He finished doing up the package, then he seated himself, and we both looked at it through the smoke of our cigars.
"It"s just as easy to deal in big sums as in little, in large matters as in small, isn"t it, Joe," said I, "once one gets in the way of it?"
"Do you remember--away back there--the morning," he asked musingly--"the last morning--you and I got up from the straw in the stables over at Jerome Park--the stables they let us sleep in?"
"And went out in the dawn to roost on the rails and spy on the speed trials of old Revell"s horses?"
"Exactly," said Joe, and we looked at each other and laughed. "We in rags--gosh, how chilly it was that morning! Do you remember what we talked about?"
"No," said I, though I did.
"I was proposing to turn a crooked trick--and you wouldn"t have it. You persuaded me to keep straight, Matt. I"ve never forgotten it. You kept me straight--showed me what a d.a.m.n fool a man was to load himself down with a petty larceny record. You made a man of me, Matt. And then those good looks of yours caught the eye of that bookmaker"s girl, and he gave you a job at writing sheet--and you worked me in with you."
So long ago it seemed, yet near and real, too, as I sat there, conscious of every sound and motion, even of the fantastic shapes taken by our upcurling smoke. How far I was from the "rail bird" of those happy-go-lucky years, when a meal meant quite as much to me as does a million now--how far from all that, yet how near, too. For was I not still facing life with the same careless courage, forgetting each yesterday in the eager excitement of each new day with its new deal? We went on in our reminiscences for a while; then, as Joe had a little work to do, I drifted out into the house, took a bite of supper with young Melville, had a little go at the tiger, and toward five in the clear June morning emerged into the broad day of the streets, with the precious bundle under my arms and a five hundred-dollar bill in my waistcoat pocket.
"Give my win to me in a single bill," I said to the banker, "and blow yourself off with the change."
Joe walked down the street with me--for companionship and a little air before turning in, he said, but I imagine a desire to keep his eye on his treasure a while longer had something to do with his taking that early morning stroll. We pa.s.sed several of those forlorn figures that hurry through the slowly-awakening streets to bed or to work. Finally, there came by an old, old woman--a scrubwoman, I guess, on her way home from cleaning some office building. Beside her was a thin little boy, hopping along on a crutch. I stopped them.
"Hold out your hand," said I to the boy, and he did. I laid the five hundred-dollar bill in it. "Now, shut your fingers tight over that," said I, "and don"t open them till you get home. Then tell your mother to do what she likes with it." And we left them gaping after us, speechless before this fairy story come true.
"You must be looking hard for luck to-day," said Joe, who understood this transaction where another might have thought it a showy and not very wise charity. "They"ll stop in at the church and pray for you, and burn a candle."
"I hope so," said I, "for G.o.d knows I need it."
XX. A BREATHING SPELL.
Langdon, after several years of effort, had got recognition for Textile in London, but that was about all. He hadn"t succeeded in unloading any great amount of it on the English. So it was rather because I neglected nothing than because I was hopeful of results that I had made a point of telegraphing to London news of my proposed suit. The result was a little trading in Textiles over there and a slight decline in the price. This fact was telegraphed to all the financial centers on this side of the water, and reinforced the impression my lawyers" announcement and my own "bear" letter were making.
Still, this was nothing, or next to it. What could I hope to avail against Langdon"s agents with almost unlimited capital, putting their whole energy under the stock to raise it? In the same newspapers that published my bear attack, in the same columns and under the same head-lines, were official denials from the Textile Trust and the figures of enormous increase of business as proof positive that the denials were honest. If the public had not been burned so many times by "industrials," if it had not learned by bitter experience that practically none of the leaders of finance and industry were above lying to make or save a few dollars, if Textiles had not been manipulated so often, first by Dumont and since his death by his brother-in-law and successor, this suave and cynical Langdon, my desperate attack would have been without effect. As it was--
Four months before, in the same situation, had I seen Textiles stagger as they staggered in the first hour of business on the Stock Exchange that morning, I"d have sounded the charge, clapped spurs to my charger, and borne down upon them. But--I had my new-born yearning for "respectability"; I had my new-born squeamishness, which led me to fear risking Bob Corey and his bank and the money of my old friend Healey; finally, there was Anita--the longing for her that made me prefer a narrow and uncertain foothold to the bold leap that would land me either in wealth and power or in the bottomless abyss.
Instead of continuing to sell Textiles, I covered as far as I could; and I bought so eagerly and so heavily that, more than Langdon"s corps of rocketers, I was responsible for the stock"s rally and start upward. When I say "eagerly" and "heavily," I do not mean that I acted openly or without regard to common sense. I mean simply that I made no attempt to back up my followers in the selling campaign I had urged them into; on the contrary, I bought as they sold. That does not sound well, and it is no better than it sounds. I shall not dispute with any one who finds this action of mine a betrayal of my clients to save myself. All I shall say is that it was business, that in such extreme and dire compulsion as was mine, it was--and is--right under the code, the private and real Wall Street code.
You can imagine the confused ma.s.s of transactions in which I was involved before the Stock Exchange had been open long. There was the stock we had been able to buy or get options on at various prices, between the closing of the Exchange the previous day and that morning"s opening--stock from all parts of this country and in England. There was the stock I had been buying since the Exchange opened--buying at figures ranging from one-eighth above last night"s closing price to fourteen points above it. And, on the debit side, there were the "short" transactions extending over a period of nearly two months--"sellings" of blocks large and small at a hundred different prices.
An inextricable tangle, you will say, one it would be impossible for a man to unravel quickly and in the frantic chaos of a wild Stock Exchange day. Yet the influence of the mysterious state of my nerves, which I have described above, was so marvelous that, incredible though it seems, the moment the Exchange closed, I knew exactly, where I stood.
Like a mechanical lightning calculator, my mind threw up before me the net result of these selling and buying transactions. Textile Common closed eighteen points above the closing quotation of the previous day; if Langdon"s brother had not been just a little indiscreet, I should have been as hopeless a bankrupt in reputation and in fortune as ever was ripped up by the bulls of Wall Street.
As it was, I believed that, by keeping a bold front, I might extricate and free myself when the Coal reorganization was announced. The rise of Coal stocks would square my debts--and, as I was apparently untouched by the Textile flurry, so far as even Ball, my nominal partner and chief lieutenant, knew, I need not fear pressure from creditors that I could not withstand.
I could not breathe freely, but I could breathe.
XXI. MOST UNLADYLIKE
When I saw I was to have a respite of a month or so, I went over to the National Industrial Bank with Healey"s roll, which my tellers had counted and prepared for deposit. I finished my business with the receiving teller of the National Industrial, and dropped in on my friend Lewis, the first vice-president. I did not need to pretend coolness and confidence; my nerves were still in that curious state of tranquil exhilaration, and I felt master of myself and of the situation. Just as I was leaving, in came Tom Langdon with Sam Ellersly.
Tom"s face was a laughable exhibit of embarra.s.sment. Sam--really, I felt sorry for him. There was no reason on earth why he shouldn"t be with Tom Langdon; yet he acted as if I had caught him "with the goods on him." He stammered and stuttered, clasped my hand eagerly, dropped it as if it had stung him; he jerked out a string of hysterical nonsense, ending with a laugh so crazy that the sound of it disconcerted him. Drink was the explanation that drifted through my mind; but in fact I thought little about it, so full was I of other matters.
"When is your brother returning?" said I to Tom.
"On the next steamer, I believe," he replied. "He went only for the rest and the bath of sea air." With an effort he collected himself, drew me aside and said: "I owe you an apology, Mr. Blacklock. I went to the steamer with Mowbray to see him off, and he asked me to tell you about our new dividend rate--though it was not to be made public for some time. Anyhow, he told me to go straight to you--and I--frankly, I forgot it." Then, with the winning, candid Langdon smile, he added, ingenuously: "The best excuse in the world--yet the one n.o.body ever accepts."
"No apology necessary," said I with the utmost good nature. "I"ve no personal interest in Textile. My house deals on commission only, you know--never on margins for myself. I"m a banker and broker, not a gambler.
Some of our customers were alarmed by the news of the big increase, and insisted on bringing suit to stop it. But I"m going to urge them now to let the matter drop."
Tom tried to look natural, and as he is an apt pupil of his brother"s, he succeeded fairly well. His glance, however, wouldn"t fix steadily on my gaze, but circled round and round it like a bat at an electric light. "To tell you the truth," said he, "I"m extremely nervous as to what my brother will say--and do--to me, when I tell him. I hope no harm came to you through my forgetfulness."
"None in the world," I a.s.sured him. Then I turned on Sam. "What are you doing down town to-day?" said I. "Are you on your way to see me?"
He flushed with angry shame, reading an insinuation into my careless remark, when I had not the remotest intention of reminding him that his customary object in coming down town was to play the parasite and the sponge at my expense. I ought to have guessed at once that there was some good reason for his recovery of his refined, high-bred, gentlemanly super-sensibilities; but I was not in the mood to a.n.a.lyze trifles, though my nerves were taking careful record of them.
"Oh, I was just calling on Tom," he replied rather haughtily.
Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides and licking his lips and blinking his eyes--looking for all the world like a cat at its toilet.
"Oh! ah! Blacklock!" he exclaimed, with purring cordiality--and I knew he had heard of the big deposit I was making. "Come into my office on your way out--nothing especial--only because it"s always a pleasure to talk with you."
I saw that his effusive friendliness confirmed Tom Langdon"s fear that I had escaped from his brother"s toils. He stared sullenly at the carpet until he caught me looking at him with twinkling eyes. He made a valiant effort to return my smile and succeeded in twisting his face into a knot that seemed to hurt him as much as it amused me.
"Well, good-by, Tom," said I. "Give my regards to your brother when he lands, and tell him his going away was a mistake. A man can"t afford to trust his important business to understrappers." This with a face free from any suggestion of intending a shot at him. Then to Sam: "See you to-night, old man," and I went away, leaving Lewis looking from one to the other as if he felt that there was dynamite about, but couldn"t locate it. I stopped with Melville to talk Coal for a few minutes--at my ease, and the last man on earth to be suspected of hanging by the crook of one finger from the edge of the precipice.
I rang the Ellerslys" bell at half-past nine that evening. The butler faced me with eyes not down, as they should have been, but on mine, and full of the servile insolence to which he had been prompted by what he had overheard in the family.
"Not at home, sir," he said, though I had not spoken.
I was preoccupied and not expecting that statement; neither had I skill, nor desire to acquire skill, in reading family barometers in the faces of servants. So, I was for brushing past him and entering where I felt I had as much right as in my own places. He barred the way.
"Beg pardon, sir. Mrs. Ellersly instructed me to say no one was at home."
I halted, but only like an oncoming bear at the p.r.i.c.k of an arrow.
"What the h.e.l.l does this mean?" I exclaimed, waving him aside. At that instant Anita appeared from the little reception-room a few feet away.
"Oh--come in!" she said cordially. "I was expecting you. Burroughs, please take Mr. Blacklock"s hat."
I followed her into the reception-room, thinking the butler had made some sort of mistake.
"How did you come out?" she asked eagerly, facing me. "You look your natural self--not tired or worried--so it must have been not so bad as you feared."