FOUR AMBITIONS, AND THREE WAYS TO MAKE MONEY
They dined that night on the top of the Astor roof, where in the midst
of aerial gardens one forgot that another city waited toiling below.
Their table was placed by an embrasure from which they could scan the
dark reaches toward the west where the tenements of the city, broken by
the occasional uprising of a blatant sign, mathematically divided into
squares by rows of sentinel lights, rolled somberly toward the river. To
the south, vaguely defined by the converging watery darkness, the city
ran down to flaming towers in the glistening haze that seemed a luminous
vapor rising from dazzling avenues.
Wherever the eye could see myriad lights were twinkling: brooding and
fraught with the dark mystery of lonely, distant river banks; red, green
and golden on the rivers, crossing busily on a purposeful way; intruding
and bewildering in the service of industry from steel skeletons against
the sky; magic and dreamlike on the fairy spread of miraculous bridges;
winking and dancing with the spirit of gaiety from the theaters below
and the roof gardens above; that in the summer, suddenly spread a new
and brilliant city of the night above the tired metropolis of the day.
Looking down on these myriad points of light one seemed to have suddenly
come upon the nesting of the stars; where planets and constellations
germinated and took flight toward the swarming firmament.
The incomparable drama of the spectacle affected the four young men on
the threshold of life in a different way. Bojo, to whom the sensation
was new, felt a sort of prophetic stimulation as though in the
glittering sweep below lay the jewel which he was to carry off.
Granning, who had broken into the monastic routine of his life to make
an exception of this gathering of the clans, looked out in reverence,
stirred to deeper questionings of the spirit. Marsh, more dramatically
attuned, felt a sensation of weakness, as though suddenly confronted
with the gigantic scheme of the multitude; he felt the impotence of
single effort. While DeLancy, who dined thus every night, seeing no
further than the festooned gardens, the brilliant splashes of color, the
faces of women flushed in the yellow glow of candle-lights, hearing only
the pleasant thrumming sounds of a hidden orchestra, rattled on in his
privileged way.
"Well, now that the Big Four is together again, let's divide up the
city." He sent a sweeping gesture toward the stenciled stretch of blocks
below and continued: "Boscy, what'll you have? Take your choice. I'll
have a couple of hotels, a yacht and a box at the opera. Next bidder,
please!"
But Bojo without attention to this chatter said:
"Remember the night before we went to college and we picked out what we
intended to make. Came pretty close to it too, didn't we?"
Marsh looked up quickly, seized by a sudden dramatic suggestion.
"Well, here we are again. I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's tell the
truth--no buncombe--just what each expects to get out of life."
"But will we tell the truth?" said Bojo doubtfully.
"I will."
"Of course we all want to make a million first," said Fred DeLancy,
laughing. "Roscy's got his, so I suppose he wants ten. First place, is
it admitted each of us wants a million? Every properly brought up young
American ought to believe in that, oughtn't he?"
"Freddie, behave yourself," said Bojo severely. "Be serious."
"Serious," said DeLancy, with an offended air. "I'll be more serious
than any of you and I'll tell more of the truth and when I do you won't
believe me."
"Go on, Roscy, start first."
"Freddie's right in one respect. I intend to treble what I've got in ten
years or go bankrupt," said Marsh instantly. He flung the stub of his
cigar out into the night, watched it a moment in earthbound descent, and
then leaned forward over the table, elbows down, hands clasped, the
lights laying deep shadows about the hollowed eyes, the outstanding ears
accentuating the irregularity and oddity of the head. "I'm not sure but
that would be the best thing for me. If I had to start at the bottom I
believe I'd do something. I mean something big."
A half-concealed smile passed about the group, accustomed to the
speaker's dramatic instincts.
"Well, I've got to start at life in a different way. The trouble is, in
this American scheme I have no natural place unless I make one. Abroad I
could settle down to genteel loafing and find a lot of other congenial
loafers, who would gamble, hunt, fish, race, globe-trot, beat up Africa
in search of big sport, or drift around fashionable capitals for a bit
of amusement; either that or if I wanted to develop along the line of
brains there's a career in politics or a chance at diplomacy. Here we
are developing millionaires as fast as we can turn them out and never
thinking how we can employ them. What's the result? The daughters of
great fortunes marry foreign titles as fast as they get the chance in
order to get the opportunity to enjoy their wealth to the fullest,
because here there is no class so limited and circumscribed without
national significance as our so-called Four Hundred; the sons either
become dissipated loafers, professional amateurs of sport, or are
condemned to piling more dollars on dollars, which is an absurdity."
"I grieve for the millionaire," interjected DeLancy flippantly.
"And yet you want to triple what you've got," said Bojo with a smile.
"I'm coming to that--wait. Now the idea of money grubbing is distasteful
to me. What I want is a great opportunity which only money can give. I
have, I suppose, if a conservative estimate could be made, pretty close
to two million dollars--which means around one hundred thousand a year.
Now if I want to settle down and marry, that's a lot; but if I want to
go in and compete with other men, the leaders, that's nothing at all.
Now the principal interest I've got ahead is the _Morning Post_; it's
not all mine, but the controlling share is. It's a good conservative
nursery rocking-horse. It can go rocking on for another twenty years,
satisfied with its little rut. Now do you understand why I want more
money? I want a million clear to throw into it. I don't want it to be a
profitable high-class publication--I want it to be _the_ paper in New
York."
"But are you willing to go slow, to learn every rope first?" said
Granning with a shake of his head.
"You know I am," said Marsh impatiently. "I've plugged at it harder than
any one on the paper this summer and last too."
"Yes, you work hard--and play hard too," Granning admitted.
Marsh accepted the admission with a pleased smile and continued
enthusiastically:
"Exactly. Win or lose, play the limit! That's my motto, and there's
something glorious in it. I'm going to work hard, but I'm going to play
just as hard. I want to live life to its fullest; I want to get every
sensation out of it. And when I'm ready I'm going to make the paper a
force, I'm going to make myself feared. I want to round myself out. I
want to touch everything that I can, but above all I want to be on the
fighting line. After this period of financial buccaneering there's going
to come a great period--a radical period, the period of young men."
"Roscy, you want to be noticed," said DeLancy.
"I admit it. If you had what I have, wouldn't you? I repeat, I want the
sensation of living in the big way. Granning shakes his head-- I know
what he's thinking."
"Roscy, you're a gambler," said Granning, but without saying all he
thought.
"I am, but I'm going to gamble for power, which is different, and that's
the first step to-day; that's what they all have done."
"You haven't told us what your ambition is," said Bojo.
"I want to make of the _Morning Post_ not simply a great paper but a
great institution," said Marsh seriously. "I believe the newspaper can
be made the force that the church once was. Now the church was dominant
only as it entered into every side of the life of the community; when it
was not simply the religious and political force, but greater still, the
social force. I believe the newspaper will become great as it satisfies
every need of the human imagination. There are papers that print a
Sunday sermon. I would have a religious page every day, just as you
print a woman's page and a children's page. I'd run a legal bureau free
or at nominal charges, and conduct aggressive campaigns against petty
abuses. I'd organize the financial department so as to make it personal
to every subscriber, with an investment bureau which would offer only a
carefully selected list for conservative investors and would refuse to
deal in seven per cent. bonds and fifteen per cent. shares. I would have
a great auditorium where concerts and plays would be given at no higher
price than fifty cents."
"Hold up! How could you get plays on such conditions?" said DeLancy, who
had been held breathless by this Utopian scheme.
"Any manager in the city with a sense of publicity would jump at the
chance of giving an afternoon performance, expenses paid, under such
conditions, especially as the list would be guaranteed. Then, above all,
I'd give the public fiction, the best I could get and first hand. What
do you think gives _Le Petit Parisien_ and _Le Petit Journal_ a
circulation of about a million each and all over France? Serial novels.
Do you know the circulation of papers in New York? There are only three
over a hundred thousand and the greatest has hardly a quarter of a
million. However, I won't go on. You see my ideas make an
institution--the modern institution, replacing and absorbing all past
institutions."
"And what else do you want?" said Bojo, laughing.
"I want that by the time I'm thirty-five. I want ten millions and I want
to be at forty either senator or ambassador to Paris or London. I want
to build a yacht that will defend the American cup and to own a horse
that will win the derby.
"And will you marry?"
"The most beautiful woman in America."
The four burst into laughter simultaneously, none more heartily than
Marsh, who added:
"Remember, we're to tell the truth, and that's what I'd like to do." He
concluded: "Win or lose, play the limit. Never mind, Granny; when I'm
broke, you'll give me a job. Up to you. Confess."
Granning began diffidently, for he was always slow at speech and the
fluency of Marsh's recital intimidated him.
"I don't know that there's anything so interesting in my future," he
began, turning the menu nervously in his hands and fixing a spot on the
tablecloth where a wine stain broke the white monotony. "You see, I'm
different from you fellows. You're facing life in a different sort of
way. I'm not sure but what there's more danger in it than you think, but
the fact is you're all looking for the gamble. You want what you want,
Roscy, by the time you're thirty-five. Bojo and Fred want a million by
the time they're thirty. You're looking for the easy way--the quick way.
You may get it and then you may not. You've got friends,
opportunities--perhaps you will."
"That's where you'll never learn, you old fossil," said Marsh. "If you'd
get out and meet people, why, some time you'd strike a man with a nice
fat contract in his pocket looking for just the reliable--" he stopped,
not wishing to add, "old plodder that you are."
Granning shook his head emphatically. Among these boyish types he seemed
of another generation, a rather roughly hewn type of a district leader
of fixed purpose and irresistible momentum.
"Not for me," he said decisively. "There's one thing I've got strong,
where I have the start over you and a good thing it is, too: I know my
limitations. I'm not starting where you are. My son will; I'm not. Hold
up; it's the truth, and the truth is what we're telling. You can gamble
with life--you've got something to fall back on. I'm the fellow who's
got to build. Yes, I'll be honest. I want to make a million, too, I
suppose, as Fred said, like every American does. After all, if you're
out to make money, it's a good thing to try for something high. There
isn't much chance for romance in what I'm doing. I've got to go up step
by step, but it means more to me to get a fifty-dollar raise than that
next million can mean to you, Roscy. That's because I look back, because
I remember."
He stopped and the memories of the existence out of which he had dragged
himself, of which he never spoke, threw thoughtful shadows over the
broad forehead. All at once, taking a knife, he drew a long straight
line on the table, inclining upward like the slope of a hill, with a
cross at the bottom and one at the top, while the others looked on,
puzzled.
"You see there's not much banging of drums or dancing in what I've got
ahead and not much to tell until I get there. You know how a mole
travels; well, that's me." He laid his finger on the cross at the bottom
and then shifted it to the cross at the top. "Here's where I go in and
here's where I come out. In between doesn't count."
"And what besides that?" said Bojo.
"Well," said Granning simply, "I don't know what else. I'd like to get
off for a couple of months and see Europe and what they're doing over in
France and Germany in the steel line."
"But all that'll happen. What would you really like to get out of life?"
said Marsh, smiling--"you old unimaginative bear!"
"I'd like to go into politics in the right sort of way; I think every
man ought. Perhaps I'll marry, have a home and all that sort of thing
some day. I think what I'd like best would be to get a chance to run a
factory along certain lines I've thought out--a cooperative arrangement
in a way. There's so much to be worked out along the lines of
organization and efficiency." He thought over the situation a moment and
then concluded with sudden diffidence as though surprised at the daring
of his self-confession. "That's about all there is to it, I guess."
When he had ended thus clumsily, DeLancy took up immediately, but
without that spirit of good-humored raillery which was characteristic.
When he spoke in matter-of-fact, direct phrases, the three friends
looked at him in astonishment, realizing all at once an undivined intent
underneath all the lightness of that attitude by which they had judged
him.
"One thing Granning said strikes at me--knowing your limitations," he
said with a certain defiance, as though aware that he was going to shock
them. "I suppose you fellows think of me as a merry little jester, an
amusing loafer, happy-go-lucky and all that sort of stuff. Well, you're
mistaken. I know my limitations, I know what I can do and what I can't.
I'm just as anxious to get ahead as any of you, and you can bet I don't
fool myself. I don't sit down and say, 'Freddie, you've got railroads in
your head--you're an organizer--you'd shine at the bar--you'd push John
Rockefeller off the map,' or any of that rot. No, sir! I know where I
stand. On a straight out-and-out proposition I wouldn't be worth twenty
dollars a week to any one. But just the same I'm going to have my
million and my automobile in five years. Dine with me five years from
this date and you'll see."
"Well, Fred, what's the secret? How are you going to do it?" said Bojo,
a little suspicious of his seriousness.
But DeLancy as though still aware of the necessity of further
explanations before his pronouncement continued:
"I said I didn't fool myself and I don't. I haven't got ability like
Granning over here, who's entirely too modest and who'll end by being an
old money-bags--see if he doesn't. I haven't got a bunch of greenbacks
left me or behind me like Roscy or Bojo. My old dad's a brick; he's
scraped and pinched to put me through college on the basis of you
fellows. Now it's up to me. I haven't got what you fellows have got, but
I've got some very valuable qualities, very valuable when you keep in
mind what you can do with them. I have a very fine pair of dancing legs,
I play a good game of bridge and a better at poker, I can ride other
men's horses and drive their automobiles in first-rate style, I wear
better clothes than my host with all his wad, and you bet that impresses
him. I know how to gather in friends as fast as you can drum up
circulation, I can liven up any party and save any dinner from going on
the rocks, I can amuse a bunch of old bores until they get to liking
themselves; in a word, I know how to make myself indispensable in
society and the society that counts."
"What the deuce is he driving at?" Marsh broke in with a puzzled
expression.
"Why am I sitting down in a broker's office drawing fifty dollars a
week, just to smoke long black cigars? Because I know a rap what's
going on? No. Because I know people, because I'm a cute little social
runner who brings custom into the office; because my capital is friends
and I capitalize my friends."
"Oh, come now, Fred, that's rather hard," said Bojo, feeling the note of
bitterness in this cynical self-estimate.
"It's the truth. What do you think that old fraud of a Runker, my boss,
said to me last week when I dropped in an hour late? 'Young man, what do
you come to the office for--for afternoon tea?' And what did I answer? I
said 'Boss, you know what you've got me here for, and do you want me to
tell you what you ought to say? You ought to say, "Mr. DeLancy, you've
been working very hard in our interest these nights and though we can't
give you an expense account, you must be more careful of your health. I
don't want to see you burning the candle at both ends. Sleep late of
mornings."' And what did he say, the old humbug? He burst out laughing
and raised my salary. He knew I was wise."
"Well, what's the point of all this?" said Granning after the laugh.
"Never heard you take so long coming to the point before."
"The point is this: there're three ways of making money and only three:
to have it left you like Roscy, to earn it like Granning, and to marry
it--"
"Like you!"
"Like me!"
The others looked at him with constraint, for at that period there was
still a prejudice against an American man who made a marriage of
calculation. Finally Granning said:
"You won't do that, Freddie!"
"Indeed I will," said DeLancy, but with a nervous acceleration. "My
career is society. Oh, I don't say I'm going to marry for money and
nothing else. It's much easier than that. Besides, there's the patriotic
motive, you know. I'm saving an American fortune for American uses,
American heiresses for American men. Sounds like American styles for
American women," he added, trying to take the edge off the declaration
with a laugh. "After all, there's a lot of buncombe about it. A
broken-down foreigner comes over here with a reputation like a Sing-Sing
favorite, and because he calls himself Duke he's going to marry the
daughter of Dan Drake to pay up his debts and the Lord knows for what
purposes in the future--and do you fellows turn your back on him and
raise your eyebrows as you did a moment ago? Not at all. You're tickled
to death to go up and cling to his ducal finger. Am I right, Roscy?"
"Yes, but--"
"But I'm an American and will make a damned sight better husband, and
American children will inherit the money instead of its being swallowed
up by a rotten aristocracy. There's the answer."
"It's the way you say it, Fred," said Bojo uneasily.
"Because I have the nerve to say it. This is all I'm worth and this is
the only way to get what we all want."
"You'll never do it," said Granning with decision; "not in the way you
say it."
"Granning, you're a babe in the woods. You don't know what life is,"
said DeLancy, laughing boisterously. "After all, what are you going to
do? You're going to put away the finest days of your life to come out
with a pile when you're middle-aged and then what good will it do you? I
knew I'd shock you. Still there it is--that's flat!" He drew back,
lighting a cigar to cover his retreat and said: "Bojo next. I dare you
to be as frank."
Bojo, thus interrogated, took refuge in an evasive answer. The
revelations he had listened to gave him a keen sense of change. On this
very evening when they had come together for the purpose of celebrating
old friendship, it seemed to him that the parting of their ways lay
clearly before him.
"I don't know what I shall do," he said at last. "No, I'm not dodging; I
don't know. Much depends on certain circumstances." He could not say how
vividly their different announced paths represented to him the
difficulties of his choice. "I'd like to do something more than just
make money, and yet that seems the most natural thing, I suppose. Well,
I'd like a chance to have a year or two to think things over, see all
kinds of men and activities--but I don't know, by next week I may be at
the bottom--striking out for myself and glad of a chance."
He stopped and they did not urge him to continue. After DeLancy's flat
exposition each had a feeling of the danger of disillusionment. Besides,
Fred and Roscoe were impatient to be off, Fred to a roof garden, Marsh
to the newspaper. Bojo declined DeLancy's invitation, alleged the
necessity of unpacking, in reality rather desirous of being alone or of
a quieter talk with Granning in the new home.
"Here's to us, then," said Marsh, raising his glass. "Whatever happens
the old combination sticks together."
Bojo raised his glass thoughtfully, feeling underneath that there was
something irrevocably changed. The city was outside sparkling and black,
but there was a new feeling in the night below, and the more he felt the
multiplicity of its multifold expressions the more it came to him that
what he would do he would do alone.