"No, child, you are wrong! There is no truth in your cruel words."
"No, child, you are wrong! There is no truth in your cruel words."
She dropped into a chair and sobbed. Jane knelt down by her side and, grasping her hands, spoke to her in low, pleading words:—
"No, child, you are wrong! You wronghim. He is not such a man. There is no truth in your cruel words."
"Yes, you have made him do dishonorable things. He has acted so his own family have left him. I know it isyou!" she sobbed. "He has done what you would have him do."
"Child, child!" Jane exclaimed impatiently, shaking gently the hands she held. "What do you mean by saying such a thing?"
"Hasn't he done all those bad things? He never denied it, not when he was accused in church before every one. And May said it was true."
She looked resentfully at Jane through her tears. The older woman still smiled at her and stroked her hands.
"But even if it were true,youmustn't take the part of his accusers! That isn't for a woman who loves him to do. You must trust him to the end."
Sarah looked at her and then at me. She pushed Jane from her quickly.
"Don't you defend him to me! You have stolen him! He loves you. I saw it once before, and I see it on your face now. I know it!"
"Come!" I said, taking Sarah by the arm and leading her away. "You don't know what you say."
"Yes, I do! You treat me like a child, Van! Why did you have to take him?" she turned and flamed out to Jane. "You have always had everything."
"Have I had everything?" the other woman questioned slowly, quietly, as if musing to herself. "Everything?Do you know all, child? Let me tell you one thing. Once I had a child—a son. One child! And he was born blind. He lived four months. Those were the only months I think I have ever lived. Do you think that I have hadallthe joy?"
She was stirred, at last, passionate, ironic, and Sarah looked at her with wondering surprise, with awe.
"You grudge me the three or four hours your husband has given me out of the ten years you have lived with him! You hate me because he has talked to me as he would talk to himself—as he would talk to you each day, if you could read the first letter of his mind. And if I love him? If he loves me? Would you deny yourself the little I have taken from you, his wife, if it were yours to take andmineto lose? But be content! Not one word of what you call love has passed between us, or ever will. Is that enough?"
They looked at each other with hate plainly written on their faces.
"You are a bad woman!" Sarah exclaimed brokenly.
"Am I? Think of this, then. I could take your husband—I could from this hour! But for his sake, forhissake, I will not.I will not!"
Sarah groaned, covering her eyes, while Jane walked rapidly out of the room. In a moment the carriage door clicked outside, and we were alone.
"You love that woman, Van!" Sarah's voice broke the silence between us with an accusing moan.
"Why say that—" I began, and stopped; for, after this hour, I knew what it was for one person to be closeto another. However, it seemed a foolish thing to be talking about. There would be no gain in going deeper into our hearts.
"There has never been a word between us that you should not hear," I replied; "and now let us say no more."
But Sarah shook her head, unconvinced.
"It is two years or more since I have seen Jane," I added.
"That makes no difference. Jane was right! You love her!" she repeated helplessly. "What shall we do?"
"Nothing!" I took her cold hands and sat down opposite her, drawing her nearer me. "Don't fear, my wife. They are going away again, I understand. She will go out of our life for always."
"I have my children," Sarah mused after a pause.
"We haveourchildren," I corrected. "And it's best to think of them before ourselves."
"Oh, if we could take them and go away to some little place, to live like my people down in Kentucky—you and me and the children!"
I smiled to myself at the thought. To run away was not just to pack a trunk, as Sarah thought!
"It would be impossible. Everything would go to pieces. I should lose pretty much all that we have—not only that, but a great many other people who have trusted me with their money would lose. I must work at least until there is no chance of loss for them."
"But aren't you a very rich man, Van?"
"Not so rich as I shall be some day! But I might make out to live in Kentucky, all the same."
"You think I must have a great deal of money?"
"I always want you to have all that money can get."
"To make up for what I can't have!" She burst into sobs. "I am so wretched, Van! Everything seems strange. I have tried to do what is right. But God must be displeased with me: He has taken from me the one thing I wanted."
That was a bitter thought to lie between husband and wife. I took her in my arms and comforted her, and together we saw that a way lay clear before us, doing our duty by one another and by our children, and in the end all would come out well. As we sat there together, it seemed to me as though there could be two loves in a man's life,—the love for the woman and her children, who are his to protect; and the hunger love at the bottom of the heart, which with most is never satisfied, and maybe never can be satisfied in this life.
So she was comforted and after a little time went to her room, more calm in spirit. Then I called my secretary, and we worked together until a late hour. When my mind came back to the personal question of living, the fire on the hearth had died into cold ashes and the house was still with the stillness of early morning. For the moment it came over me that the fight I was waging with fortune was as cold as these ashes and doomed to failure. And the end, what was it?
Upstairs, Sarah lay half dressed on the lounge in my room, asleep. The tears had dried where they had fallenon her cheeks and neck. Her hair hung down loosely as though she had not the will to put it up for the night. As she lay there asleep, in the disorder of her grief, I knew that the real sorrow of life was hers, not mine. The memory of that day of our engagement came back to me—when I had wished to protect and cover her from the hard things of life. And again, as that time, I longed to take her, the gentle heart so easily hurt, and save her from this sorrow, the worst that can come to a loving woman. As I kissed the stained face, she awoke and looked at me wonderingly, murmuring half asleep:—
"What is it, Van? What has happened? It is time for you to go to bed. I remember—something bad has happened. What is it, Van? Oh, I know now!"
She shuddered as I lifted her from the lounge.
"I remember now what it is. You love that woman, but I can't let you go. I can't bear it. I can't live without you!"
"That will never come so long as there is life for us both," I promised.
She drew her arm tight about my neck.
"Yes! You must love me a little always."
WAR
Wall street and the people of the country—Collateral—I decide to go home—Slocum finds that I am a patriot—I plan to enlist—Hardman once more—Claims—A midnight problem—The telegram
Wall street and the people of the country—Collateral—I decide to go home—Slocum finds that I am a patriot—I plan to enlist—Hardman once more—Claims—A midnight problem—The telegram
War! That was what was in the air those days. It had muttered on for months, giving our politicians at Washington something to mouth about in their less serious hours. Then came the sinking of theMainein Havana Harbor, and even Wall Street could see that the country was drifting fast into war. And in their jackal fashion, the men of Wall Street were trying to make money out of this crisis of their country, starting rumors from those high in authority to run the prices of their goods up and down. To those men who had honest interests at stake it was a terrible time for panic, for uncertainty. One could never guess what might happen over night.
But throughout the land, among the common people, the question at issue had been heard and judged. The farmer on his ranch, the laborer in his factory, the hand on the railroad—the men of the land up and down the States—had judged this question. When the time came their judgment got itself recorded; for any big questionis settled just that way by those men, not at Washington or in Wall Street.
The sick spirit of our nation needed just this tonic of a generous war, fought not for our own profit. It would do us good to give ourselves for those poor Cuban dogs. The Jew spirit of Wall Street doesn't rule this country, after all, and Wall Street doesn't understand that the millions in the land long to hustle sometimes for something besides their own bellies. So, although Wall Street groaned, I had a kind of faith that war would be a good thing, cost what it might.
And it might cost me the work of my life. Latterly, with the revival of trade, my enterprises had been prospering, and were emerging from that doubtful state where they were blown upon by every wind of the market. For the American Meat Products Company had kept its promise and was earning dividends. It had paid, in the past year, six per cent on the preferred stock, and, what with the big contracts we were getting from the Government just now, it would earn something on the common. So far very little of our stock had come upon the market, although the period covered by the agreement among the stockholders not to sell their holdings had passed. In spite of Mr. Dround's threats, there was no evidence that he had disposed of his stock up to this time. It was probable that when he saw what a good earner the company had proved to be, he had reconsidered his scruples, as he had done years before in the matter of private agreements and rebates.
And that rag of a railroad out of Kansas City, whichFarson and his friends found left on their hands in the panic times of '93, now reached all the way to the Gulf and was spreading fast into a respectable system. After Farson had withdrawn his help at the time of our disagreement, we had interested a firm of bankers in New York, and, one way and another, had built and equipped the road. A few years of good times, and all this network of enterprises would be beyond attack. Meanwhile, I was loaded down to the water's edge with the securities of these new companies, and had borrowed heavily at home and in the East in the effort to push through my plans.
This was my situation on that eventful day when the news of the sinking of theMainewas telegraphed over the country, and even gilt-edged securities began to tumble, to slide downhill in a mad whirl. In such times collateral shrank like snow before a south wind.
All the morning I had sat in my office with a telephone at my ear, and it seemed to me that but one word came from it—Collateral! collateral! Where was it to be had? Finally, I hung up the receiver of my telephone and leaned back in my chair, dazed by the mad whirl along which I was being carried. My secretary opened the door and asked if I would see So-and-so and the next man. A broker was clamoring to get at me. They all wanted one thing—money. Their demands came home to me faintly, like the noise of rain on a window.
"Jim," I said to the man, "I am tired. I am going home."
"Going home?" he gasped, not believing his ears.
"Tell 'em all I am going home! Tell 'em anything you want to."
While the young man was still staring at me, Slocum burst past him into the room. Even his impassive face was twisted into a scowl of fear.
"Harris is out there," he said hurriedly. "He says some one is selling Meat Products common and preferred. Big chunks of it are coming on the market, and the price has dropped fifteen points during the morning."
I said nothing. Anything was to be expected in this whirlwind.
"Do you suppose it's Dround's stock?" he asked.
"Perhaps," I nodded. "It don't make much difference to us whose it is."
"We can't let this go on."
"I guess it will have to go on," I replied listlessly.
Slocum looked at me wonderingly. He had seen me crawl out of a good many small holes, and he was waiting for the word of action now.
"Well?" he asked at last.
"I am going home." I got up and took his arm. "Come along with me, old man. I want to get out of this noise."
The elevator dropped us into the hurly-burly of the street. Men were hurrying in and out of the brokers' offices, where the last reports for the day were coming in.
"D—n this war!" Slocum swore, as I paused to buy a paper.
"Don't say that, Slo!" I protested. "This war is a great thing, and every decent American ought to be proud of his country, by thunder! I am."
The lawyer looked at me as if my head had suddenly gone back on me.
"I mean it. I tell you, Slo, nations are like men. They have their work to do in this life. When it comes to an issue like this, they can't shirk any more than a man can. If they do, it will be worse for them. This war will do us good, will clean us and cure us for a good long time of this cussed, little peevish distemper we have been through since '93. That was just selfish introspection. This fight for Cuba will bring us all together. We'll work for something better than our bellies. There's nothing so good as a dose of real patriotism once in a while."
"Van, you ought to be in the Senate!" he jeered.
"Perhaps I shall be there one of these days, when I have finished this other job."
The idea seemed to strike him humorously.
"You think it might be hard work for me to prove my patriotism to the people? Don't you believe it. The people don't remember slander long. And those things you and I have done which have set the newspapers talking don't worry anybody. They are just the tricks of the game."
So we sauntered on through the streets that March afternoon, discussing, like two schoolboys, patriotism and government; while back in the office we had left white-faced men were clamoring for a word with me, seeking to find out whether I was to go under at last.
"Well," Slocum finally asked, as he was leaving me, "what are you going to do about this pinch?"
"There's nothing to be done to-night. I'm going to read the papers and see what they say about the war. I am going home. Perhaps to-morrow it will be all over. Lordy! We'll make a tolerable big smash when we go down!"
"Get some sleep!" was Slocum's advice.
The papers were red-hot with the war spirit, and they did me good. Somehow, I was filled with a strange gladness because of the war. Pride in the people of my country, who could sacrifice themselves for another people, swelled my heart. Where could you read of a finer thing in all history than the way the people's wrath had compelled the corrupt, self-seeking politicians in Washington to do their will—to strike an honest blow, to redeem a suffering people! It comes not often in any man's life to feel himself one of a great nation when it arises in a righteous cause with all the passion of its seventy millions. Let the panic wipe out my little pile of money. Let the war break up the dreams of my best years—I would not for that selfish cause stay its course. It made a man feel clean to think there was something greater in life than himself and his schemes.
To-day I should like to slip back once more to the bum that landed in Chicago—unattached, unburdened, unbound.
To-day I should like to slip back once more to the bum that landed in Chicago—unattached, unburdened, unbound.
I walked on and on in the March twilight, leaving behind me the noisy city, and the struggle of the market. Why not go myself—why not enlist? I suddenly asked of myself. The very thought of it made me throw up my head. Slocum could gather up the fragments as wellas I, and there would be enough left in any case for the children and Sarah. Better that fight than this! When the President issued a call for volunteers, maybe I could raise a regiment from our men.
The street was shadowed by the solid houses of the rich, the respectable stone and brick palaces of the "captains of industry," each big enough to house a dozen Jasonville families. I looked at them with the eyes of a stranger, as I had the day when I roamed Chicago in search of a job. Perhaps I had envied these men then; but small comfort had I ever had from all the wealth I had got out of the city. Food and drink, a place to sleep in, some clothes—comfort for my wife and children—what else? To-day I should like to slip back once more to the bum that landed in Chicago—unattached, unburdened, unbound....
I let myself into the silent house. Sarah and the children were at our place in Vermilion County, where I had a house and two thousand acres of good land, to which I escaped for a few days now and then. I had my dinner and was smoking a cigar when a servant brought me word that a man was waiting to see me below. When I went into the hall I saw a figure standing by the door, holding his hat in his hands. In the dim light I could not make out his face and asked him to step into the library, where I turned on the light. It was the preacher Hardman.
"What do you want?" I asked in some surprise.
"I suppose I ought not to trouble you here at this hour, Mr. Harrington," he said timidly. "But I am much worried. You remember that investment you were kind enough to make for me a few years ago?"
His question recalled to my mind the fact that he had given me a little inheritance which had come to his wife,asking me to invest it for him. I had put it into some construction bonds.
"What about it?" I asked.
He stammered out his story. Some one had told him that I was in a bad shape; he had also read a piece in the paper about the road, and he had become scared. It had not occurred to him to sell his bonds before he preached that little sermon at me; but, now that my sins were apparently about to overtake me, he wished to save his little property from destruction.
"Why don't you sell?" I asked.
"I have tried to," he admitted, "but the price offered me is very low."
I laughed at the fellow's simple egotism.
"So you thought I might take your bonds off your hands? Got them there?"
"My wife thought, as your—" he stammered. I waived his excuse aside.
He drew the bonds from his coat pocket. As I sat down to write a check I said jokingly:—
"Better hustle round to the bank to-morrow and get your cash."
"I trust you are not seriously incommoded by this panic," he remarked inquiringly.
"Gold's the thing these days!" I laughed.
(The cashier at the bank told me afterward that Hardman made such a fuss when he went to cash his check that they actually had to hand him out six thousand dollars in gold coin.)
The preacher man had no more than crawled out withprofuse words of thanks than I had another caller. This time it was a young doctor of my acquaintance. He was trying to put on an indifferent air, as if he had been used to financial crises all his life. He had his doubts in his eyes, however, and I took him into my confidence.
"If you possibly can, stick to what you have got. It may take a long time for prices to get back to the right place, but this tumble is only temporary. Have faith—faith in your judgment, faith in your country!"
I knew something of his story, of the hard fight he had made to get his education, of his marriage and his wife's sickness, with success always put off into the future. He had brought me his scrapings and savings, and I had made the most of them.
When at last the doctor had gone away somewhat reassured, I sat down to think. There were a good many others like these two—little people or well-to-do, who had put their faith in me and had trusted their money to my enterprises. Not much, each one; but in every case a cruel sum to lose. They had brought me their savings, their legacies, because they knew me or had heard that I had made money rapidly. Could I leave them now?
It was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram.
It was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram.
I might be willing to go off to Cuba and see my own fortune fade into smoke. But how about their money? No—it was not a simple thing just to go broke by one's self. To-morrow my office would be crowded by these followers, and there would be letters and telegrams from those who couldn't get there. So back to the old problem! I rested my head on my hands and went over in my mind the situation, the amount of my loans, the eternal question of credit—where to get a handhold to stay me while the whirlwind passed, as I knew it must pass.
Hour after hour I wrestled with myself. Ordinarily I could close my eyes on any danger and get the sleep that Nature owes every hard-working sinner. But not to-night. I sat with my hands locked, thinking. Along about midnight there sounded in the silent house a ring at the door-bell: it was a messenger boy with a delayed telegram. I tore it open and read:—
"Remember my letter." It was dated from Washington, and was not signed.
THE LAST DITCH
Romantic folly—The impulse that comes from beyond our sight—I go to seek Mr. Carboner—An unpromising location for a banker—I receive advice and help—Dickie Pierson gets an order from me—What is Strauss's game?
Romantic folly—The impulse that comes from beyond our sight—I go to seek Mr. Carboner—An unpromising location for a banker—I receive advice and help—Dickie Pierson gets an order from me—What is Strauss's game?
The yellow paper lay in my hand, and, with a flash, my memory went back to that mysterious note which Jane Dround had sent on the eve of her departure for Europe. It lay undisturbed in a drawer of my office desk. I smiled impatiently at the woman's folly—of the letter, the telegram. And yet it warmed my heart that she should be thinking of me this day, that she should divine my troubles. And I seemed to see her dark eyebrows arched with scorn at my weakness, her thin lips curl disdainfully, as if to say: "Was this to be your finish? Have I helped you, believed in you, all these years, to have you fall now?" So she had spoken.
But still I was unconvinced, and in this state of mind I went back to bed, knowing that I should need on the morrow what sleep I could get. But sleep did not come: instead, my mind busied itself with Jane Dround's letter—with the woman herself. As the night grew toward morning I arose, dressed myself, and left the house. The letter in my office pulled me like a thread of fate; and Iobeyed its call like a child. In the lightening dawn I hurried through the streets to the lofty building where the Products Company had its offices, and groped my way up the long flights of stairs. As I sat down at my desk and unlocked the drawers, the morning sun shot in from the lake over the smoky buildings beneath me. After some hunting I found the letter. Mrs. Dround wrote a peculiar hand—firm, clear, unchangeable, but with curious tiny flourishes about ther's ands's.
As I glanced at it, the woman herself rose before my eyes, and she sat across the desk from me, looking into my face. "Yes, I need you," I found myself muttering; "not any letter, butyou, with your will and your courage, now, if ever. For this is the last ditch, sure enough!"
The letter shook in my hand and beat against the desk. It was a silly thing to leave my bed and come chasing down here at five in the morning to get hold of a romantic woman's letter! My nerves were wrong. Something in me revolted from going any further with this weakness, and I still hesitated to tear open the envelope. The other battles of my life I had won unaided.
At the bottom of our hearts there is a feeling which we do not understand, a respect for the unknown. Terror, fear,—call it what you will,—sometime in life every one is made to feel it. All my life has been given to practical facts, yet I know that at the end of all things there are no facts. In the silence and gray light of that morning I felt the strong presence of my friend, holding out to me a hand.... I tore open the letter. Inside wasanother little envelope, which contained a visiting-card. On it was written: "Mr. J. Carboner, 230 West Lake Street," and beneath, in fine script, this one sentence: "Mr. Carboner is a good adviser—see him!"
"For this is the last ditch, sure enough!"
"For this is the last ditch, sure enough!"
This was fit pay for my folly. Of all the sentimental nonsense, an adviser! What was wanted was better than a million dollars of ready cash—within three hours. It was now half-past six o'clock, and I had left until half-past nine to find an ordinary, practical way out of my present difficulties. Then the banks would be open; the great wheel of business would begin to revolve, with its sure, merciless motion. Nevertheless, in spite of my scepticism, my eyes wandered to a map of the city that hung on the wall, and I made out the location of the address given on the card. It was a bare half-mile across the roofs from where I sat, in a quarter of the city lying along the river, given up to brick warehouses, factories, and freight yards. Small likelihood that a man with a million to spare in his pocket was to be found over there!
In this mood of depression and disgust I left my office, to get shaved. "Street floor, sir," the elevator boy called out to wake me from my preoccupation. As I stood on the curb in the same will-less daze, a cab came prowling down the street, crossed to my side, and the disreputable-looking driver touched his dirty hat with his whip:—
"Cab, sir?"
"Two-thirty West Lake," I said to him mechanically, and plunged into his carriage.
The cab finally drew up beside a low, grimy brick building that looked as if it might have survived the fire. There was a flight of dirty stairs leading from the street to the office floor, and over the small, old-fashioned windows a faded sign read "Jules Carboner." In response to my knock an old man opened the locked door a crack and looked out at me. When I asked to see Mr. Carboner, he admitted me suspiciously to a little room, which was divided in two by a high iron screen. On the inner side of the screen there was a battered desk, a few chairs, and a row of leather-backed folios that might have been in use since the founding of the city. A small coal fire was burning dully in the grate. As I stood waiting for Mr. Carboner, a barge laden with lumber cast its shadow through the dirty windows....
"And what may you want of me?"
The words were uttered like a cough. The one who spoke them had entered the inner office so noiselessly that I had not heard him. He had a white head of hair, and jet-black eyes. I handed him my card with Mrs. Dround's note.
"I was expecting you," the old gentleman remarked, glancing indifferently at my card. He unlocked the door of the iron grating and held it open, pointing to a chair in front of the fire. Mr. Carboner was short and round, with swarthy, full-blooded cheeks. Evidently he was some sort of foreigner, but I could not place him among the types of men I knew.
"What do you want of me?" he demanded briskly.
"Oh, just a lot of money, first and last!" I laughed.
This announcement didn't seem to trouble him; he waited for my explanation. And remembering that I was to look to him for advice as well as cash, I proceeded to explain briefly the situation that I found myself in. He listened without comment.
"Finally," I said rather wearily, "just now, when I am in deep water with this railroad and all the rest, and the banks calling my loans, some fellows are selling their Meat Products stock. It will all go to my enemies—to Strauss and his crowd, and I shall find myself presently kicked out of the company. I suppose it's Mr. Dround's stock that's coming on the market. It's like him to sell when prices are going down."
The little old fellow shook his head.
"It is not Mr. Dround's stock," he said. "Most of that is over there." He nodded his head in the direction of a small safe which stood in one corner of the room.
"How did you get it?" I exclaimed in my astonishment, jumping to my feet.
"Never mind how—we have had it three months," he replied with a smile. "You need not fear that it will come on the market just now."
My heart gave a great bound upward: with this block of stock locked up I could do what I would with Meat Products. Strauss could never put his hands on it. Jane Dround must have worked this stroke; but how she did it was a mystery. I walked back and forth in my excitement, and when I sat down once more Mr. Carboner began a neat little summary of my situation:—
"You are engaged in many ventures. Some arestrong." He named all the good ones as if he were quoting from a carefully drawn report. "Some are weak." He named the others. "Now, you are trying to hold the weak with the strong. It is like carrying a basket of eggs on your head. All goes well until some one runs against you. Then bum, biff!—you have the beginning of an omelet."
His way of putting it made me laugh.
"And the omelet is about ready to cook in an hour or two!" I added.
"We shall see presently. You want to sell out this packing business, some day, eh? To Strauss? You take big chances. You are a new man. They suspect you. They call your loans. They think that you are thin in the waist? You have to borrow a great deal of money and pay high for it?"
"You have sized me up, Mr. Carboner."
"And after you have sold to Strauss there will be railroads—ah, that is more difficult! And then many other things—always ventures, risks, schemes, plans, great plans! For you are very bold."
"Well, what will you do for me?" I asked bluntly.
"I think we can carry you over this river, Mr. Harrington," he replied, looking at me with a very amiable air, as if he were my schoolmaster and had decided to give me a holiday and some spending money. Who made up the "we" in this firm of Rip Van Winkle bankers? Carboner seemed to divine my doubts; for he smiled as he reached for a pad of paper and began to write in a close, crabbed hand.
"Take that to Mr. Bates," he directed. "You know him, eh?"
Did I know Orlando Bates! If I had been to him once at the Tenth National, of which he was president, I had been to him fifty times, with varying results. I knew every wrinkle in his parchment-covered face.
"He will give you what you want," the old man added.
I still hesitated, holding Carboner's scrawl in my hand.
"You think it no good?" He motioned to the sheet of coarse paper. "Try it!"
"Don't you want a receipt?" I stammered.
"What for? Do you think I am a pawnbroker?"
The mystery grew. Suppose I should take this old fellow's scrawl over to Orlando Bates, and the president of the Tenth National should ask me what it meant?
"It is good," Carboner said impressively.
"Whose is it?" The words escaped me unconsciously. "I want to know whose money I am taking."
"I hope it will be no one's," he answered imperturbably, "except the bank's. You come to me wanting money, credit. I give it to you. I ask no questions. Why should you?"
Was it a woman's money I was taking to play out my game. I recalled the story Sarah had told me years ago about Jane Dround's father and his fortune. He was a rich old half-breed trader, and it was gossiped that he had left behind him a pile of gold. Perhaps this Mr. Carboner was some French-Canadian, friend or businesspartner of Jane's father, who had charge of her affairs. As Sarah had said, Jane Dround was always secret and uncommunicative about herself. My faith in the piece of paper was growing, but I still waited.
"If you lay these matters down now," Carboner observed coldly, poking the fire with an old pair of tongs, "they will be glass. If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become diamonds."
"If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become diamonds."
"If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become diamonds."
But to take a woman's money! I thought for a moment—and then dismissed the scruple as swiftly as it had come. This woman was a good gambler!
"All right!" I exclaimed, drawing on my overcoat, which I had laid aside.
"Good! Don't worry about anything. Make your trees bear fruit. That is what you can do, young man." Old Carboner patted me on the back in a fatherly fashion. "Now we will have some coffee together. There is yet time."
The man who had opened the door for me brought in two cups of strong coffee, and I drank mine standing while Carboner sipped his and talked.
"This disturbance will be over soon," he said sagely. "Then we shall have such times of wealth and speculation as the world has never seen. Great things will be done in a few years, and you will do some of them. There are those who have confidence in you, my son. And confidence is worth many millions in gold."
He gave me his hand in dismissal.
"Come to see me again, and we will talk," he added sociably.
On the ground floor of my building there was a broker's office. It was a new firm of young men, without much backing. My old friend, Dickie Pierson, was one of them, and on his account I had given the firm some business now and then. This morning, as I was hurrying back to my office, I ran into Dick standing in the door of his place. He beckoned me into the room where the New York quotations were beginning to go up on the board. He pointed to the local list of the day before; Meat Products stretched in a long string ofquotations across the board, mute evidence of yesterday's slaughter.
"What's wrong with your concern?" Dick asked anxiously. "Some one is pounding it for all he is worth."
"Who were selling yesterday?"
"Stearns & Harris," he answered. (They were brokers that Strauss's crowd were known to use.)
There was a mystery here somewhere. For there could not be any considerable amount of the stock loose, now that Dround's block was locked up in Jules Carboner's safe. Yet did the Strauss crowd dare to sell it short in this brazen way? They must think it would be cheap enough soon, or they knew where they could get some stock when they wanted it.
"What's up?" Dick asked again, hovering at my elbow. I judged that he had gone into Meat Products on his own account, and wanted to know which way to jump.
"It looks bad for us," I said confidentially to Dickie. "You needn't publish this on the street." (I reckoned that the tip would be on the ticker before noon.) "But Dround has gone over to the other crowd. And probably some of our people are squeezed just now so they can't hold their Meat Products." I added some yarn about a lawsuit to make doubly sure of Dickie, and ordered him to sell a few hundred shares on my own account as a clincher.
When I reached my telephone I called up some brokers that I trusted and told them to watch the market forMeat Products stock, and pick it up quietly, leading on the gang that was pounding our issues all they could. An hour later, on my way back from the Tenth National, where I had had a most satisfactory interview with Mr. Orlando Bates, I dropped in at Dickie Pierson's place. Meat Products shares were active, and in full retreat across the broad board.
"I guess you had better sell some more for me," I said to Dickie. "Sell a thousand to-morrow."
VICTORY
The shorts are caught—Big John comes to my office to get terms—An exchange of opinions—An alliance proposed—I reject it—My enemies are flattering—I have arrived
The shorts are caught—Big John comes to my office to get terms—An exchange of opinions—An alliance proposed—I reject it—My enemies are flattering—I have arrived
They sent old John Carmichael around to treat with me. He had to come to the office the same as any other man who had a favor to ask. Slocum and I and two or three others who were close to us were there waiting for him, and discussing the terms we should give.
"They must be short in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand shares common and preferred the best we can make out," Slocum reported, after conferring with our brokers. "How did you have the nerve, Van, to run this corner when you knew Dround's stock was loose?"
"It isn't loose," I answered.
"Where is it, then? We know pretty well where every other share is, but his block has dropped out of the market. It was transferred to some New York parties last October."
I smiled tranquilly. There had been no leak in our barrel. Slocum and I had been around to all the other large holders of Meat Products, and I knew they would not go back on us. The Strauss crowd would find the corner invulnerable.
When Carmichael came in he nodded to me familiarly, just as he used to at Dround's when he had been away on a trip to New York or some place, and called out gruffly:—
"Say! I told them you were a bad one to go up against. Say, Harrington, do you remember how you scalped poor old McGee back in the days when you were doing odd jobs at Dround's? Well, I came over here to see what you want for your old sausage shop, anyway."
With that gibe at my start in the packing business he settled back in his chair and pulled out a cigar.
"I don't know that we are anxious to sell, John," I replied.
"What? That talk don't go. I know you want to get out mighty bad. What's your figure?"
"You fellows have given us a lot of trouble, first and last," I mused tranquilly. "There was that injunction business over the London and Chicago Company, and the squeeze by the banks. You have tried every dirty little game you knew."
Carmichael grinned and smoked.
"I suppose you want our outfit to turn out some more rotten canned stuff for the Government. What you sold them isn't fit for a Chinaman to eat, John." Thereupon I reached into a drawer of my desk and brought out a tin of army beef marked with the well-known brand of the great Strauss. I proceeded to open it, and as soon as the cover was removed a foul odor offended our nostrils. "Here's a choice specimen one of our boys got for me."
Carmichael smoked on placidly.
"That is something we have never done, though we couldn't make anything on our contract at the figures you people set. And little of the business we got, anyway! Strauss ought to be put where he'd have to feed off his own rations."
So we sat and scored one another comfortably for a time, and then came to business. The terms that Slocum and I had figured out were that Strauss and his crowd should pay us in round numbers two hundred dollars per share preferred and common alike, allowing every shareholder the same terms. Carmichael leaped to his feet when he heard the figures.
"You're crazy mad, Van," he swore volubly. Then he stated his plan, which was, in brief, that we should make an alliance with the great Strauss and sell him at "reasonable figures" an interest in our company.
"And let you and Strauss freeze out my friends? Not for one minute! Go back and tell your boss to find that stock he's short of."
Carmichael threw us an amused glance.
"Do you think that's worrying us? If you want a fight, I guess we can give you some trouble."
It seems that they had another club behind their backs, and that was a suit, which they were instigating the Attorney-general to bring against the Meat Products Company for infringing the Illinois anti-trust act. The impudence and boldness of this suggestion angered me.
"All right," I said. "You have our figure, John."
He left us that day, but he came the next morning with new proposals from his master. They were anxiousto have a peaceable settlement. I had known for some time that these men were preparing for an astonishing move, which was nothing less than a gigantic combination of all the large food-product industries of the country, and they could not leave us as a thorn in their side. They must annex us, cost what it might.
So now they talked of my ability, of what I had done in making a great business out of a lot of remnants, and they wanted to buy me as well as our company, offering me some strong inducements to join them. But I told Carmichael shortly:—
"I will never work with Strauss in this life. It's no use your talking, John. There isn't enough money coined to bring me to him. You must buy our stock outright—and be quick about it, too."
He could not understand my feeling, and it was not reasonable. But all these years of desperate fight there had grown up in my heart a hatred of my enemy beyond the usual cold passions of business. I hated him as a machine, as a man,—as a cruel, treacherous, selfish, unpatriotic maker of dollars.
So in the end they came to my terms, and the lawyers set to work on the papers. The Strauss interests were to take over the Meat Products stock at our figure, and also the Empress Line, our private-car enterprise, and two or three smaller matters that had grown up in connection with the packing business. When Slocum and I went on to New York to finish the transaction, Sarah and the girls accompanied us, on their way to Europe, where they were going for a pleasure trip.