But that"s your end of the business. It"s up to you to get around the Interstate Commerce Commission in any way you can, and b.u.t.tress this little monopoly against compet.i.tion and reform-infected legislatures.
I don"t care what it costs."
"What about Crabbe?" asked Hood dubiously.
"We"ll send Crabbe to the Senate," Ames coolly replied.
"You seem to forget that senators are now elected by the people, Mr.
Ames."
"I forget nothing, sir. The people are New York City, Buffalo, and Albany. Tammany is New York. And Tammany at present is in my pocket.
Buffalo and Albany can be swept by the Catholic vote. And I have that in the upper right hand drawer of my private file. The "people" will therefore elect to the Senate the man I choose. In fact, I prefer direct election of senators over the former method, for the people are greater fools _en ma.s.se_ than any State Legislature that ever a.s.sembled."
He took up another letter from the pile on his desk and glanced through it. "From Borwell," he commented. "Protests against the way you nullified the Glaze-Ba.s.sett red-light injunction bill. Pretty clever, that, Hood. I really didn"t think it was in you."
"Invoking the referendum, you mean?" said Hood, puffing a little with pride.
"Yes. But for that, the pa.s.sage of the bill would have wiped out the whole red-light district, and quartered the rents I now get from my shacks down there. Now next year we will be better prepared to fight the bill. The press will be with us then--a little cheaper and a trifle more degraded than it is to-day."
A private messenger entered with a cablegram. Ames read it and handed it to his lawyer. "The _Proteus_ has reached the African Gold Coast at last," he said. Then he threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Do you know, Hood, the _Proteus_ carried two missionaries, sent to the frizzle-topped Zulus by Borwell and his outfit. Deutsch and Company cable that they have arrived."
"But," said Hood in some perplexity, "the cargo of the _Proteus_ was rum!"
"Just so," roared Ames; "that"s where the joke comes in. I make it a point that every ship of mine that carries a missionary to a foreign field shall also carry a cargo of rum. The combination is one that the Zulu finds simply irresistible!"
"So," commented Hood, "the Church goes down to Egypt for help!"
"Why not?" returned Ames. "I carry the missionaries free on my rum boats. Great saving to the Board of Foreign Missions, you know."
Hood looked at the man before him in undisguised admiration of his cunning. "And did you likewise send missionaries to China with your opium cargoes?" he asked.
Ames chuckled. "I once sent Borwell himself to Hongkong on a boat loaded to the rails with opium. We had insisted on his taking a needed vacation, and so packed him off to Europe. In Bombay I cabled him to take the _Crotus_ to Hongkong, transportation free. That was my last consignment of opium to China, for restrictions had already fallen upon our very Christian England, and the opium traffic was killed. I had plans laid to corner the entire opium business in India, and I"d have cleaned up a hundred million out of it, but for the pressure of public sentiment. However, we"re going to educate John Chinaman to subst.i.tute whiskey for opium. But now," glancing at the great electric wall clock, "I"ve wasted enough time with you. By the way, do you know why this Government withheld recognition of the Chinese Republic?"
"No," replied Hood, standing in antic.i.p.ation.
"Thirty thousand chests of opium," returned Ames laconically. "Value, fifty million dollars."
"Well?"
"Ames and Company had advanced to the English banks of Shanghai and Hongkong half this amount, loaned on the opium. That necessitated a few plain words from me to the President, and a quick trip from Washington to London afterwards to interview his most Christian British Majesty. A very pleasant and profitable trip, Hood, very! Now tell Willett I want him."
Hood threw his chief another look of intense admiration, and left the room. Willett"s entrance followed immediately.
"Get Lafelle here some time to-day when I have a vacant hour,"
commanded Ames. "Cable to acting-Bishop Wenceslas, of Cartagena, and ask him if an American mining company is registered there under the name of Simiti Development Company, and what properties they have and where located. Tell him to cable reply, and follow with detailed letter."
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "The Congregation of the Sacred Index has laid the ban on--what"s the name of the book?" He drew out a card-index drawer and selected a card, which he tossed to the secretary. "There it is. Get me the book at once." He seemed to muse a while, then went on slowly. "Carlos Madero, of Mexico, is in New York. Learn where he is staying, and arrange an interview for me.
Wire Senator Wells, Washington, that the bill for a Children"s Bureau must not be taken from the table. That"s final. Wire the Sequana Coal Company that I want their report to-morrow, without fail. Wire Collins, at Avon, to tell the Spinners" Union I have nothing to discuss with them. Now send Hodson in."
As Hood was chief of the Ames legal department, and Willett the chief of his army of secretaries, so Hodson was the captain of his force of brokers, a keen, sagacious trader, whose knowledge of the market and whose ability in the matter of stock trading was almost uncanny.
"What"s your selection for to-day, Hodson?" asked Ames, as the man entered.
Hodson laid on his desk three lists of suggested deals on the exchanges of New York, London, and Paris. Ames glanced over them hurriedly, drawing his pencil through certain that did not meet his approval, and subst.i.tuting others in which for particular reasons he wished to trade that morning. "What"s your reason for thinking I ought to buy Public Utilities?" he asked, looking up at his broker.
"They have the letting of the Hudson river tunnel contract," replied Hodson.
Ames studied the broker"s face a moment. Then his own brightened, as he began to divine the man"s reason. "By George!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "you think there"s quicksand along the proposed route?"
"I know it," said Hodson calmly.
"Pick up ten thousand shares, if you can get them," returned Ames quickly. Then--"I"m going to attend a meeting of the Council of American Grain Exchanges at two to-day. I want you to be just outside the door."
Hodson nodded understandingly. Ames concluded, "I guess that"s all.
I"m at the bank at ten; at the Board of Trade at ten-thirty; Stock Exchange at eleven; and lunch at Rector"s at twelve sharp, returning here immediately afterward."
Hodson again bowed, and left the office to undertake his various commissions.
For the next half hour Ames pored over the morning"s quota of letters and messages, making frequent notes, and often turning to the telephone at his hand. Then he summoned a stenographer and rapidly dictated a number of replies. Finally he again called Willett.
"In my next vacant hour, following the one devoted to Lafelle, I want to see Reverend Darius Borwell," he directed. "Also," he continued, "wire Strunz that I want a meeting of the Brewers" Union called at the earliest possible date. By the way, ask Lafelle if he can spend the night with me on board the _Cossack_, and if so, notify Captain McCall. That will save an hour in the day. Here is a bundle of requests for charity, for contributions to hospitals, orphan asylums, and various homes. Turn them all down, regretfully. H"m! "Phone to the City a.s.sessor to come over whenever you can arrange an hour and go over my schedule with me. By the way, tell Hood to take steps at once to foreclose on the Bradley estate. Did you find out where Ketchim does his banking?"
"Yes, sir," replied the secretary, "the Commercial State."
"Very well, get the president, Mr. Colson, on the wire."
A few moments later Ames had purchased from the Commercial State bank its note against the Ketchim Realty Company for ten thousand dollars.
"I thought Ketchim would be borrowing again," he chuckled, when he had completed the transaction. "His brains are composed of a disastrous mixture of hypocrisy and greed. I"ve thrown another hook into him now."
At nine forty-five Ames left his private office and descended in his elevator to the banking house on the second floor. He entered the directors" room with a determined carriage, nodding pleasantly to his a.s.sociates. Taking his seat as chairman, he promptly called the meeting to order.
Some preliminary business occupied the first few minutes, and then Ames announced:
"Gentlemen, when the State of New York offered the public sixty millions of four per cent bonds last week, and I advised you to take them at a premium of six per cent, you objected. I overruled you, and the bank bought the bonds. Within forty-eight hours they were resold at a premium of seven per cent, and the bank cleared six hundred thousand. A fair two days" business. Now let me suggest that the psychology of this transaction is worth your study. A commodity is a drug on the market at one dollar, until somebody is willing to pay a dollar and a half for it. Then a lot of people will want it, until somebody else offers a bid of two. Then the price will soar, and the number of those who covet the article and scramble for it will increase proportionably. Take this thought home with you."
A murmur of admiration rose from the directors. "I think," said one, "that we had better send Mr. Ames to Washington to confer with the President in regard to the proposed currency legislation."
"That is already arranged," put in Ames. "I meet the President next Thursday for a conference on this matter."
"And if he proves intractable?" queried another.
"Why, in that case," returned Ames with a knowing smile, "I think we had better give him a little lesson to take out of office with him--one that will ruin his second-term hopes--and then close our bank."
From the bank, the Board of Trade, the Stock Exchange, and his luncheon with Senator Gossitch, Ames returned to his office for the private interviews which his chief secretary had arranged. Then followed further consultations with Hood over the daily, weekly, and monthly reports which Ames required from all the various commercial, financial, and mining enterprises in which he was interested; further discussions of plans and schemes; further receipt and transmission of cable, telegraphic, and telephone messages; and meetings with his heads of departments, his captains, lieutenants, and minor officers, to listen to their reports and suggestions, and to deliver his quick, decisive commands, admonitions, and advice. From eight in the morning until, as was his wont, Ames closed his desk and entered his private elevator at five-thirty in the evening, his office flashed with the superenergy of the man, with his intense activity, his decisive words, and his stupendous endeavors, materialistic, absorptive, ruthless endeavors. If one should ask what his day really amounted to, we can but point to these incessant endeavors and their results in augmenting his already vast material interests and his colossal fortune, a fortune which Hood believed ran well over a hundred millions, and which Ames himself knew multiplied that figure by five or ten. And the fortune was increasing at a frightful pace, for he gave nothing, but continually drew to himself, always and ever drawing, acc.u.mulating, ama.s.sing, and absorbing, and for himself alone.
Snapping his desk shut, he held a brief conversation over the wire with the Beaubien, then descended to his waiting car and was driven hastily to his yacht, the _Cossack_, where Monsignor Lafelle awaited as his guest. It was one of the few pleasures which Ames allowed himself during the warm months, to drop his multifarious interests and spend the night aboard the _Cossack_, generally alone, rocking gently on the restless billows, so typical of his own heaving spirit, as the beautiful craft steamed noiselessly to and fro along the coast, well beyond the roar of the huge _arena_ where human beings, formed of dust, yet fatuously believing themselves made in the image of infinite Spirit, strive and sweat, curse and slay, in the struggle to prove their doubtful right to live.