said the King of the Street grimly.
"One thing," I said, "I"d like to know if I"m the only one operating for you."
The King of the Street drew his bushy brows down over his eyes and scowled at me a moment.
"You"re the only one in the big Board," he said at last. "There are men in the other Boards, you understand."
I thought I understood, and sallied forth for the battle. At Doddridge Knapp"s suggestion I arranged to do my business through three brokers, and added Lattimer and Hobart to Wallbridge, and Bockstein and Eppner.
Bockstein greeted me affably:
"Velgome to de marget vonce more, Mr.--, Mr.--"
"Wilton," said Eppner, a.s.sisting his partner in his high, dry voice, with cold civility. His blue-black eyes regarded me as but a necessary part of the machinery of commerce.
I gave my orders briefly.
"Dot is a larch order," said Bockstein dubiously.
"You don"t have to take it," I was about to retort, when Eppner"s high-pitched voice interrupted:
"It"s all right. The customary margin is enough."
Wallbridge was more enthusiastic.
"You"ve come just in the nick of time," said the stout little man, swabbing his bald head from force of habit, though the morning was chill. "The market has been drier than a fish-horn and duller than a foggy morning. You saved me from a trip to Los Angeles. I should have been carried off by my wife in another day."
"You have got Gradgrind"s idea of a holiday," I laughed.
"Gradgrind, Gradgrind?" said the little man reflectively. "Don"t know him. He"s not in the market, I reckon. Oh, I"m death on holidays! I come near dying every day the Board doesn"t meet. When it shut up shop after the Bank of California went to the wall, I was just getting ready to blow my brains out for want of exercise, when they posted the notice that it was to open again."
I laughed at the stout broker"s earnestness, and told him what I wanted done.
"Whew!" he exclaimed, "you"re in business this time, sure. Well, this is just in my line."
Lattimer and Hobart, after a polite explanation of their rules in regard to margins, and getting a certified check, became obsequiously anxious to do my bidding.
I distributed the business with such judgment that I felt pretty sure our plans could not in any way be exposed, and took my place at the rail in the Boardroom.
The opening proceedings were comparatively tame. I detected a sad falling-off in the quality and quant.i.ty of lung power and muscular activity among the buyers and sellers in the pit.
At the call of Confidence, Lattimer and Hobart began feeding shares to the market. Confidence dropped five points in half a minute, and the pit began to wake up. There was a roar and a growl that showed me the animals were still alive.
The Decker forces were taken by surprise, but with a hasty consultation came gallantly to the rescue of their stock. At the close of the call they had forced it back and one point higher than at the opening.
This, however, was but a skirmish of outposts. The fighting began at the call of Crown Diamond.
It opened at sixty-three. The first bid was hardly made when with a bellow Wallbridge charged on Decker"s broker, filled his bid, and offered a thousand shares at sixty-two.
There was an answering roar from a hundred throats and a mob rushed on Wallbridge with the apparent intent of tearing him limb from limb.
Wallbridge"s offer was snapped up at once, but a few weak-kneed holders of the stock threw small blocks on the market.
These were taken up at once, and Decker"s brokers were bidding sixty-five.
At this Eppner gave a blast like a cornet, and, waving his arms frantically, plunged into a small-sized riot. I had entrusted him with five thousand shares of Crown Diamond to be sold for the best price possible, and he was feeding the opposition judiciously. The price wavered for a moment, but rallied and reached sixty-six.
At this I signaled to Wallbridge, and with another bellow he started an opposition riot on the other side of the room from Eppner, and fed Crown Diamond in lumps to the howling forces of the Decker combination.
The battle was raging furiously.
I had no wish to break the price of the stock. I was intent only at selling shares at a good price, but I had convinced the Decker forces that there was a raid on the stock, and they had rallied to protect it at whatever cost.
The price see-sawed between sixty-six and sixty-five, and amid a tumult of yells and shouts I sold twelve thousand shares. At last they were gone, but the offers still continued.
Outsiders had become scared at the persistent selling, and were trying to realize before a break should come, and in spite of Decker"s efforts the price ran down to sixty.
There was a final rally of the Decker forces, and the call closed with Crown Diamond at sixty-three.
I was pleased at the result. Doddridge Knapp had intrusted me with the shares with the remark, "I paid fifty for "em and they"re not worth a tinker"s dam. I got an inside look at the mine when I was in Virginia City. Feed Decker all he"ll take at sixty. He"s been fooled on the thing, and I reckon he"ll buy a good lot of them at that."
I had sold Doddridge Knapp"s entire lot of the stock at an average of over sixty-five, had netted him a profit of fifteen dollars a share, and had, for a second purpose, served the plan of campaign by drawing the enemy"s resources to the defense of Crown Diamond and weakening, by so much, his power of operating elsewhere.
By the time Omega was reached I had the plans fully in hand.
The a.s.sault on Crown Diamond had caused a nervous feeling all along the line, and under rumors of a bear raid there had been a drop of several points.
Omega felt the results of the nervousness and depression, and opened at seventy-five.
There was a moment"s buzz--the quiet of a crowd expectant of great events. Then Wallbridge charged into the throng with a roar. I could not distinguish his words, but I knew that he was carrying out my order to drop five thousand shares on the market. At his cry there was an answering roar, and the scene upon the floor turned to a riot. Men rushed hither and thither, screaming, shouting, waving their arms, pushing, jostling, tearing each other to get into the midst of the throng, whirling about, mobbing first one and then another of the leather-lunged leaders who furnished at each moment fresh centers for the outbreak of disorder. How the market was going, I could only guess.
At Wallbridge"s onset I saw Lattimer and Eppner make a dive for him and then separate, following other shouting, screaming madmen who pirouetted about the floor and tried to save themselves from a mobbing. I heard seventy shouted from one direction, but could not make out whether it set the price of the stock or not. The din was too confusing for me to follow the course of events.
At last Wallbridge staggered up to the rail, flushed, collarless and panting for breath, with his hat a hopeless wreck.
"We"ve done it!" he gasped in my ear. "The dogs of war are making the fur fly down here, you bet! Don"t you wish you was in it?"
"No, I don"t!" I shouted decidedly. "How does it go?"
"I sold down to seventy-one--average seventy-three, I guess--and she"s piling in fit to break the floor."
"Did Lattimer and Eppner get your stock?" I could not help asking.
"They got about three thousand of it. Rosenheim got the rest."
I remembered Rosenheim as the agent of Decker, and sighed. But Lattimer and Eppner were busy, and I had hopes.
"Where is it now?" I asked.
"Sixty-nine and a half."