Frenzied Finance Part 37

"I can't help it," I replied determinedly. "I positively must have the real figures, for even you and Mr. Stillman may have made a slip-up and I want to work the thing out so that I may have it clear in my head for the morning. It is essential."

He realized that it was useless to try to escape my insistence, and he snapped out:

"All I can say now is, it is between 125 and 150 millions real, solid subscriptions, backed with actual money. We haven't got it figured out within some millions, and won't before to-morrow, when we will put in our subscription for the right amount, but we know it is surely between these two figures, and that each subscriber will have about one share in five, so we shall have a good, strong twenty-five per cent. margin. That is all I will or can say to-night."

I heard the sharp click as he hung up the receiver.

I went back to my pencil and pad and began again the interminable figuring. My head throbbed and my senses reeled. In those still, dark hours of the early morning I covered sheet after sheet with figures, all of which had for a basis 125 to 150 millions, 400 to 425 millions, one in five, and twenty-five per cent. margin, and these figures I turned and twisted in a vain, vain effort to bring out something with fifteen millions for an answer.

"No, it will not come," I said to myself at last in hopeless despair.

Numb and dull, I leaned back in my chair with half-closed eyes, while night, that master phantom maker, played upon my harried nerves and distraught mind. Stealthily out of his murky caldron the ghosts and goblins crept. I saw the spectres of all my dearest dreams trail slouching by, jostled and driven by sneering bullies. I saw a great company of scowling men, wailing women, and little children, with drawn, pinched faces, and they seemed to point at me as they plodded past, muttering, "But for you." Then, to the clanking of chains, hoa.r.s.e curses, and the sharp whip-snap, lines upon lines of men in striped suits, with cropped heads, and faces branded by despair, filed up.

Faintly a mutter of sobs and groans echoed, "But for you." The clanking ceased; there came the slow shuffling of many feet, and a procession of men, bearing stretchers on which lay shrouded figures, advanced into view. Like a solemn knell upon my ear smote the reproach, "Suicides because of you." And now out of the caldron sprang a mob of goblin dollar-signs compounded of blood-red snakes and copper bars, that danced a mad saraband around my chair to a weird chorus of, "But for you." Transfixed and aghast I stared at the train of awful forms. So real were they, they seemed almost to touch me as they swept onward. At last, with a convulsive effort, I threw off the spell, banished the phantasms of my frightened brain, and shook myself together with a: "You have work ahead and dreaming will not do it for you."

Back into my mind trooped the unanswerable, cold realities. There could be no doubt that the announcements in the morning papers would surprise those who had been led to expect an allotment of one share in twenty or thirty and had subscribed accordingly, and likewise those who had expected to get all, or at least one out of two. There might be murmurs of foul play and a general suspicion that trickery had been practised.

Looking at the situation, I saw that upon me the chief blame must fall, and that it behooved me to think soundly and quickly over what had best be done to protect from the impending ma.s.sacre those whom I had lured into the ambush. The smoke-wreaths had all gone out of my brain now, and as the known factors began to group themselves symmetrically before my mind I forced myself to face certain all-too-evident facts: Rogers and Stillman had plainly hoisted the black flag; they had broken all their promises to me and a.s.suredly had no intention of carrying out to the public the pledges I had made on their behalf; they would handle this affair as they had others I knew about--only to extract the greatest number of dollars from it--and in the course of their operations I and my friends would probably be sent through the crusher with the rest. All this being true, I could do little by denunciation or exposure, for these men, caring nothing for the sufferings of others, would not fear the consequences of their own acts; my only hope was to meet them on their own ground and outplay them at their own game. Then and there I determined on my course--to compel them to undo the wrongs they had committed and, if so great an achievement were possible, put the people in position to do to them what they had done to the people. An almost hopeless resolution at that juncture, it would seem, but, as results have shown, by no means out of the power of man's accomplishment.

This is what I reasoned out before I retired to bed: If the actual subscription were 125 to 150 millions, then six to eight millions of real cash had been paid into the National City Bank. On an allotment of one share in five, these six to eight millions represented a margin of about twenty-five per cent.--big enough to cover any ordinary drop in the price of the stock, and big enough also to lead those to whom shares had been a.s.signed to make good the balance. But to meet this allotment, a very large bogus subscription had been necessary, and therein I saw the weakness of Rogers and Rockefeller and the weapon that Providence had intrusted to my hands.

Mr. Rogers' uncertainty as to the totals of the subscription made it evident that the bogus subscription was not in the bank even yet, and as it must be for a definite amount and backed up by a five-per-cent.

check, it could not be put in until James Stillman's clerks had computed to the last cent the public's applications, and that enormous piece of work would not be completed on the next day nor even the day following.

This bogus subscription was already outlawed--its insertion even at the present moment would have been criminal; how much worse the criminality if days were allowed to elapse between the legally fixed last moment for bids and the actual time at which this outlawed subscription was admitted. And as the transaction involved the making of a large check and other formalities, it was obvious it was not one that could be easily concealed. It must be a part of the bank's records. If I but played aright the cards Dame Fate had put into my hands, I might yet redeem myself and save the public I had led into the trap. But as clear as the new moon against a November sky stood forth the warning that if I attempted to cut into a "Standard Oil" game, I must play cards their way--dispa.s.sionately, scientifically, with no sentiment nor consideration for adversary or partner. With this conviction I went to bed.

It was quite early on the following morning that I met Mr. Rogers, and without giving him time to begin the conversation, for I was determined he should have no provocation for the break with me that I guessed he had on his programme, I started in:

"I have been figuring this thing out, Mr. Rogers, and I think I see things as they are, and although I might not have handled it as you and Stillman did, it is done, and the only thing to do now is to make some arrangements to keep the subscribers feeling good until the stock gets to a round premium. Of course it would not do to have any slump below par until after the receipts are issued and the whole amount of the subscriptions paid up."

Mr. Rogers looked me over, very suspiciously at first, then brightened up, and it did not require an extra eye to see he was agreeably surprised at my cheerful att.i.tude. Doubtless he explained to himself the change on the ground that "He at last sees the dollars he is to have."

"What suggestion have you, Lawson, as to what should be done this morning?"

"Only that all hands look happy, talk big, and do all possible to keep a good premium on the stock to be delivered when issued. By the way, have you and Stillman changed the scheme about putting all the cash received behind the stock?"

This I asked in as mild a tone as possible, and tried to convey by my voice the suggestion, "Because you may have had good reason to, and if you have I will not kick over the traces." It took every ounce of will-power in my armament to keep from grating my teeth as I so spoke.

Again his eyes bored piercingly into mine, and I felt as though all the man's mental faculties were ranged to a.s.sail me, but I guess I ran the gauntlet.

"Yes," he said slowly, "we have changed it some. The fact is, Lawson, I have agreed to leave that part wholly to Flower and Stillman, while I run out of town for a few days." I had steeled myself to play the game and said not a word, but silence was a mighty effort. "And," he went on, "if I were you, Lawson, I should just dig out too for a while."

"What a heartless rascal!" was on my lips, but I gripped myself hard and pushed the insult clear way back, and made never a protest by word or look.

"I am afraid that won't be best," I said in an every-day, pondering tone. "There are lots of sharp chaps on 'the Street' who will insist on asking questions, questions Flower cannot possibly answer, and in a jiff they might start in to offer the subscriptions down, and before one could whistle a bar from 'Wait Till the Clouds Roll By' the air might be full of falling stars."

This seemed to strike home.

"Well, what have you to propose?" he asked.

"Some one should be ready in the market to take any amount of stock--" I argued.

He interrupted in his old aggressive way before the sentence was half out of my mouth:

"Cut that line out, Lawson; I told you Flower has that end of the affair entirely in his hands."

And at this point my resolution to keep quiet and play the game did almost go by the board. For a second I literally boiled. Then there flashed before my mind's mirror the dreadful procession of the night before, and I once more held tight and, oh, so deferentially and politely, like a chastened school-boy, went on:

"Oh, that will be all right. I was not going to suggest that you let me interfere with Flower's plans, for I can gather, Mr. Rogers, that you and the others have decided on doing things your own way, and you can rest easy I shall not interfere."

"That's something like, Lawson," he said, with a heartiness I could see was from the lower hold. "That's the way to look at a big thing of this kind, and if we all just pull together for a while we shall have your old plans going like oil again."

Yes, Mr. Rogers was plainly pleased at my complaisance and the prospect of using me to gather in another harvest of dollars later. Playing my game, I pursued:

"Is it fair, Mr. Rogers, to ask what arrangements Stillman has made for loaning money to those who may want to borrow on their subscriptions?

You know we gave out before the subscription was opened that the City Bank would loan on the stock?"

"That is one of the things I was going to tell you, Lawson. Flower is going to let it be known that any one and every one who cares to, can borrow the remaining seventy-five per cent. at the City at going rates, so there will be no excuse for any one selling."

There it was as plain as a haystack: it was the old trap, the old ambush; within were the victims lured there by the cupidity which I had played upon; the bars were up now and "Standard Oil" was ready to begin its familiar trick of going through their clothes.

Already "Standard Oil" had laid its hands on the amount each subscriber had paid in, which represented twenty-five per cent. of the total value of the shares allotted. The National City Bank would generously loan the balance. A little later an accomplice would cause a flurry in the market. The loans would be called and, automatically, the stock, together with the money that had been paid for it, would fall into the greedy maws of Rockefeller and Rogers. No fluttering fly was ever so surely enmeshed and at the mercy of weaving spider as the unfortunates whom I had so decoyed to the "Standard Oil" web. With the most valiant a.s.sumption of indifference, I continued:

"That being the case, it cannot possibly interfere with Flower's set-out for me to spread the news, too, that any one who wants to borrow the balance of his subscription can get it from Stillman's Bank?"

"You can do better than that, Lawson," said Mr. Rogers with an air of real cordiality. "You can let it be known to the brokers and the Wall Street men that any good house can borrow all it wants on Amalgamated to the extent of ninety cents on the dollar. Of course, this won't be for irresponsible outsiders, for the stock might break below ninety, but give the word that any responsible broker can always borrow as high as ninety dollars a share for those who want the stock on margin."

"That will help things," I answered. "Now, Mr. Rogers, let me tell you what I have decided to do on my own hook. Don't misunderstand me; it has nothing to do with you or the rest, and, of course, none of you will object to my doing all I care to on my own account. As you said yesterday, one portion of our job is finished, and we have thirty-six millions' profit. This means either cash or its equivalent, stock, which at par or over is as good as cash, at least as good as ninety, which I can have my brokers borrow at the City. I calculate that my share is nine millions less whatever you have given away in the handling of the enterprise."

I paused as I saw a black cloud gathering on his face at my mention of nine millions of dollars, but before he could object I went on:

"I understand, of course, that the expense and the shares you have had to give to others represent a huge total. At the same time there have been huge profits on the side. There is no necessity to enter upon what is coming to me just now, but what I intended to say was this: I have millions with you and Mr. Rockefeller--millions more than I owe you on account of b.u.t.te and other Boston stocks of the second section. Now, I propose to take a million or two of that and start in on my account to support the market right from this morning; independent of Flower or your other operations, I will see if I cannot get up a good feeling."

At once the frown relaxed and his set features broke into a smile of gratification.

"That's something like it, Lawson," he said. "When you get down to real business we never have differences. It is only when you start up that confounded croaking about what we must do for the people, that I get angry."

"All right, Mr. Rogers," I answered. "Let those things drop and, as you say, we'll keep down to business. How much can I depend upon drawing from my account this morning, provided I want it?"

"How will two millions do?" he answered cheerily.

"Plenty," I said.

"All right; I will notify Stillman that you or your brokers may want to borrow up to that, and if you need the Amalgamated stock, you can have it at any time. I will leave word to that effect with Curtis."

Curtis was William Rockefeller's secretary and right-hand man, who then handled the details of all their financial matters.

Before leaving I indicated to Mr. Rogers the details of my proposed actions, and explained that I had sent for my princ.i.p.al Boston brokers who would be with me on Wall Street to help steer the craft. Evidently my plans met his personal approval. Indeed, from the change that had come over his manner I realized that he felt he had been spared a disagreeable task and that my shift had been a pleasant surprise to him.

It was plain that he and Stillman had decided that I must be thrown to the sharks if I kept on my old tack, and were therefore gratified to find that I was not only ready to a.s.sist in steering the ship their way, but also willing to feed the engines coal at my own expense to keep up her speed. In spite of Mr. Rogers' confidence in Governor Flower's ability to take care of the market, it was a great relief to his mind to know that I should be there, for he realized that no one, however able and popular--and Governor Flower was both to an unusual degree--could possibly take up such an intricate bunch of lines as those with which we had been driving, without a lot of feeling-out practice.

There was another aspect of the situation that had been suggested to me by a certain pa.s.sing twitch of his lip that I had noted when I had said I proposed putting some of my own millions behind the market. It was as though the tongue had involuntarily started to lap the chops for blood, and I scribbled a memo on my mind's black-board, "Think over whether he does not intend to set traps for your share of the spoils."