The Pit Part 50

"You're short a million and a half, then," he repeated. "I'll let you have six hundred thousand of it at a dollar and a half a bushel."

"A dollar and a half! Why, my G.o.d, man! Oh well"--Scannel spread out his hands nonchalantly--"I shall simply go into bankruptcy--just as you said."

"Oh, no, you won't," replied Jadwin, pushing back and crossing his legs. "I've had your financial standing computed very carefully, Mr.

Scannel. You've got the ready money. I know what you can stand without busting, to the fraction of a cent."

"Why, it's ridiculous. That handful of wheat will cost me three hundred thousand dollars."

"Pre-cisely."

And then all at once Scannel surrendered. Stony, imperturbable, he drew his check book from his pocket.

"Make it payable to bearer," said Jadwin.

The other complied, and Jadwin took the check and looked it over carefully.

"Now," he said, "watch here, Dave Scannel. You see this check? And now," he added, thrusting it into Hargus's hands, "you see where it goes. There's the princ.i.p.al of your debt paid off."

"The princ.i.p.al?"

"You haven't forgotten the interest, have you? won't compound it, because that might bust you. But six per cent interest on three hundred thousand since 1878, comes to--let's see--three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And you still owe me nine hundred thousand bushels of wheat." He ciphered a moment on a sheet of note paper. "If I charge you a dollar and forty a bushel for that wheat, it will come to that sum exactly.... Yes, that's correct. I'll let you have the balance of that wheat at a dollar forty. Make the check payable to bearer as before."

For a second Scannel hesitated, his face purple, his teeth grinding together, then muttering his rage beneath his breath, opened his check book again.

"Thank you," said Jadwin as he took the check.

He touched his call bell.

"Kinzie," he said to the clerk who answered it, "after the close of the market to-day send delivery slips for a million and a half wheat to Mr.

Scannel. His account with us has been settled."

Jadwin turned to the old man, reaching out the second check to him.

"Here you are, Hargus. Put it away carefully. You see what it is, don't you? Buy your Lizzie a little gold watch with a hundred of it, and tell her it's from Curtis Jadwin, with his compliments.... What, going, Scannel? Well, good-by to you, sir, and hey!" he called after him, "please don't slam the door as you go out."

But he dodged with a defensive gesture as the pane of gla.s.s almost leaped from its casing, as Scannel stormed across the threshold.

Jadwin turned to Hargus, with a solemn wink.

"He did slam it after all, didn't he?"

The old fellow, however, sat fingering the two checks in silence. Then he looked up at Jadwin, scared and trembling.

"I--I don't know," he murmured, feebly. "I am a very old man.

This--this is a great deal of money, sir. I--I can't say; I--I don't know. I'm an old man ... an old man."

"You won't lose 'em, now?"

"No, no. I'll deposit them at once in the Illinois Trust. I shall ask--I should like."

"I'll send a clerk with you."

"Yes, yes, that is about what--what I--what I was about to suggest. But I must say, Mr. Jadwin--"

He began to stammer his thanks. But Jadwin cut him off. Rising, he guided Hargus to the door, one hand on his shoulder, and at the entrance to the outer office called a clerk.

"Take Mr. Hargus over to the Illinois Trust, Kinzie, and introduce him.

He wants to open an account."

The old man started off with the clerk, but before Jadwin had reseated himself at his desk was back again. He was suddenly all excitement, as if a great idea had abruptly taken possession of him. Stealthy, furtive, he glanced continually over his shoulder as he spoke, talking in whispers, a trembling hand shielding his lips.

"You--you are in--you are in control now," he said. "You could give--hey? You could give me--just a little--just one word. A word would be enough, hey? hey? Just a little tip. My G.o.d, I could make fifty dollars by noon."

"Why, man, I've just given you about half a million."

"Half a million? I don't know. But"--he plucked Jadwin tremulously by the sleeve--"just a word," he begged. "Hey, just yes or no."

"Haven't you enough with those two checks?"

"Those checks? Oh, I know, I know, I know I'll salt 'em down. Yes, in the Illinois Trust. I won't touch 'em--not those. But just a little tip now, hey?"

"Not a word. Not a word. Take him along, Kinzie."

One week after this Jadwin sold, through his agents in Paris, a tremendous line of "cash" wheat at a dollar and sixty cents the bushel.

By now the foreign demand was a thing almost insensate. There was no question as to the price. It was, "Give us the wheat, at whatever cost, at whatever figure, at whatever expense; only that it be rushed to our markets with all the swiftness of steam and steel." At home, upon the Chicago Board of Trade, Jadwin was as completely master of the market as of his own right hand. Everything stopped when he raised a finger; everything leaped to life with the fury of obsession when he nodded his head. His wealth increased with such stupefying rapidity, that at no time was he able to even approximate the gains that accrued to him because of his corner. It was more than twenty million, and less than fifty million. That was all he knew. Nor were the everlasting hills more secure than he from the attack of any human enemy. Out of the ranks of the conquered there issued not so much as a whisper of hostility. Within his own sphere no Czar, no satrap, no Caesar ever wielded power more resistless.

"Sam," said Curtis Jadwin, at length to the broker, "Sam, nothing in the world can stop me now. They think I've been doing something big, don't they, with this corner. Why, I've only just begun. This is just a feeler. Now I'm going to let 'em know just how big a gun C. J. really is. I'm going to swing this deal right over into July. I'm going to buy in my July shorts."

The two men were in Gretry's office as usual, and as Jadwin spoke, the broker glanced up incredulously.

"Now you are for sure crazy."

Jadwin jumped to his feet.

"Crazy!" he vociferated. "Crazy! What do you mean? Crazy! For G.o.d's sake, Sam, what--Look here, don't use that word to me. I--it don't suit. What I've done isn't exactly the work of--of--takes brains, let me tell you. And look here, look here, I say, I'm going to swing this deal right over into July. Think I'm going to let go now, when I've just begun to get a real grip on things? A pretty fool I'd look like to get out now--even if I could. Get out? How are we going to unload our big line of wheat without breaking the price on us? No, sir, not much.

This market is going up to two dollars." He smote a knee with his clinched fist, his face going abruptly crimson. "I say two dollars," he cried. "Two dollars, do you hear? It will go there, you'll see, you'll see."

"Reports on the new crop will begin to come in in June." Gretry's warning was almost a cry. "The price of wheat is so high now, that G.o.d knows how many farmers will plant it this spring. You may have to take care of a record harvest."

"I know better," retorted Jadwin. "I'm watching this thing. You can't tell me anything about it. I've got it all figured out, your 'new crop.'"

"Well, then you're the Lord Almighty himself."

"I don't like that kind of joke. I don't like that kind of joke. It's blasphemous," exclaimed Jadwin. "Go, get it off on Crookes. He'd appreciate it, but I don't. But this new crop now--look here."

And for upwards of two hours Jadwin argued and figured, and showed to Gretry endless tables of statistics to prove that he was right.

But at the end Gretry shook his head. Calmly and deliberately he spoke his mind.