Making Money Part 9

"Oh, I have my ways," she said, delighted, "and I keep my secrets too.

Just remember if you'd taken my advice what you'd have made."

"It is astounding how right you've been," he said doubtfully.

"Listen, Bojo, this is absolutely correct. I know it. I can't tell you now--I promised--but if I could you wouldn't have the slightest doubt.

Can't you trust me just this once? Don't you know that I'm working for you? Oh, it's such an opportunity for us both. Listen, if you won't do it, buy five hundred shares for me with my own money. Oh, how can I convince you!"

He looked away thoughtfully; tempted, convinced, suspecting the source of her information, but wishing to remain ignorant.

"You are determined to buy?" She nodded energetically. "What does your father say?"

She seized his idea, saving him the embarra.s.sment of a direct suggestion.

"If Dad says yes, will that convince you? Wait." She thought a moment, pacing up and down, humming brightly to herself. Suddenly she turned, her eyes sparkling with the delight of her own machinations. "I'll tell you how I'll do it. Next week's my birthday. I'll ask him to give me the tip as a birthday present." She clapped her hands gleefully, adding: "I'll tell him it's for my trousseau. If he says all right you won't refuse."

"No, I won't."

She flung herself joyfully into his arms at this victory won, at this prospect opened.

"Bojo, I do love you and I do want to do so much for you!" she cried, tightening her arms about his neck, with more genuine demonstration than she had shown in months.

"After all, I'd be a fool to refuse," he thought, excited too, and aloud he said, "Yes, Miss General Manager."

"Oh, call me anything you like if you'll only let me manage you!" she said, laughing. "Now sit down and let me tell you all I've planned out for you to do."

That night she told him excitedly over the telephone that her little scheme had succeeded, that her father had given his O. K., but of course no one must know. The next day he had bought five hundred shares for her, and after much hesitation a thousand for his own account at 104-1/2. It was a good risk; the stock had been stable for years; even if the combination did not go through, there was little danger of a rapid fall; and if it went up there was a chance at a thirty- or forty-point rise. He kept the injunction of secrecy, as all such injunctions are kept, to the point of telling only his closest friends, Marsh and DeLancy, who bought at once.

Nevertheless, no sooner had the transaction been completed than he had a sudden revulsion. He had been long enough in Wall Street to have heard a hundred tales of the methods of big manipulators. What if Dan Drake's endors.e.m.e.nt was only a clever ruse to conceal his real intentions, quits for reimbursing Doris afterward with a check, according to a famous precedent? Perhaps he even suspected that he, Bojo, had put Doris up to it and was taking this method to read him the lesson that his methods were not to be solved along such lines. At any rate, Tom pa.s.sed a very bad night, saying to himself that he had plunged ahead on the flimsiest sort of evidence and fully deserved a shearing.

A glorious December morning, with a touch of Indian summer, was pouring through the half-opened window, bearing the distant sounds of steam riveters. Marsh was busily culling half a dozen newspapers, while Fred was yawning over the eggs and coffee, when the mail was brought in by the grinning Oriental who had been dubbed Sweeney. DeLancy, who had the curiosity of a girl, pounced upon the letters, slinging half a dozen at Bojo with a grumbled comment.

"Dog ding him if he isn't more popular than me! Important business letters--Mr. Morgan and Mr. Rockefeller asking your advice--society invitations--do honor our humble palace, pink envelope, heavily scented.

I say, Bojo, I've gone in deep on your precious stock, two hundred shares--all I could sc.r.a.pe together. Hope you guess right. Anything I hate is work, and 10 per cent. margin ought to be bolstered up by divine revelation."

"Wish the deuce you hadn't," said Bojo, sitting down and opening the formal announcement of his broker's purchase, which struck his eyes like a criminal warrant.

"Cheer up," said Marsh, emerging from the litter of papers. "I've got a tip from another angle, one of the lawyers involved. I'm going in for another couple of thousand shares. Why so glum, Bojo?"

"Wish I hadn't told you fellows."

"Rats; that's all in the game!" said Marsh, but DeLancy did not look so philosophical.

Bojo opened several invitations, a notice from the tailor to call for a fitting, two letters from clients, personal friends, and finally the pink envelope, which was from Doris.

Bojo dear:

Whatever you do don't tell a soul. Dad questioned me terrifically and I told a little fib. How many shares did you buy? Dad made me promise to buy only five hundred, but I know it's all right from the way he acted. Oh, Bojo, I hope you make lots and lots of money! Wouldn't Dad be surprised?

He asked me to-night in the funny gruff way he puts on, 'How's that young man of yours getting on? Have they got his hide yet?' Won't it be a joke on him? By the way, I dined with the Morrisons (she's an old school chum of mine) and put in my clever little oar. Don't be surprised if some one else calls you up soon to place a little order. I'm working in another direction too. Don't fail to come up for tea.

With much love, DORIS.

P.S. The Tremaines are _awfully_ influential. Be sure and go to their dance.

He placed the letter in his pocket thoughtfully, not entirely happy. It was a fair sample of a score of letters--enthusiasm, solicitude, ambition, and clever worldly advice, but lacking the one note that something in him craved despite all the purely mental satisfaction the prospect held for him.

DeLancy continuing to loiter, he went out, alone, obsessed with the thought of the opening of the market and the sound of the ticker, and caught the subway for Wall Street, preoccupied and serious.

It had been three months now since the day when he had first come downtown to take up service as a broker's runner, and much had changed within him during that time, much of which he himself was not aware. The first days he had been rather bewildered and resentful of the menial beginning. It did not seem quite a man's work--this messenger service, and the contemplation of those above him, the men at the sheets and the office clerks, inspired him with a distaste. Often he remembered his conversation with his father and talks with Granning, the matter-of-fact; comparing their outlook on the life with his a.s.sociates much to the disadvantage of the curiously inconsequential throng of young men who, like himself, were willing to go scurrying in the rain and dark on servants' quests, in order to get a peek into the intricate mysteries of Wall Street that held sudden fortunes for those who could see.

He had come out of college with a love of manly qualities and the belief that it was a man's privilege to face difficult and laborious tasks, and the prevalent type among the beginners was not his type. Then, too, the magnitude of the Street overpowered him, the skysc.r.a.pers without tops dwarfed him, its jargon mystified him, as the colossal scale of the operations he saw seemed to rob him of the sense of his own individuality. But gradually, being possessed of shrewd native sense and persistence, he began to distinguish in the mob types and among the types figures that stood out in bold relief. He began to see those who would pa.s.s and those who would persist.

He began to meet the more rugged type, schooled in earlier tests, shrewd, cautious, and resolved, self-made men who had abrupt ways of speaking their thoughts, who frankly cla.s.sed him with other fortunate youths and a.s.sured him that they were there by right, to take away from them what had been foolishly given and pay them back in experience. He took their chaffing in good humor, seeking their companionship and their points of view by preference, gradually disarming their criticism, secretly resolved that whatever might be the common fate at least he would not prove a foolish lamb for the shearing.

Steeled in this resolution, he began by setting his face against speculation, investing his money temporarily in irreproachable bonds, refusing to listen to all the tips, whispered or openly proffered, which a.s.sailed his ears from morning until night, until the day when he should know of his own knowledge of men and things. He worked hard, following Drake's advice, seeking information from men rather than from books, checking up what each told him by what the next man had to say of his last informant, mystified often by the glib psychology of finance, slowly rating men at their just value, no longer lending credulous ear to the frayed prophets of New Street or thrilling with the excitement of a thrice confidential tip.

He had advanced rapidly, but underneath all his delight there was an abiding suspicion that his progress had not been entirely due to his own glaring accomplishments, but that the name of Crocker, senior, his bank account, and the magic touch of Daniel Drake had been for much.

CHAPTER VII

UNDER THE TICKER'S TYRANNY

During the last month he had had several tentative approaches from Weldon Forshay, who was what DeLancy called the social scavenger of the firm, a club man irreproachably connected, amiable and winning in his ways, who received uptown clients in the outer office, went out to lunch with the riding set, who lounged in toward midday for what they termed a whack at the market. Forshay was a thoroughly good fellow who gave his friends the best of advice, which was no advice at all, and left business details to his partners, Heinrich Flaspoller and Silas T. Hauk, shrewd, conservative, self-made men who exchanged one ceremonial family dinner party a year with their brilliant a.s.sociate.

Forshay, who was no fool and neglected no detail of social connections, had been keen to perceive the advantages of an alliance with the prospective son-in-law of Daniel Drake, keeping in view the voluminous transactions that flowed monthly from the keys of that daring manipulator. The transactions of the last days had been noted with more than usual interest, and Bojo's announcement of the amount of collateral which he had to offer as security (he did not, naturally, give the impression that this was the sum of his holdings) had further increased the growing affection of the firm for an industrious young man, of such excellent prospects.

When Crocker arrived, excited and keyed to the whirring sound of the ticker, Forshay, a splendid American imitation of an English aristocrat, drew him affably into an inner room.

"I say, Crocker," he said, "the firm's been thinking you over rather seriously. It isn't often a young fellow comes down here and makes his way as quickly as you. We like your methods, and I think we've been quick to recognize them--haven't we?"

"You certainly have," said Tom with real enthusiasm.

"You've brought us business and you'll bring us more. Now some evening soon I want you to come up to the club and sit down over a little dinner and discuss the whole prospect." He looked at him benignly and added: "I don't see why an ambitious man like you who has got what you have ahead of you shouldn't fit into this firm before very long."

"Provided I marry Miss Doris Drake," thought Bojo to himself. The cool way in which he received the news made a distinct impression on Forshay, who went a little further. "We realize that with the friends and backing you've got you're not on the lookout to stay forever on a salary. What you want is to get a fair share of the business you can swing, and the only way is to join some firm. Well, I won't say any more now. You know what we're thinking. We'll foregather later."

"You're very kind, indeed, Mr. Forshay," said Bojo, delightfully fl.u.s.tered.

"Not at all. You're the kind that goes ahead. Oh, by the way, the firm wants me to tell you that from next week your salary will be seventy-five dollars."

This time Bojo gulped down his surprise and shook hands in boyish delight.

"Mighty glad to give it to you," said Forshay, laughing. "I see you think well of Indiana Smelter. Now I don't want you to betray any confidences, but of course I know how you stand in certain quarters.

There is no harm in my saying that, is there? I've watched you. You haven't been running after every rumor on the block. You're shrewd.

You're too conservative to invest without some pretty solid reason or to let your friends in unless you're pretty sure."