Making Money Part 45

"It is more serious than he will admit," he thought. "I must get a chance to speak to him alone. He will never tell the truth before Drina."

Dinner over, a rather anxious meal partaken of in long silences with occasional bursts of forced conversation, Bojo found opportunity to whisper to Patsie as they returned towards the library.

"Make some excuse and leave us as soon as you can. I'll see you before I go."

She gave him a slight movement of her eyes to show she comprehended and went dancing in ahead.

"Now before you begin on business, let me make you both comfortable,"

she cried. She indicated chairs and pushed them into their seats, laughing. She brought the cigars and insisted on serving them with lights, while each watched her, charmed and soothed by the grace and youth of her spirits, though each knew the reason of her a.s.suming. She camped finally on the arm of her father's chair, with a final enveloping hug, which under the appearance of exuberance, conveyed a deep solicitude.

"Shall I stay or do you want to talk alone?"

"Stay." Drake caught the hand which had stolen about his neck and patted it with rough tenderness. "Besides I want you to get certain false ideas out of your head. Well, Tom, I'll tell you the situation." He stopped a moment as though considering, before beginning again with an appearance of frankness which almost convinced the young man, though it failed before the alarmed instinct of his daughter. "Miss Patsie here is taking entirely too seriously something her mother repeated to her. I won't attempt to deny that the times are shaky. They are. They may become suddenly worse. That depends entirely on a certain group of men. But the strong point as well as the weak point in the present situation is that it can depend on a certain group. There will be no panic for the simple reason that in a panic this group will lose in the tens of millions where others lose thousands. Now this group in the past through their control direct or inter-related has been able to dominate the centers of credit, the money loaning inst.i.tutions, such as the great banks and insurance companies. By this means they have been in a measure able to keep to themselves the great industrial exploitations dependent on the ability to finance in the hundreds of millions. More, they have been able to limit to narrow fields such men as myself and other newcomers, who wish to rise to the same financial advantage. Lately this supremacy has been threatened by the rise of a new financial idea, the Trust company. This new form of banking, due to the scope permitted under the present law, has been able to deal in business and to make loans on collateral which, while valid, is forbidden a bank under the statutes.

The Trust companies, able to deal in more profitable business and to pay good interest consequently on deposits, have developed so enormously as to threaten to overshadow the banks. Back of all this the Trust companies have been developed and purchased by the younger generation of financiers in order to acquire the means of providing themselves with the credit necessary to develop their large schemes of industrial expansion, without being at the mercy of influences which can be controlled by others. From the moment the dominant group perceived this phase of the development of the Trust company, war was certain. That's where I come in. Pretty dry stuff. Can you get it?"

Patsie nodded, more interested perhaps in her father's manner than in what he said. Bojo listened with painful concentration.

"After my deal in Indiana Smelters and the turn in Pittsburgh & New Orleans I knew that the knives were out against me. I tried to make peace with Gunther but I might just as well have tried to sleep with the tiger. I saw that. There were several things I wanted to do--big things.

I had to have credit. Where could I get it--dare to get it? So I went into the Trust companies. They want to get me and they want to get them." He stopped, rubbed his chin and said with a grin, "Perhaps they may sting me--good and hard--but at the worst we could worry along on eight or nine millions, couldn't we, living economically, Patsie?"

"Is that the worst it could mean?" she said, drawing off to look in his eyes.

He nodded, adding:

"Oh, it isn't pleasant to have fifteen to twenty millions clipped from your fleece, but still we can live--live comfortably."

She pretended to believe him, throwing herself in his arms.

"Oh! I'm so relieved."

His hand ran over her golden head in a gentle caress and his face, as Bojo saw it, was strained and grim, though his words were light:

"But I'm not going to lose those twenty millions, not if I can help it!"

Patsie sprang up laughing, caught Bojo's signal and ran out crying:

"Back in a moment. Must see how mother is."

When the curtains, billowing out at her tumultuous exit, had fluttered back to rest, Bojo said quietly:

"Mr. Drake, is that what you wish me to believe?"

"Eh, what's that?" said Drake, looking up.

"Am I to believe what you've just told?"

There was a long moment between them, while each studied the other.

"How far can I trust you?" said Drake slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"Can I have your word that you will not tell Patsie--or any one?"

Bojo reflected a moment, frowning.

"Is that absolutely necessary?"

"That's the condition."

"Very well, I shall tell her nothing more than she knows. Will that satisfy you?"

Drake nodded slowly, his eyes still on the young man as though finally considering the advisability of a confidence.

"That was partly true," he said slowly; "only partly. There's more to it. It's not a question _yet_ of being wiped out, but it may be a question. Tom, I'm not sure but what they've got me. It all depends on the Atlantic Trust. If they dare let it go to the wall--" He grinned, took a long whistle and threw up his arms.

"But surely not all--you don't mean wiped out?" said Bojo, aghast. "You must be worth twenty, twenty-two million."

"I am worth that and more," said Drake quietly. "On paper and not only on paper, under any other system of banking in the world, I would be worth twenty-seven millions of dollars. Every cent of it. Remember that afterward, Tom. You'll never see anything funnier. Twenty-seven millions and to-day I can't borrow five hundred thousand dollars on collateral worth forty times that. You don't understand it. I'll tell you."

CHAPTER XXVI

A FIGHT IN MILLIONS

Drake did not immediately proceed. Having impulsively expressed his intention to reveal his financial crisis, he hesitated as though regretting that impulse. He left the fireplace and went from door to door as though to a.s.sure himself against listeners, but aimlessly, rather from indecision than from any precaution. Returning, he flung away his cigar, though it was but half consumed, and took a fresh one, offering the box to Bojo without perceiving that he was in no need. So apparent was his disinclination, that Bojo felt impelled to say:

"Perhaps you would rather not tell me, sir!"

"I'd only be telling you what my enemies know," said Drake sharply, flinging himself down. "They know to a dollar what I've pledged and what I can draw on-- Oh! trust them."

"Mr. Drake," said Bojo slowly, "I don't need to tell you, do I, that I would do anything in this world for Patsie, and that without knowing in the slightest what she feels toward me--believe me. I say this to you--because I want you to know that I've come only in the wildest hope that I might help in some way--some little way."

Drake shook his head.

"You can't, and yet--" He hesitated a last time and then said, in a dreamy, indecisive way, so foreign to his nature that it showed the extent of the mental struggle through which he had pa.s.sed, "and yet there are some things I'd be glad to have you know--to remember, Tom, after it's all over, particularly if you come into the family. For I don't think you quite understand my ways of fighting. You took a rather harsh view of certain things from your standpoint-- I admit you had some cause."

"I didn't judge you," said Bojo hastily, blushing with embarra.s.sment. "I was only judging myself, my own responsibility."

"Well, you judged me too," said Drake, smiling. "Yes--and I felt it, and I'll say now that I felt uncomfortable--d.a.m.ned uncomfortable. That's why I'm going to let you see that according to my ways of looking at things I play the game square. I'm going to let you overhear a certain very interesting little meeting that is going to take place" (he glanced at the clock) "in about half an hour. Mr. James H. Haggerdy is coming to make me a proposition from Gunther and Co. It'll interest you."

"Thank you," said Bojo simply.

"Now, here's the situation in a nutsh.e.l.l. If I could weather this depression a year, six months, or if there had been no depression, but normal times, I would be able to swing a deal and clear out at over one hundred millions-- I gambled big. It was in me--fated-- I had to sink or swim on a big stake. If I'd have won out, I'd have been among the kings of the country. That's what I wanted--not money. It's the poker in my blood. However. Here's the case: I made money, as you know--a great deal of money. I was worth considerable after the Indiana Smelters got going. I was worth ten millions more when I had sold back Pittsburgh & New Orleans. That was the crisis. I wanted to get in with the inner crowd--not simply to be a buccaneer, for that's about what I'd been.

That's why they bought their old railroad back. I was rated a dangerous man. I was. So is every man dangerous till he gets what he wants. I went to Gunther and laid my cards on the table. Gunther's a big man, the only man I'd have done it to, but he has one fault--he can hate. The ideal master ought to have no friends and no enemies. I said to Gunther: