stand up under it. Good God, you don't want me to have his life on my conscience?"
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to make Fred believe what I told you—it's the only way. If you play into the game he'll believe it. Good Lord, Roscy, this thing's bad enough as it is. You don't think I could profit one cent while you fellows were cleaned out by my own fault?"
"Look here," said Marsh, sitting down, "it isn't your fault. I gambled, that's all, and lost. I gambled before on your advice and won. Fifty-fifty, that's all. Now Fred's different. I'll admit it. You can do what you please with him; that's between you two. If you've got to make him believe I'm doing the same, to make him take the money—all right; but if you come around again to me with any such insulting proposition, Tom Crocker, there'll be trouble."
Bojo clasped and unclasped his hands in utter helplessness. Then he glanced at Granning.
"You've done what you could," said Granning, shaking his head.
"A rotten mess. I feel rotten," said Bojo slowly.
Marsh, relenting, clapped him on the shoulder affectionately. "Mighty white of you, Bojo—and don't think for a moment any one's blaming you!"
"I'm not sure how I feel myself," said Bojo slowly.
"Drake used you, Tom," said Granning quietly. "He'd figured out you'd be watched—the old decoy game."
"No, no," said Bojo warmly. "He did not, I'm sure of that. He particularly warned me not to do anything on my own hook without consulting him. It was my fault— I jumped at conclusions!"
Granning and Marsh laughed.
"By George, if I thought that!" said Bojo, rising up.
"Don't think anything," said Marsh quietly. "It's all in the game anyhow!" Suddenly he stopped and, the journalistic instinct awakening, said: "You say Drake bought Pittsburgh & New Orleans—what do you mean?"
"Bought control, of course, and sold it back at midnight to Gunther & Co. for a profit of ten millions."
"Repeat that," said Marsh, aghast. "Good Lord! What? When? Where was the sale? For God's sake, Bojo, don't you know you've got the biggest story of the year? Three-twenty now. It's 'good-night' to our composing-room at half past. Talk it fast and I can make it."
Hastily, under his prompting, Bojo recalled details and scraps of information. Three minutes later Marsh was at the telephone and they heard the shouted frantic orders.
"Morning Post?Who's on the long wait? Hill? Give him to me—on the jump. Damn it, this is Marsh! Hello, Ed? Hold your press men for an extra. We've got a smashing beat. Front page and the biggest head you can put on! Play it up for all you're worth. Ready: Dan Drake bought control...." The outlines in staccato, dramatic sentences, followed, then directions to get Gunther, Drake, Fontaine, and others on the wire. Then silence, and Marsh burst through the room and down the stairs in a racket that threatened to wake the house.
Granning and Bojo sat on, watching the restless, heavy figure on the couch, too feverishly awake forsleep, talking in broken phrases, while the white mists came into the room and the city began to wake. At four o'clock Doris called up from long distance. Bojo had completely forgotten her in the tension of the night and rather guiltily hastened to reassure her. Gladys was at her side, anxious to hear from Fred, to learn if she might come to his assistance, wondering why he had not sent her word—alarmed.
He invented a lie to clear the situation—a friend who was in desperate straits—with whom Fred was watching out the night.
At six o'clock DeLancy rose up suddenly, disheveled and haggard, staring at them, bewildered at the pressure of the straps. "What the devil's happened?"
Granning rose and released him. "You were rather obstreperous last night, young man," he said quietly. "We were afraid you might dent the fire-escape or carry off the mantel. How are you?"
"Oh, good God!" said DeLancy, sinking his head in his hands with a groan, suddenly recalling the pool.
"If you hadn't gone off like a bad Indian," said Bojo sternly, "you'd be celebrating in a different way." Then, as Fred without interest continued oblivious, he went over and struck him a resounding blow between the shoulders. "Wake up there. I've been trying to beat it into you all night. We haven't lost a cent. The pool went through like a charm. Drake fooled the whole bunch!"
"What—what do you mean?" said DeLancy, staring up.
"The running down was only the first step; thereal game was to buy up the control. All our selling short was just bluff, charged up to the expense account and nothing else."
"All bluff," repeated Fred in a daze. "I don't seem to understand. I can't get it."
"Well, get this then—feast your eyes on it," said Bojo, sitting beside him, his arm about his shoulder and the check held before his eyes. "That's profit—my part out of ten millions Drake cleaned up by selling out to the Gunther crowd. Listen." He repeated in detail the story of the night, adding: "Now do you see it? Every cent we lost bearing the stock goes to expenses—that's understood."
"You mean—" DeLancy rose, steadied himself, and lurched against a chair. "You mean what I lost—what I—"
"What you've lost and Louise's losses, too," said Bojo quickly—"every cent is paid by the pool. There wasn't the slightest question about that!"
"Is that the truth?"
"Yes."
Fred's sunken eyes rested on Bojo's an interminable moment, and the agony written on that fevered face steeled Crocker in his resolve. Presently DeLancy, as though convinced, turned away.
"Good Lord, I thought I was done for!" he said in a whisper. His lip trembled, he caught at his throat, and the next moment his racked body was shaken with convulsive sobs.
"Let yourself go, Fred; it's all right—everything's all right," said Bojo hastily. He left the den, nodding to Granning, and went to his bedroom. His bag was still on the bed, where he had thrown it unopened.He took out his clothes mechanically, feeling the weariness of the wasted night, and suddenly on the top of a folded jacket he found a card, in Patsie's writing; a few words only, timidly offered.
"I hope, oh, I do hope everything will come all right," and below these two lines that started reveries in his eyes, the signature was not Patsie, but Drina.
When he came into the den again after a hasty toilet, DeLancy had got hold of himself again.
"Better, old boy?" said Bojo, pulling his ear.
"If you knew—if you knew what I'd been through," said Fred with a quick breath.
"I know," said Bojo, shuddering instinctively. "Now let's get to business. You'll feel a lot better when you tidy up your bank account. What did you lose?"
"I say, Bojo," said DeLancy, avoiding his glance, "on your honor straight this is all right, isn't it?"
"Sure!"
"I ought to take it—there's no reason why—you're not telling me a fake story?"
"I certainly am not," said Bojo cheerily, taking up his check-book at the desk. "Come on now."
But DeLancy, unconvinced, still wavered.
"How about Roscy?" he said slowly, his eyes fixed, his mouth parted as though hanging on the answer.
"The same thing goes with Roscy, naturally," said Bojo, carelessly.
DeLancy drew a long breath and approached.
"How much? Confess up!"
"Twenty-seven thousand eight hundred."
Bojo restrained a start of amazement.
"Say twenty-eight flat," he said carefully. "Does that include Louise Varney's account?"
"Yes, everything," said DeLancy slowly. He stood at the desk, staring, while Bojo wrote a check, watching the traveling pen as though still incredulous.
"There you are, old rooster, and good luck," said Bojo.
"Here, I say, you've made it out for thirty-eight thousand, said DeLancy, taking the check.
"Ten thousand is profits, sure."
"Here, I say, that's not right. I couldn't take that—no, never, Bojo!"
"Shut up and be off with you!" said Bojo. "You don't think for a moment I'd use my friends and not see they got a share of the winnings, do you?"
"It doesn't seem right," said DeLancy again. He gazed at the check, a prey to conflicting desires.
"Rats!"
"I don't feel as though I ought to."
Bojo, watching his struggle with his conscience a moment, perceived the inherent weakness at the bottom of his nature, suddenly feeling a sense of distance intervening in the old friendship, sadly disillusioned. When he spoke, it was abruptly, as a superior:
"Shut up, Fred—you're going to take it, and that's all!
"How can I thank you?
"Don't."
He turned on his heel and went back to his room to hide the flash of scorn that came to his eyes. "Great Heavens," he thought, "is that the way men behave under great tests?"
But all at once he added, "And myself?"
For at the bottom there was an uneasy stirring feeling, awakened by the sudden incredulous laugh of his friends that had greeted his assertion of Drake's innocence, which was bringing him to a realization that he was to face a decision more profoundly significant to his own self-esteem than any he had yet confronted.
"Thank heaven for one thing—nothing happened to Fred! That's settled. I have nothing on my conscience," he said with a sigh. The ten thousand he had added represented in a confused way a tribute to that conscience, to those others, unknown and unvisualized, whom unwittingly he might have caused to suffer.
"Bojo!"
"Hello! What is it?"
He came out hurriedly at the sound of Granning's voice.
"Roscy on the 'phone.... What?... Good God!"
"What's that? What's happened?" he cried, as Fred came rushing out.
"Forshay—committed suicide—this morning—at his club—cut his throat!"