The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 37

"Street floor, sir," the elevator boy called out to wake me from my preoccupation. As I stood on the curb in the same will-less daze, a cab came prowling down the street, crossed to my side, and the disreputable-looking driver touched his dirty hat with his whip:--

"Cab, sir?"

"Two-thirty West Lake," I said to him mechanically, and plunged into his carriage.

The cab finally drew up beside a low, grimy brick building that looked as if it might have survived the fire. There was a flight of dirty stairs leading from the street to the office floor, and over the small, old-fashioned windows a faded sign read "Jules Carb.o.n.e.r." In response to my knock an old man opened the locked door a crack and looked out at me.

When I asked to see Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r, he admitted me suspiciously to a little room, which was divided in two by a high iron screen. On the inner side of the screen there was a battered desk, a few chairs, and a row of leather-backed folios that might have been in use since the founding of the city. A small coal fire was burning dully in the grate.

As I stood waiting for Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r, a barge laden with lumber cast its shadow through the dirty windows....

"And what may you want of me?"

The words were uttered like a cough. The one who spoke them had entered the inner office so noiselessly that I had not heard him. He had a white head of hair, and jet-black eyes. I handed him my card with Mrs.

Dround's note.

"I was expecting you," the old gentleman remarked, glancing indifferently at my card. He unlocked the door of the iron grating and held it open, pointing to a chair in front of the fire. Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r was short and round, with swarthy, full-blooded cheeks. Evidently he was some sort of foreigner, but I could not place him among the types of men I knew.

"What do you want of me?" he demanded briskly.

"Oh, just a lot of money, first and last!" I laughed.

This announcement didn't seem to trouble him; he waited for my explanation. And remembering that I was to look to him for advice as well as cash, I proceeded to explain briefly the situation that I found myself in. He listened without comment.

"Finally," I said rather wearily, "just now, when I am in deep water with this railroad and all the rest, and the banks calling my loans, some fellows are selling their Meat Products stock. It will all go to my enemies--to Strauss and his crowd, and I shall find myself presently kicked out of the company. I suppose it's Mr. Dround's stock that's coming on the market. It's like him to sell when prices are going down."

The little old fellow shook his head.

"It is not Mr. Dround's stock," he said. "Most of that is over there."

He nodded his head in the direction of a small safe which stood in one corner of the room.

"How did you get it?" I exclaimed in my astonishment, jumping to my feet.

"Never mind how--we have had it three months," he replied with a smile.

"You need not fear that it will come on the market just now."

My heart gave a great bound upward: with this block of stock locked up I could do what I would with Meat Products. Strauss could never put his hands on it. Jane Dround must have worked this stroke; but how she did it was a mystery. I walked back and forth in my excitement, and when I sat down once more Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r began a neat little summary of my situation:--

"You are engaged in many ventures. Some are strong." He named all the good ones as if he were quoting from a carefully drawn report. "Some are weak." He named the others. "Now, you are trying to hold the weak with the strong. It is like carrying a basket of eggs on your head. All goes well until some one runs against you. Then b.u.m, biff!--you have the beginning of an omelet."

His way of putting it made me laugh.

"And the omelet is about ready to cook in an hour or two!" I added.

"We shall see presently. You want to sell out this packing business, some day, eh? To Strauss? You take big chances. You are a new man. They suspect you. They call your loans. They think that you are thin in the waist? You have to borrow a great deal of money and pay high for it?"

"You have sized me up, Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r."

"And after you have sold to Strauss there will be railroads--ah, that is more difficult! And then many other things--always ventures, risks, schemes, plans, great plans! For you are very bold."

"Well, what will you do for me?" I asked bluntly.

"I think we can carry you over this river, Mr. Harrington," he replied, looking at me with a very amiable air, as if he were my schoolmaster and had decided to give me a holiday and some spending money. Who made up the "we" in this firm of Rip Van Winkle bankers? Carb.o.n.e.r seemed to divine my doubts; for he smiled as he reached for a pad of paper and began to write in a close, crabbed hand.

"Take that to Mr. Bates," he directed. "You know him, eh?"

Did I know Orlando Bates! If I had been to him once at the Tenth National, of which he was president, I had been to him fifty times, with varying results. I knew every wrinkle in his parchment-covered face.

"He will give you what you want," the old man added.

I still hesitated, holding Carb.o.n.e.r's scrawl in my hand.

"You think it no good?" He motioned to the sheet of coa.r.s.e paper. "Try it!"

"Don't you want a receipt?" I stammered.

"What for? Do you think I am a p.a.w.nbroker?"

The mystery grew. Suppose I should take this old fellow's scrawl over to Orlando Bates, and the president of the Tenth National should ask me what it meant?

"It is good," Carb.o.n.e.r said impressively.

"Whose is it?" The words escaped me unconsciously. "I want to know whose money I am taking."

"I hope it will be no one's," he answered imperturbably, "except the bank's. You come to me wanting money, credit. I give it to you. I ask no questions. Why should you?"

Was it a woman's money I was taking to play out my game. I recalled the story Sarah had told me years ago about Jane Dround's father and his fortune. He was a rich old half-breed trader, and it was gossiped that he had left behind him a pile of gold. Perhaps this Mr. Carb.o.n.e.r was some French-Canadian, friend or business partner of Jane's father, who had charge of her affairs. As Sarah had said, Jane Dround was always secret and uncommunicative about herself. My faith in the piece of paper was growing, but I still waited.

"If you lay these matters down now," Carb.o.n.e.r observed coldly, poking the fire with an old pair of tongs, "they will be gla.s.s. If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become diamonds."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_If you grasp them in a strong hand, they will become diamonds._"]

But to take a woman's money! I thought for a moment--and then dismissed the scruple as swiftly as it had come. This woman was a good gambler!

"All right!" I exclaimed, drawing on my overcoat, which I had laid aside.

"Good! Don't worry about anything. Make your trees bear fruit. That is what you can do, young man." Old Carb.o.n.e.r patted me on the back in a fatherly fashion. "Now we will have some coffee together. There is yet time."

The man who had opened the door for me brought in two cups of strong coffee, and I drank mine standing while Carb.o.n.e.r sipped his and talked.

"This disturbance will be over soon," he said sagely. "Then we shall have such times of wealth and speculation as the world has never seen.

Great things will be done in a few years, and you will do some of them.

There are those who have confidence in you, my son. And confidence is worth many millions in gold."

He gave me his hand in dismissal.

"Come to see me again, and we will talk," he added sociably.

On the ground floor of my building there was a broker's office. It was a new firm of young men, without much backing. My old friend, d.i.c.kie Pierson, was one of them, and on his account I had given the firm some business now and then. This morning, as I was hurrying back to my office, I ran into d.i.c.k standing in the door of his place. He beckoned me into the room where the New York quotations were beginning to go up on the board. He pointed to the local list of the day before; Meat Products stretched in a long string of quotations across the board, mute evidence of yesterday's slaughter.