Jack frowned as though deeply annoyed, and his answer came with an incisive coldness that froze Mr. Dobbins almost to the marrow.
"Go back to that "phone and tell the gentleman that it will take the biggest search-light in the amalgamated navies of the world to enable him to get even a bird"s-eye view of me until I get good and ready," he said. "Er--tell him he can come to my office at ten-thirty to-morrow morning if he wants to, only he mustn"t be late. Just impress that on his mind."
Mr. Dobbins choked and coughed apoplectically.
"Don"t let us interfere with any of your engagements, Mr. Vanderpoel,"
he sputtered.
"That"s all right, Mr. Dobbins," said Jack.
"I wish you"d invest seven or eight million for me," said Dobbins, with a sheepish glance at Jack. "I know it isn"t much, but--"
"Risky business, speculating, Mr. Dobbins," said Jack, bravely, although the suggestion had nearly knocked him off his chair. "Better hang on to your pennies, now that you"ve got "em."
"Oh, I"ve got eight or ten more where they came from," chuckled the old man.
"Then, sir," said Jack, as calmly as he knew how, "the best investment for you is in Miss Amanda Dobbins Preferred, a stock of priceless value."
"I don"t think I quite understand," said the old man, scratching his head in perplexity.
"Settle five million on your daughter," explained Jack. "When you"ve got her fixed comfortably in life, go in and do as you please with the rest of your fortune. Play the game as hard as you like, and, win or lose, no harm can come to her--and _if_ you lose, why, she"ll be able to take care of you."
"I"ve already given her four million, haven"t I, Amandy?" said the old gentleman, proudly.
"Yes, Popper," said the girl, and Jack"s heart began to play the anvil chorus on the xylophone of his ribs. What a chance!
"How about it, Mr. Vanderpoel," persisted the old man; "can you put me wise?"
"Oh, well," said Jack, "if you really insist I"ll let you into a little blind pool I"m in, but not for very much--say a couple of millions. Only I won"t take a penny of your money if you are like all the rest of these people here who want to be shown how things are every five minutes of the day. I"ll take your two million and you can call it a loan, if you want to. Your receipt will be my demand note for the full amount. You see I know what I"m about, and I"m careful."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "COULDN"T MAKE IT THREE MILLION, COULD YOU?" SUGGESTED MR. DOBBINS]
"Couldn"t make it three million, could you?" suggested Mr. Dobbins, with a pleading note in his voice which Jack found difficult to resist. "I happen to have that amount idle--"
"Well, I"ll tell you what I"ll do," said Jack, patronizingly. "I was going to pull this thing off myself because it is one of the few dead-sure things left in this world, but first the Midas people b.u.t.ted in, then Bondifeller wanted a slice, and Rockernegie wore out his library carpet running to the "phone to ring me up about it, until I told Central I"d have the company indicted as a nuisance if they let the old man have my number again. None the less, for merely diplomatic reasons, I"m going to let "em all in for a small share. Just enough to keep them satisfied with themselves. Exactly what the basis will be I haven"t yet decided, but if you are willing to take your chances with them--well, you may hand me six certified checks for five hundred thousand dollars apiece, so that I can spread the whole amount around in my various bank and trust company accounts."
"Now what, Puss?" asked Jack the next afternoon, as he and his feline friend held a consultation in the apartment. "I"ve got three million to my credit in six banks. What"s the next step--Algiers or Venezuela?"
"Why," said puss, "it seems to me that a man with three million in hand can afford to stay in New York over Christmas, anyhow."
"Yes, I know," said Jack. "But the old man--he"s got to have some profit some time or other, hasn"t he?"
Puss sighed deeply. "It is very evident, my dear Jack," said he, "that you are no financier. Settle a million on yourself and use the remainder to pay dividends to Mr. Dobbins. He"d probably think twenty-five per cent. on his investment was a pretty fair return, and if at the end of the first year you give him back seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars he"ll be satisfied. Then if you hand him over a full million the second year--well--"
"Well what?" gasped Jack.
"He"ll put five million more into the pool on your mere intimation that you are willing to help him out to that extent," said puss, "which will keep you going several years longer."
Jack breathed heavily at the prospect of such affluence, but he could not escape the uncomfortable feeling that there would be an inevitable day of reckoning ahead of him.
"And when that is gone?" he asked.
Puss gazed at him scornfully this time.
"My, but you are stupid!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I really want to help you, Jack, but I can"t do everything, you know. You"ve got to handle some of this business yourself. But let me ask you one question: Did you ever hear of a millionaire putting the father of his grandchildren in jail because he had lost money in a blind speculation?"
"No, I never did," said Jack; "but you see, Puss, I am not the father of Dobbins" grandchildren."
"No," said puss, "but why in thunder should you not be?"
"By Jove!" cried Jack, joyously. "Do you think she"ll have me?"
"Will a duck quack?" asked the cat.
(Extract from the last will and testament of Joshua Dobbins):
"... and I do hereby appoint my said son-in-law, Horace Vanderpoel, husband of my beloved daughter Amanda, sole trustee of my estate, without bond, said estate to be administered by him for the benefit of my said daughter Amanda and her children, according to his own discretion; for which service, in lieu of executor"s or trust fees, I do hereby give, bequeath, and devise to his use forever the sum of five million dollars, together with such additional sums as I have from time to time during the past four years invested under his advice and direction in the several properties in his control, both princ.i.p.al and interest accrued up to the date of my decease."
"Dear old dad!" said Jack, when the will had been read. "Your father was a fine man, Amanda dear, and a very successful man as well."
"Yes, Horace," said his weeping wife, "but he always insisted that he owed much to your splendid business management; so, after all, you have only come into your own, dear."
"Ah, well," said Jack, as he opened a fresh bottle of cream and placed it before his pet Angora, "money isn"t everything, sweetheart, and I should have been satisfied if he had left me nothing but you."
And the Angora cat wiped off the back of his ear with his left paw and twirled his mustachios upward with a wave of his right, as he purred amiably over the cream.
IV
THE GOLDEN FLEECE
There was once a miller who was very poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. There were a great many people who said that if he had not had so beautiful a daughter he would not have been so poor, and it may be that these were right, for beautiful daughters are not infrequently a source of considerable expense to their parents, and I fear me that Gasmerilda was no exception to this rule.
She had a great pa.s.sion for rare furs and for opera and lingerie cloaks, and the thousand and one other dainty things that appeal to the heart of beautiful young maidenhood, and it seemed to make no difference how many millions of bushels of corn pa.s.sed through her father"s mill day after day, the returns from the grinding wheels were always thirty or forty dollars a month lower than the total aggregate of Gasmerilda"s bills from milliners, furriers, jewelers, and others too numerous to mention.
Of course, this thing could not go on indefinitely. There comes a time when even the blindest of creditors will insist upon the liquidation of a miller"s account, and the poor man found himself getting deeper and deeper into debt as the months pa.s.sed along, and was now at last at his wits" ends to devise new excuses for the non-payment of Gasmerilda"s indebtedness. Indeed, he had now come to a point where there was but one refuge from the ultimate of financial disaster that should force him into a public declaration of his bankruptcy, and that was to be seen a.s.sociating in public places with well-known malefactors of great wealth.
What awful agony of mind this cost him--for he was an honest miller, as had always been evidenced by his willingness to promise to pay his debts even when he knew he could not--the world will never know, but he swallowed his pride, and for a time gained immunity from the pressure of his creditors with their threatened judgments by being seen walking down Fifth Avenue in the morning alongside of Colonel John W. Midas, the president of the Pactolean Trust Company, a savings inst.i.tution formed primarily for the purpose of lending its depositors" money to members of its own board of directors, taking their checks dated two months ahead and indorsed by their office-boys and stenographers for security.
It is true that anybody who was ever seen speaking to Colonel Midas in public was, by orders of the district attorney, immediately snap-shotted by the Secret Service Camera Squad attached to that gentleman"s office, and the resulting negatives filed away for future reference in case Justice should ever, by some odd chance, peep over the top of her bandage for a moment and fix her eagle eye upon the Colonel"s doings; but, on the other hand, there were countless thousands of worthy people, and among them were the miller"s creditors, who believed that a.s.sociation with such a person as Colonel Midas was pretty good evidence either of a man"s solvency or of his immunity to the lash of the law.
Consequently, when for five successive mornings the furriers, the jewelers, the milliners, and others, to whom the unfortunate miller owed vast unpayable sums of money for sundries purchased from time to time by the beautiful Gasmerilda, saw their debtor walking down-town alongside of the great Pactolean magnate, they called off their collectors and attorneys, and sent the beautiful girl extra notifications through the mails of their new fall and winter importations; to which, in due course of time, the lovely maid responded, to the consequent swelling of the already over-large accounts due. If these persons had only known that these walks upon the avenue were silent walks, and that from the Plaza down to Madison Square Colonel Midas, though accompanied by the miller, was utterly unaware of the latter"s presence, being too deeply absorbed in certain operations of great magnitude upon the Street to notice anything that was going on around him, they would doubtless have acted differently; but they did not know this, and it soon pa.s.sed about among the tradesmen that the miller was the friend of Midas, and thereby was his credit greatly expanded.