NEMESIS
"And round and round the caldron
The weird passions dance,
And the only god they worship
Is the mystic god of chance."
The last day of August dawned fair in busy Boston. Summer sojourners
were returning. John Nason's store was filled with new fall styles; the
shoppers were crowding the streets, and the hustling, bustling life of a
great city was at flood tide. Albert Page, full of business, was in his
office, and Frank Nason was studying hard again, cheered by a new and
sweet ray of hope. Small fortunes were being won and lost on State
Street, and in one smoke-polluted broker's office Nicholas Frye sat
watching the price of wheat. The September option opened that day at
seventy-eight and one-quarter, rose to seventy-nine, fell to seventy-six
and seven-eighths, rose to seventy-eight and then dropped back to
seventy-six. He had margined his holdings to seventy-one, and if it fell
to that price his sixty thousand dollars would be gone and he--ruined.
For many nights he had had but little sleep, and that made hideous by
dreams filled with the unceasing whir and click, click, click of the
ticker. At times he had dreamed that a tape-like snake with endless
coils was twining itself about him. He was worn and weary with the long
nervous strain and misery of seeing his fortune slowly clipped away by
the clicker's tick that had come to sound like the teeth of so many
little devils snapping at him. To let his holdings go, he could not,
and, lured on and on by the broker's daily uttered assertion that "wheat
_could_ not go much lower, but must have a rally soon," he had kept
putting up margins. Now all he could possibly raise was in the broker's
hands, and when that was gone, all was lost.
Frye sat and watched the blackboard where the uneven columns of
quotations looked like so many little legs ever growing longer. Around
him were a score of other men--no, insane fools--watching the figures
that either made them curse their losses or gloat over their gains. No
one spoke to another; no one cared whether another won or lost in the
great gambling game that daily ruins its thousands.
It was the caldron filled with lies, false reports, fictitious sales,
and the hope and lust of gain that boiled and bubbled, heated by the
fires of hell. And ever around that caldron the souls of men were
circling, cursing their losses and gloating over their gains.
And Frye was muttering curses.
At eleven o'clock wheat stood at seventy-five and one-half; at
eleven-thirty, seventy-four and seven-eighths; at twelve, seventy-four.
Frye arose, and going to a nearby room, all mirrors and plate-glass,
called at the bar for brandy. Two full glasses he tossed off like so
much water, and then returned to his watching.
Wheat was seventy-three and three-quarters!
But the fickle goddess of chance loves to sport with her victims, and
wheat rose to seventy-five again; then fell to seventy-four, and
vibrated between that and seventy-five for an hour. Frye was growing
desperate, and his deep-set yellow eyes glared like those of a cat at
night. The market closed at two. It was now one-thirty, and wheat was
seventy-three and three-quarters.
Frye went out again, and two more glasses of brandy were added to his
delirium.
Wheat was now seventy-three and one-half!
Then, as once more he fixed his vulture eyes on that long column of
figures, at the foot of which was seventy-three and one-half, the
devil's teeth began a more vicious snapping, and so fast came the
quotations that the boy could no longer record them. Instead, he called
them out in a drawling sing-song:
"September wheat now seventy-three,--the half,--five-eighths,--a
half,--five-eighths split,--now a half,--three-eighths,--a
quarter,--seventy-three!" Frye set his feet hard together, and clinched
his hands. Only two cents in price stood between him and the loss of all
his twenty years' saving. All the lies he had told for miserable gain,
all the miserly self-denial he had practised, all the clients he had
cheated and robbed, all the hatred he had won from others availed him
not. His contemptible soul and his life, almost, now hung by a miserly
two cents.
Once more the devil's teeth clicked, and once more the boy's drawl rose
above the ticker's whir.
"Seventy-three,--a quarter,--an eighth,--seventy-three,--now seventy-two
seven-eighths,--three-quarters,--five-eighths,--three-quarters
split,--now five-eighths,--a half,--a half."
And now pandemonium was raging in the Chicago wheat pit, and the
ticker's teeth clicked like mad.
"Seventy-two,--a half,--a half,--three-eighths,--a
half,--three-eighths,--a quarter,--seventy-two!"
Cold beads of sweat gathered on Frye's forehead. One cent more and he
was ruined!
Again the ticker buzzed like a mad hornet, and again the devil's teeth
snapped.
"September wheat now seventy-one seven-eighths,--seven-eighths,
--three-quarters,--seven-eighths split,--now the three-quarter,
--five-eighths,--a half,--a half,--five-eighths,--a half,--a half
again,--three-eighths,--a quarter,--an eighth,--a quarter,--an eighth,
--a quarter,--an eighth,--an eighth,--a quarter split,--an eighth,--
"SEVENTY-ONE!!!"
FRYE WAS RUINED.
He gave one low moan, the first, last, and only one during those three
long weeks of agony!
A few who sat near heard it, but did not even look at him, so lost were
they to all human feeling. The devil's teeth kept snapping, the endless
coils of tape kept unwinding; the boy continued his drawl, but Frye paid
no heed. Only those spider-legs on the wall seemed kicking at him, and
that fatal seventy-one, one, one kept ringing in his ears. He arose, and
staggered out into that palace of glass again and swallowed more brandy.
Then jostling many, but seeing no one, he, with bowed head, made his way
to his office, opened, entered, and locked the door, and sat down.
Whir-r-r-r-r!!!
Click, click, click!!!
Seventy-one, one, one! It was the last he heard, and then he sank
forward on his desk in a drunken stupor.
At this moment Uncle Terry, with Frye's letter in his pocket, and
righteous wrath in his heart, was speeding toward Boston as fast as
steam could carry him.
The clear incisive strokes of an adjacent clock proclaiming midnight
awoke Frye. He raised his head, and in that almost total darkness for a
moment knew not where he was. Then, ere the echoes of those funeral
knells died away, he arose, lit the two gas-jets, and sat down.
Seventy-one, one, one!!
They brought it all back to him, and now, alone in his misery, he
groaned aloud, and with his despair came the dread of the morrow, when
he, the once proud and defiant man, must go forth crushed, broken,
despairing, penniless!
All would know it, and all would rejoice. Out of the many that hated or
feared him, not one would feel a grain of pity, and well he knew it. He
could almost see the looks of scorn on their faces, and hear them say,
"Glad of it! Served him right, the old reprobate!"
Then his past life came back to him. He had never married, and since he
had looked down upon his dead mother's face, no woman's hand had sought
his with tenderness. All his long life of grasping greed had been spent
in money-getting and money-saving. No sense of right or justice had ever
restrained him; but only the fear of getting caught had kept him from
downright stealing. Year after year he had added to his hoard, carefully
invested it, and now in a few days of desperate dread it had all been
swept away!
Then perhaps the memory of that mother, as he had seen her last, with
pallid face and folded arms, brought to him the first and only good
impulse he ever felt, for he took a pen and wrote a brief but valuable
letter. Then he went to his tall safe, opened both doors, and taking a
small, flat packet from an inner till, returned to his desk, placed that
and the letter in one long envelope, and sealed and directed it.
And now all the misery and despair of his situation returned with
intense force, and as it crushed him down, obliterating every vestige of
hope, once more his head sank forward on the desk and he groaned aloud.
For a long time he remained thus, living over the past three weeks of
agony, and then there smote upon his tortured nerves the sound of many
clocks striking one. It sounded as if they were mocking him, and from
far and near--some harsh and sharp, some faint in the distance--came
that fatal one, one, one! He arose and, going to a small locker in his
room, grasped a half-filled bottle of liquor and drank deeply. It only
made matters worse, for now an uncanny delirium crept into his
rum-charged brain and he fancied himself looking into an open grave and
there, at the bottom, lay a wasted woman's body, the face shrunken and
pallid and teeth showing in mocking grin. Then he seemed to be lying
there himself, looking up, and peering down at him were the faces of
many men, some bearing the impress of hate, and some of derisive
laughter.
And one was Albert Page, with a look of scorn.
He arose again, and taking a letter-opener, crowded bits of paper into
the keyhole of the door and up and down the crack. Then he closed the
one window, turned out the two gas-jets, and opened the stop-cocks
again. An odor of gas soon pervaded the room into which came only a
faint light from the State House dome. And now a more hideous
hallucination came to that hopeless, despairing man, for between the
open doors of his tall safe stood the wasted form of his mother! Her
gray hair was combed flat on either side of her ashen face, a gray dress
covered her attenuated frame, and her arms were folded cross-wise over
her bosom as he had seen her last, but now her eyes were wide open,
yellow, and glassy. Then slowly, very slowly, she seemed to move toward
him, her eyes fixed on his, piercing his very soul. Nearer, nearer,
nearer she came, until now, rising above him, she stooped as if to touch
his lips with the kiss of death. He could not breathe or move, conscious
only that an awful horror was upon him and a tiny mallet beating on his
brain.
Then that hideous, deathly, pallid face, cold and clammy, was pressed
upon his, the faint light seemed to fade into darkness, and he knew no
more.