The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 38

"What's wrong with your concern?" d.i.c.k asked anxiously. "Some one is pounding it for all he is worth."

"Who were selling yesterday?"

"Stearns & Harris," he answered. (They were brokers that Strauss's crowd were known to use.)

There was a mystery here somewhere. For there could not be any considerable amount of the stock loose, now that Dround's block was locked up in Jules Carb.o.n.e.r's safe. Yet did the Strauss crowd dare to sell it short in this brazen way? They must think it would be cheap enough soon, or they knew where they could get some stock when they wanted it.

"What's up?" d.i.c.k asked again, hovering at my elbow. I judged that he had gone into Meat Products on his own account, and wanted to know which way to jump.

"It looks bad for us," I said confidentially to d.i.c.kie. "You needn't publish this on the street." (I reckoned that the tip would be on the ticker before noon.) "But Dround has gone over to the other crowd. And probably some of our people are squeezed just now so they can't hold their Meat Products." I added some yarn about a lawsuit to make doubly sure of d.i.c.kie, and ordered him to sell a few hundred shares on my own account as a clincher.

When I reached my telephone I called up some brokers that I trusted and told them to watch the market for Meat Products stock, and pick it up quietly, leading on the gang that was pounding our issues all they could. An hour later, on my way back from the Tenth National, where I had had a most satisfactory interview with Mr. Orlando Bates, I dropped in at d.i.c.kie Pierson's place. Meat Products shares were active, and in full retreat across the broad board.

"I guess you had better sell some more for me," I said to d.i.c.kie. "Sell a thousand to-morrow."

CHAPTER XXVI

VICTORY

_The shorts are caught--Big John comes to my office to get terms--An exchange of opinions--An alliance proposed--I reject it--My enemies are flattering--I have arrived_

They sent old John Carmichael around to treat with me. He had to come to the office the same as any other man who had a favor to ask. Sloc.u.m and I and two or three others who were close to us were there waiting for him, and discussing the terms we should give.

"They must be short in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand shares common and preferred the best we can make out," Sloc.u.m reported, after conferring with our brokers. "How did you have the nerve, Van, to run this corner when you knew Dround's stock was loose?"

"It isn't loose," I answered.

"Where is it, then? We know pretty well where every other share is, but his block has dropped out of the market. It was transferred to some New York parties last October."

I smiled tranquilly. There had been no leak in our barrel. Sloc.u.m and I had been around to all the other large holders of Meat Products, and I knew they would not go back on us. The Strauss crowd would find the corner invulnerable.

When Carmichael came in he nodded to me familiarly, just as he used to at Dround's when he had been away on a trip to New York or some place, and called out gruffly:--

"Say! I told them you were a bad one to go up against. Say, Harrington, do you remember how you scalped poor old McGee back in the days when you were doing odd jobs at Dround's? Well, I came over here to see what you want for your old sausage shop, anyway."

With that gibe at my start in the packing business he settled back in his chair and pulled out a cigar.

"I don't know that we are anxious to sell, John," I replied.

"What? That talk don't go. I know you want to get out mighty bad. What's your figure?"

"You fellows have given us a lot of trouble, first and last," I mused tranquilly. "There was that injunction business over the London and Chicago Company, and the squeeze by the banks. You have tried every dirty little game you knew."

Carmichael grinned and smoked.

"I suppose you want our outfit to turn out some more rotten canned stuff for the Government. What you sold them isn't fit for a Chinaman to eat, John." Thereupon I reached into a drawer of my desk and brought out a tin of army beef marked with the well-known brand of the great Strauss.

I proceeded to open it, and as soon as the cover was removed a foul odor offended our nostrils. "Here's a choice specimen one of our boys got for me."

Carmichael smoked on placidly.

"That is something we have never done, though we couldn't make anything on our contract at the figures you people set. And little of the business we got, anyway! Strauss ought to be put where he'd have to feed off his own rations."

So we sat and scored one another comfortably for a time, and then came to business. The terms that Sloc.u.m and I had figured out were that Strauss and his crowd should pay us in round numbers two hundred dollars per share preferred and common alike, allowing every shareholder the same terms. Carmichael leaped to his feet when he heard the figures.

"You're crazy mad, Van," he swore volubly. Then he stated his plan, which was, in brief, that we should make an alliance with the great Strauss and sell him at "reasonable figures" an interest in our company.

"And let you and Strauss freeze out my friends? Not for one minute! Go back and tell your boss to find that stock he's short of."

Carmichael threw us an amused glance.

"Do you think that's worrying us? If you want a fight, I guess we can give you some trouble."

It seems that they had another club behind their backs, and that was a suit, which they were instigating the Attorney-general to bring against the Meat Products Company for infringing the Illinois anti-trust act.

The impudence and boldness of this suggestion angered me.

"All right," I said. "You have our figure, John."

He left us that day, but he came the next morning with new proposals from his master. They were anxious to have a peaceable settlement. I had known for some time that these men were preparing for an astonishing move, which was nothing less than a gigantic combination of all the large food-product industries of the country, and they could not leave us as a thorn in their side. They must annex us, cost what it might.

So now they talked of my ability, of what I had done in making a great business out of a lot of remnants, and they wanted to buy me as well as our company, offering me some strong inducements to join them. But I told Carmichael shortly:--

"I will never work with Strauss in this life. It's no use your talking, John. There isn't enough money coined to bring me to him. You must buy our stock outright--and be quick about it, too."

He could not understand my feeling, and it was not reasonable. But all these years of desperate fight there had grown up in my heart a hatred of my enemy beyond the usual cold pa.s.sions of business. I hated him as a machine, as a man,--as a cruel, treacherous, selfish, unpatriotic maker of dollars.

So in the end they came to my terms, and the lawyers set to work on the papers. The Strauss interests were to take over the Meat Products stock at our figure, and also the Empress Line, our private-car enterprise, and two or three smaller matters that had grown up in connection with the packing business. When Sloc.u.m and I went on to New York to finish the transaction, Sarah and the girls accompanied us, on their way to Europe, where they were going for a pleasure trip.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_There isn't enough money coined to bring me to him._"]

Thus in a few months my labors came to flower, and suddenly the map of my life changed completely. The end was not yet, but no longer was I the needy adventurer besieging men of means to join me in my enterprises, dodging daily blows in a hand-to-hand scrimmage--a struggling packer! I had brought Strauss to my own terms. And when the proud firm of Morris Brothers, the great bankers, invited me to confer with them in regard to our railroad properties in the Southwest, and to take part in one of those deals which in a day transform the industrial map of the country, I felt that I had come out upon the level plateau of power.

CHAPTER XXVII

DOUBTS

_The time of jubilation--At the bankers'--The last word from Farson--Sarah and I go to see the parade--We meet the Drounds--A fading life--Sad thoughts--Jane speaks out--What next?--Sarah is no longer jealous_

It was that autumn of jubilation after the Spanish War. The morning when I drove through the city to the bankers' office, workmen were putting up a great arch across the avenue for the coming day of celebration. Our people had shown the nations of the world the might and the glory in us.

Forgotten now was the miserable mismanagement of our brave men, the shame of rotten rations, the fraud of politicians--all but the pride of our strength! A new spirit had come over our country during these months--a spirit of daring and adventure, of readiness for vast enterprises. That business world of which I was a part was boiling with activities. The great things that had been done in the past in the light of the present seemed but the deeds of babes. And every man who had his touch upon affairs felt the madness of the times.