Making Money Part 16

Haggerdy smiled grimly and handed over the bill, while Borneman, completely perplexed, stood staring at the manipulator like a startled child.

"Al, don't buck up against me," said Drake, serious all at once. "Of course you will, but remember I warned you. Let bygones be bygones or trim some other fellow."

"I don't forget as easy as that," said Borneman sullenly.

"Great mistake," said Drake, with a mocking smile. "You let your personal feelings get into your business--bad, very bad. You ought to be like Haggerdy and me--no friends and no enemies. Well, Al, you will have a crack at me, I know. If you've figured it out, you've got me. I may have told you the truth. It's all very simple--either you're right or you're wrong. Flip up a coin."

Borneman went off mumbling. Haggerdy loitered, ostensibly to shake hands.

"Drake, you and I ought to do something together," he said slowly, with his cold, lantern stare.

"Why not?"

"Instead of taking a fling, suppose we work up something worth while.

The market's ready for it."

"And Borneman?"

"Use him," said Haggerdy, with a trace of a smile.

"Why, yes, we might do something together," said Drake, pretending to consider. "You might do me or I might do you."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." He shook hands and turned back for a final shot. "By the way, Haggerdy, I'll tell you one thing. Your information's correct. That federal suit is coming off. Didn't know I knew it? Lord bless you, I pa.s.sed it on to you!"

He turned his back without waiting to watch the effect of this disclosure and returned to the supper room, where he signaled Crocker and drew him aside.

"Tom, I'll have a little something for you to do to-morrow. It's about time we started moving things. I'm going to put some orders in through you and I'm going to operate some through one of my agents. Put this away in your head--Joseph R. Skelly. Write it down when you get home.

Anything that comes through him, I stand behind. We won't do anything in a rush, but we'll lay a few lines. To-morrow I want you to sell for me--" He paused and deliberated, suddenly changing his mind. "No, do it this way. Call me up from your office at twelve--no, eleven sharp. I've got that wedding at three. Ask for me personally. Understand? All right?"

At half past three Fred DeLancy, Marsh and Bojo went out with the last stragglers. Fred was in high spirits, keeping them in roars of laughter, on the brisk walk home. He had been with Gladys Stone constantly all the evening and the two friends had watched a whispered parting on the stairs.

"I believe it's a go," said Marsh, while DeLancy was pa.s.sing the time of day with the policeman at the corner. (Fred was a.s.siduous in his cultivation of the force; he called it "accident insurance.")

"Something was settled," said Bojo nodding. "They've got an understanding, I'll bet. I pa.s.sed them once tucked in back of a palm and they stopped talking like a shot. Wish we had the infant safely put away, Fred."

"So do I."

The streets were unearthly stilled and inhuman as they came back to Ali Baba Court, with all the windows black, and only the iron lanterns at the entrances shining their foggy welcome.

"Don't feel a bit like sleep," said Bojo.

"Neither do I," said Marsh. He stood looking up at the incessantly vigilant windows of the great newspaper office now in the charge of the night watch. "Wonder what's filtering in there? I always feel guilty when I cut a night. I suppose it's like the fascination of the tape. It always gets me--the click of the telegraph."

"How are things working out on the paper?" said Bojo.

"Thanks, I'm getting into all sorts of trouble," said Marsh, rather gloomily, he thought. "I'm finding out a lot of things I don't know--sort of measles and mumps period. I had no right to be out to-night. I say, if you get into any other good thing, let me know. I may need it."

Alone in his room, Bojo did not go to bed at once. He was nervously awake, revolving in his mind too many new impressions, new ambitions and strange philosophies. The evening at the Drakes had swept from him his last prejudices against the adventurous life on which he had embarked.

There was something overpowering in the spectacle of society as he had seen it, something so insolently triumphant and aloof from all plodding standards, so dramatically enticing that he felt no longer compunctions but only fierce desires. The appet.i.te had entered his veins, infusing its fever. The few words Drake had spoken to him had sent his hope soaring. He was surprised, even a little alarmed, at the intensity which awoke in him to risk the easy profits against a greater gamble.

The market went off a shade the next morning, rallied and then weakened under a steady stream of selling orders. Rumors filled the air of possible causes known only to the inside group, a conflict of big interests, a suit for dissolution by a federal investigation. Something was up-- Drake's name was whispered about, along with Haggerdy's and a western group. On the Exchange a hundred rumors came into existence like newly hatched swarms of insects. Some one was steadily bearing eastern railroads and some one as obstinately supporting them, but who remained a mystery, eagerly discussed in little knots, fervently alive to a firmer touch on the strings of speculation.

At eleven o'clock, true to appointment, Bojo called up Daniel Drake on his private wire and received an order to buy at once 500 shares of Seaboard Air Line and sell 500 of Pittsburgh & New Orleans. He turned the order over to Forshay, with the caution of secrecy that had been transmitted to him. This transaction created quite a flurry, and after a consultation Forshay was delegated to sound Bojo.

"Personal order from the old man himself?" he said, when he had reported to him the execution of the order. "Nothing confidential, of course.

Happened to hear you telephone."

"Why, no," said Bojo, telephoning in his report.

"Suppose you've an inkling what's up? Naturally you have," said Forshay.

"Now, I'm not going to beat around the bush or worm things out of you.

We're mighty grateful to you, Tom, for the shot at Indiana Smelter. If you can let us in on anything, why do so. You understand. I've been talking things over with Hauk and Flaspoller. If Drake's going into the market, we don't see why we can't be of use. 'Course, on account of your relations, he probably wouldn't want to do much openly here. Too many eyes on us. But what we want you to put up to him is--we can cover things up as well as any one else. Any orders to be placed quietly, we can work through certain channels--you understand. By the way, doing anything on your own account?"

"Not yet."

"Don't want to talk?"

Bojo shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm quite in the dark, Mr. Forshay," he said cautiously.

Forshay took a few steps thoughtfully about the room, stopping curiously to examine the tape and came back.

"Look here, Tom, if there's anything on a big scale on, why shouldn't we get a whack at it? You see, I'm putting my cards on the table. We consider you a sort of a member of the firm. I made you a proposition once. Perhaps we can better it now." He hesitated, rearranging the sheets on the desk before him. "I'm trying to see how we could work this out. It's not exactly etiquette to give commissions down here--though why the Lord knows. Suppose I work out a scale of salary--to meet, say, certain eventualities. Let me think that over. Meanwhile here's what we'd be glad to do. You can't be calling up Drake out here where any one can be p.r.i.c.king up his ears. Now it may fit in his plans or not, but there's no harm trying. If he wants to operate through us, and have things well covered up, it might be better for you to handle it from my room on a special wire. We'll fix you up in there; glad to." He stopped, considered Bojo thoughtfully, and added: "Tom, we want some of Drake's business. No reason in the world why you shouldn't get it. You know us.

You know we can be trusted, and you know we are appreciative--understand?

"I can try," said Bojo doubtfully.

But to his surprise when he approached Drake on the following night he found a receptive listener.

"Don't know but what I could use your firm," said the operator thoughtfully. "Not that I'm rushing matters too much, Tom. The market's pretty strong at present. I want to feel it out. Maybe I could use them--for what I want them to know. Get your raise, but keep out of the firm--for the present, anyhow. Just now I'm holding back a little, Tom, a little early to uncover my game--tell you, though, what you might do; sell five hundred shares a day of Pittsburgh & New Orleans for me, but tell them to break it up 50 here and 50 there. I don't mind telling you one thing, but keep it under your belt; no confidences this time." He looked up sharply at the young fellow, who twisted on his heel under the look. "Confidences sometimes react and I don't want the cat out of the bag. What's Pittsburgh & New Orleans quoted?"

"47-1/8 Closing," said Bojo.

"A month from to-day it'll sell below thirty. And another thing, Tom, don't go trying any fliers on your own hook, without coming to me. You had fool's luck once, don't try it again. Remember I'm manipulating this pool and I have my ways!"

This time Bojo was under no illusions. Despite his warning he knew in the bottom of his heart that when the moment came he would operate for himself. However, he resolved on two things: to share his secret with no one and to watch the course of Pittsburgh and New Orleans for a week before making up his mind. The first flurry had subsided. To the surprise of every one the attack ceased over night. The list resumed its normal position with the exception of several southern railroad stocks, notably Pittsburgh & New Orleans, which remained heavy, declining fractionally.

During these days, Bojo resolutely stuck to his resolve, imparting no information, keeping out of the market himself. On the announcement of the first order for Drake, his salary was raised to $125 a week and the affection of the firm showed itself in several invitations to enter the consultation. Each day Forshay found opportunity to ask in a casual way:

"Not doing anything on your own hook yet, eh? Sort of watching developments?"

Ten days after the first attack, another flurry arrived, but this time the attack was from the open, from all the bear cohorts who for months had been grumbling in vain, predicting disaster from inflation and the panic that must follow inevitable readjustment. Borneman and his crowd sold openly and viciously, raiding all stocks alike, particularly industrials. That day, among other orders, Hauk, Flaspoller and Forshay sold 10,000 shares of Pittsburgh & New Orleans which broke from 44 to 39-5/8 under savage pounding. Crocker resisted no longer and sold a thousand for his own account. That day Forshay failed to make his usual inquiry.

After three days of convulsive advances and speedy falls, the attack again slackened, but this time the whole list rallied with difficulty, receding almost imperceptibly, but slowly yielding under a decided change of public sentiment. When Pittsburgh & New Orleans touched 38, Bojo squared his conscience to the extent of exacting the most solemn promises of undying secrecy from Fred DeLancy before communicating to them the information that had now become a conviction, that he had placed $50,000 in a pool which Drake was engineering to sell the market short and make a killing of Pittsburgh & New Orleans. He imparted the confidence not simply because it had become an almost intolerable secret to carry, but for deeper reasons. Fred DeLancy had sunk half of his former profits in the purchase of an automobile and in free spending, and Marsh was faced with serious losses on the paper from a strike of compositors and a falling of advertising as the result of the new radical policy of the editorial page.