THE PATOKA FLATS
Jack Balcomb, walking through an alley that ran parallel with Jefferson
Street, marked the unmistakable figure of Ezra Dameron ahead of him.
This alley was called Ruby Street for no reason that any one knew. It
was lined with the rear doors of Jefferson Street shops on one side
and those of jobbing houses on the other, and, as it was narrow, its
traffic was usually congested. A few saloons were squeezed into corners
here and there and in one large room opening directly on the alley a
dealer in margins maintained an office.
Balcomb paused a moment to watch Dameron, who dodged in and out among
trucks, horses and hurrying pedestrians with quick, eager steps.
“I bet a dollar you’re going for a drink,” Balcomb remarked under his
breath; but the old man passed a saloon and went on. He seemed to be
in haste, and Balcomb stepped into the middle of the alley and watched
him, until he reached the broker’s office, which he entered without
looking around.
Balcomb whistled. “Worse than drink,” he reflected, and went up to his
own office.
Balcomb’s mind seethed with schemes these days. He sought to give an
air of seriousness to his business by carrying in the daily press an
advertisement which read, “J. Arthur Balcomb, Investment Broker,” and
he inscribed the same legend on his stationery. The solid business men
of Mariona regarded him a little warily; but he had carried through
several enterprises with considerable dash, and, as he cultivated
the reporters, his name frequently appeared in the newspapers. The
building of interurban trolley lines was bringing the surrounding
towns more and more into touch with the capital. The country banker
and the small capitalist were now much seen in the streets of Mariona.
They were learning the lingo of metropolitan business; many of
them had found it convenient to enroll themselves as non-resident
members of the Commercial Club, and Jack Balcomb’s office proved a
pleasant rendezvous. Here they could use his stenographers, and the
long-distance telephone was theirs to command. The banks and trust
companies were a trifle large for these interurban capitalists; but
Jack Balcomb accommodated himself to great and small. Prosperous
farmers, who were finding it pleasant to run into the capital, now
that the street car passed their door, learned much from Balcomb, who
had the rosy imagination and sublime zeal that they lacked. Balcomb
had organized the Patoka Land and Improvement Company to give the
interurbanites a chance to taste the sweets of large enterprises.
Balcomb found a group of men waiting for him in his office and he sent
them into his private room while he dictated in a loud tone to one of
his stenographers. It was a letter to a famous Wall Street banking
house and referred in large figures to a certain or uncertain bond deal
which, from the terms of the letter, the New York house and Balcomb
were carrying on together. It was, to be sure, a letter that would
never encumber the mails, but this made no difference to Balcomb, who
gave it what he called the true commercial literary finish.
He left the stenographers to themselves with the solemn injunction that
he was not to be disturbed; then he entered his private office briskly
and was soon talking breathlessly to half a dozen auditors.
“We haven’t merely to crowd in every modern improvement, gentlemen;
we’ve got to anticipate improvements! There’s nothing so stale and
unprofitable as an old flat. The crowd follows the newest thing. We
must have novel features,--all we can get. If it’s likely to be a good
thing to pipe the house for buttermilk, all right; we’ll fix it that
way. If roof gardens are getting common we’ll not have any. Just at
present I’m for a library on the top floor, with splashing fountains
concealed by palms in the center; and a ball-room with a stage where
they can have amateur theatricals and a big Christmas tree and that
sort of thing. It’ll waste room, of course, but we’ll make the tenants
pay for it. Rent it? Well, I guess yes! We’ll get tired of putting
names on the waiting list!”
He stood with a pile of architect’s sketches before him, disclosing to
his associates of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company his scheme
for an ideal flat. Jack Balcomb always wore good clothes; they added to
his air of plausibility. His Vandyke beard was certainly becoming and
his brown eyes were handsome, albeit a trifle restless and unsteady.
“Now,” said Balcomb, standing away from the drawings, “I don’t want you
gentlemen to drop dead of heart disease or any little thing like that;
but I’ve got my principal idea to spring.”
He produced a box of cigars and passed it round and then carried a
lighted match from one to the other with deferential courtesy. He liked
to make them wait--to tease their curiosity. He lighted his own cigar
deliberately and smoothed the blue prints on the table carefully as he
continued:
“You gentlemen will admit that there are plenty of apartment houses
down-town. Every old corner is getting one. Every lone widow in the
community takes her life insurance money and blows it into a flat and
thinks it safer than government bonds. But I’ve got an idea worth two
of the best of them. I wish to thunder we could copyright it, it’s so
good.”
He let a dreamy look come into his eyes while the grave incorporators
of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company smoked and listened. He had
dropped the “we” in a casual way, but it had reached the right spot in
the breasts of the interurbanites.
“It’s up to us to do something new; and it has struck me that a
ten-story flat, with every comfort and luxury provided, located away
from the heat and dirt of the city, but accessible by car-line--not
more than twenty minutes from the monument--is the thing we’re looking
for. Instead of gazing out on smoke-stacks our tenants will look down
on trees! Does it sound good to you?”
His audience smoked on quietly and Balcomb continued. They liked to
hear him talk. He was an attractive figure as he leaned against the
wall with his hands in his pockets.
“We can afford to give them some green grass to look at by going out
of town. Babies, pianos and dogs are excluded from all well-regulated
flats, but if we should be a little tolerant toward babies an acre of
God’s green earth would be a great thing for them. Just see how it
grows on you, gentlemen! Now, in the same connection we’d run an ideal
dairy a little farther out, to give the tenants real cream and butter
like their mothers used to make. Say, I don’t see how the down-town
flats will do any business after we get going! If anybody asks
questions about the milk we can prove it was good by the cows!”
He laughed and they all grinned in sympathy with his plan and in
admiration of his genius.
“But where are you going to get all this?” asked Van Cleve, his
attorney, who frequently acted as interlocutor at such meetings.
“That’s not so easy. You’ve got to get on the best street and on a good
car-line, and you’ve got to go north. Remember, there’s a park system
going out that way right up the creek. A park system and a boulevard
would be worth millions to us. There are only two or three sites
possible and the best of all is the corner where High Street crosses
Ripple Creek. It looks awful good to me anywhere along there. Twenty
minutes from Jefferson Street, gentlemen; all the comforts of the city;
all the joys of the country. Now--” with a change of tone, “this is
all strictly _inter nos_, as Doc Bridges used to say at college. This
is our scheme and we don’t want a lot of little real estate fakirs
crossing our trail. If I may be a bit confidential and philosophical,
I’ll warn you against three classes of men--plumbers, real estate
agents and preachers in plug hats and shining alpaca coats who handle
a line of Arizona mining stock on the side.”
They all laughed and he sat down to give them a chance to ask him
questions. Up to a certain point he always did all the talking; but
he knew when to quit. He submitted himself to their cross-examination
graciously. They were simple, hard-headed men, and he answered them
patiently and carefully. He had accumulated a great fund of data
relating to the life of such structures as he proposed building: the
cost of maintenance; the heating and lighting questions and the matter
of service. Much of this was wholly new to the country capitalists; it
was novel and it was interesting and there was a glamour about it that
charmed them.
“You’ll go over to the club for luncheon, gentlemen,” he said, when the
whistles blew at twelve o’clock and several of his syndicate drew out
their watches,--“with me,” he added. “We’ll go about one.”
Most of them were used to dinner at twelve at home and they were
hungry; but luncheon at the club was in keeping with their new
development, and they waited patiently until young Midas should be
ready to lead them.
After seeing them fed at the Commercial Club he parted with them, with
the understanding that he was to search for a proper site for the
Patoka Flats, as the apartment house was to be called, and report on
a day fixed. He returned to his office for a further conference with
Van Cleve, his lawyer. The flat project was uppermost in Balcomb’s
mind, and he was bent on pushing it through. His interurbanites had
already subscribed for considerable stock and he was reasonably sure of
getting all the money he needed. Times were good; there was plenty of
capital seeking investment, and the incorporators of the Patoka Land
and Improvement Company were men of considerable influence in their
several communities.
“I say, Van Cleve,” remarked Balcomb to the lawyer, “we’re going to
make a big winner out of this. Some of the things I’ve put through are
jolly rotten; but this flat scheme is away up and out of sight the best
thing I ever tackled.”
“Those farmers are stuck on it, all right,” said Van Cleve. “You
certainly know how to blow hot air.”
Van Cleve had come to town to practise law, and had fallen in with
Balcomb at a boarding-house where they both lived. Balcomb had taken
soundings in the shallow waters of Van Cleve’s intellect and he
had decided that the young man would prove useful. Van Cleve had a
retreating chin, a corn-silk mustache and pale-blue, near-sighted eyes;
but he had an allowance from his father, which in some degree minimized
these disadvantages. The elder Van Cleve was a banker in an Ohio River
town and Balcomb was cultivating country bankers, with whom he was
building up business in the sale and purchase of securities.
“There’s only one place for that flat,” remarked Balcomb, musingly.
“That’s old Dameron’s place on the creek at High Street. The malaria is
all drained out of there now and it’s getting more valuable every day.
The extension of the park system along the creek and the building of
the boulevard will give the region a whirl. It’s only a country-town
idea that apartment houses must be built on the court-house square;
but we’ll show them, all right.”
He opened a plat book and pointed out to Van Cleve the location of the
Dameron ground.
“I suppose the old man will throw a fit when I ask him for a price on
the strip. Everybody seems to be afraid of Ezra Dameron; but I’m not
half as much afraid of him as I am of his daughter, who’s a pleasant
rest for tired eyes, all right. Ezra’s a queer old party, with a chilly
manner and an alluring smile; but I rather flatter myself that I know
how to handle difficult customers.”
“I guess you can handle them if anybody can,” said Van Cleve,
admiringly.
“I’ve mastered a few--just a few--of the arts of persuasion. In fact,
I prefer a tough case--something that gives a little resistance. It’s
more satisfactory.”
Balcomb stretched himself and yawned. He was not averse to Van Cleve’s
admiration, but sunned himself in it.
“I’ll drop around and see the old man just about now. There’s nothing
like keeping things going after you get started. Let me consider.
I’m not sure just what shade of gloves I ought to put on for this
interview. Perhaps ox-blood red would do just as well as anything.”
There was a file case in the corner, with many drawers bearing neat
labels inscribed with such titles as “Greene County Coal”; “Cement
Reports”; “Bank Statements”, and “U. S. Treasurer”. He pulled out
a drawer labeled “U. S. Treasurer” and carelessly turned over its
contents--several pairs of gloves in a variety of shades.
“Rather a neat thing in chiffonniers,” he remarked.
Van Cleve was staring at him in amazement. He never ceased to wonder at
Balcomb.
“This, my friend, is designed for the edification of rubbernecks. The
titles are rather impressive, and they are not all a sham. But if
you’re in a hurry to change your necktie at any time come in, old man,
and try on one of mine. You’ll find an assortment of new spring shades
under ‘Missouri Zinc.’”
Van Cleve grinned his appreciation.
“You ought to have gone on the stage, Balcomb. Your province is art,
not commerce.”
“Don’t worry, my dear young friend from the banks of _La Belle
Rivière_. Now before I go on my perilous journey to see the ancient
Dameron--”
He pulled out a drawer labeled “Kentucky Central R. R.”
“This is no deception at all,” he continued, as he took out a
bottle of whisky and a glass. “It’s from Kentucky; it’s for central
application,”--tapping his chest--“and it’s rare rye. On the water
wagon? I don’t often indulge myself; but it’s well to prepare oneself
before going up against a hard frost. Now”--his manner changing--“we’ve
got to increase our capital stock; you’d better get busy in the
intervals of your engrossing professional duties and do something real
noble in that line.”
He gave Van Cleve a memorandum of what he wanted and walked out
briskly, disposing of several callers who waited in the outer office,
where the typewriters rattled tirelessly.