DANIEL DRAKE, THE MULTI-MILLIONAIRE
A week after his interview with his father, Tom Crocker entered the
great shadowy library of the Drakes in response to an invitation from
the father. At this time, when Wall Street was approaching that dramatic
phase which is inevitable in social transformations, when dominant and
outstanding individualities succumb to the obliterating rise of
bureaucracies, there was no more picturesque personality than Daniel
Drake. He had come to New York several years before, awaited as a
vaulting spirit who played the game recklessly and who would never cease
to aspire until he had forced his way to the top or been utterly broken
in the attempt.
His career had bordered on the fantastic. As a boy the _Wanderlust_ had
driven him over the face of the globe. A shrewd capacity for making
money of anything to which he put his hand had carried him through
strange professions. He had been a pedler on the Mississippi, cook on a
tramp steamer to Australia, boxed in minor professional encounters,
exhibited as a trick bicycle rider, served as a soldier of fortune up
and down Central America, and returned to his native country to
establish a small fortune in the field of the country fairs.
With the acquisition of capital, he became conservative and
industrious. Reconciled with his family, he had secured the necessary
funds to attempt an operation in the wheat market which, conducted on a
reasonable scale, netted him a handsome profit and enlarged his
activities. His genius for manipulation and trading, which was soon
recognized, brought him into the services of big industries. He made
money rapidly, and married impulsively against the advice of his friends
a woman of social prominence who cared absolutely nothing about him--a
fact which he was the last to perceive.
He next undertook a daring operation, the buying up of the control of a
great industry in competition with an eastern group. A friend whom he
trusted betrayed the pool he had formed, and the loyalty of his
associates, which made him continue, completely bankrupted him. Before
the public had even an inkling of the extent of his catastrophe he had
mended his fortunes by the brilliant stroke, secured control of one of
the subsidiary companies destined for the steel trust, and realized a
couple of millions as his share. When he referred to this moment, which
he often did, he used to say frankly:
"We went into the meeting bankrupt and came out seven millionaires."
He became the leader of a group of young financiers who acquired and
developed with amazing success a chain of impoverished railroads. He
played the game, scrupulous to his word, merciless in a fight, generous
to a conquered enemy, for the love of the game itself. A big man with a
curious atmosphere of amused calm in the midst of the flurry and turmoil
he aroused, he enjoyed the turns and twists of fate with the zest of a
boy gray-eyed, imperturbable, and magnetic, winning even those who saw
in him an ethical and economical danger.
Such was the man who was bending over a great oaken table engrossed in
the piecing together of an intricate picture puzzle, as Bojo came
through the heavy tapestry portieres. Patsie, perched on a corner, was
looking on with approving interest at the happy solving of a perplexing
group. She sprang down, flung her arms about her father in an impulsive
farewell, and came prancing over to Bojo with a laughing warning:
"Whatever you do, _never_ find a piece for him. It makes him madder than
a wet hen. He wants to do it all himself. Now I'm running off. Don't
worry! Go on, talk your old business."
She went off like the flash of a golden bird while Bojo, slightly
intimidated, was wishing she might remain.
"Tom--glad to see you--come in--just a moment--help yourself to a cigar.
Confound that piece, I knew it fitted in there!" Drake left the board
with a lingering regret, shook hands with a grip that seemed to envelop
the young man, and went to the mantel for a match, where a large
equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni rose threateningly from the
shadows.
"Glad to see you, my boy--my orders are in from the General Manager, and
when the General Manager gives orders I know it means hustle!" By this
title he designated Doris, whose practical ambitions and perseverance he
satirized with an indulgent smile. "Far as I can make out, Doris has
determined to make you a millionaire in a couple of years or so, so I
suppose the best thing is to sit down and discuss it."
As he stood there gaunt and alert against the bronze background, there
was something about him too of the old condottieri, a certain blunt and
hardened quality of the grizzled head, as though he too had just hung
back a steel helmet and emerged tense and victorious from a bruising
scramble.
"Supposing he's figuring out that I'll cost him less than the Duke,"
thought Tom, conscious of a certain proprietary estimation below all the
surface urbanity, and, squaring to the charge, he said: "I'm afraid,
sir, you've a pretty poor opinion of me."
"What do you mean?" said Drake, with sudden interest.
"May I talk to you plainly, sir?" said Tom, a little flustered. "I don't
know just how I feel about Doris or even just how she feels about me. I
certainly have no intention of marrying her until I know what I am worth
myself, and I certainly don't intend to come to you, her father, to make
money for me."
He stopped with a little fear for his boldness, for this had not been
his intention on entering the room. In fact, he had come rather in a
state of indecision, after long discussions with Doris, and much serving
up of sophistries to his conscience; but Drake's greeting had struck at
his young independence, as perhaps it had been meant to do, and an
impulsive wave of indignation overruled his calculations. He stood a
little apprehensive, watching the older man, wondering how he would
receive the defiance.
"That's talking," said Drake, with an approving smile. "Go on."
"Mr. Drake, I can't help feeling that we're going to look at things more
and more from a different point of view. Doris cares for me--I suppose
so--if she can have me without sacrificing anything. I don't express it
very well, but I do feel at times that she's more interested in what she
can make out of me than in me, and I don't know if I'll work out the way
she wants; in fact, I'm not at all sure," he blurted out pugnaciously.
"But I want to work out that way, and if I don't there'll come a smashup
pretty soon."
"There's something in what you say," said Drake, nodding, "and I like
your coming straight out with it. Now look here, my boy, I'm not going
to take hold of you because I expect you to marry Doris, but because I
_want_ you to marry her! Get that down. I can control lots of things,
but I can't control the women. They beat me every time. I'm pulp. I've
given in once, though Lord knows I hope my little girl won't regret it.
I've got one decayed foreign title dangling to the totem-pole, and
that's enough; that's got to satisfy the missus. I don't want another
and I don't want any high-stepping Fifth Avenue dude. I want a man, one
of my own kind who can talk my language."
He arose, took a turn, and clapped him on the shoulder. "I want you. I
settled that in my own mind long ago. Now I'm going to talk as plain to
you. As you get on you'll look at people differently than you do. You'll
see how much is due to accident, the parting of the ways, going to the
left instead of to the right. Now I know Doris. I've watched her. She's
got two sides to her; you appeal to the best. I know it. She knows it.
She wouldn't marry you if you were a beggar--women are that way--but
she'll stick to you loyal, as a regular, if she marries you; and you're
not going to be a beggar."
"Yes, if I consent to close my eyes and let you build--"
"Now don't get huffy. I'm not going to tuck you under my wing," said
Drake, grinning. "Furthermore, I wouldn't want you in the family if I
didn't know you had stuff in you. Don't you think I want some one I can
trust in this cut-throat game? Don't worry, if you're the right sort I
can use you. Now quit thinking too much--let things work out. Doris is
the kind that belongs at the top; she's bound to be a leader, and we're
going to put her there, you and I. Now what do you want to do?"
"I want to stand on my own feet," said Tom, with a last resistance. "I
want to see what I'm worth by myself."
"Wall Street, of course," said Drake, grinning again. "Well, why not?
You'll learn quicker the things you've got to learn, even if it costs
you more."
He flung down in a great armchair, and stared out at the raw recruit as
though for an instant rolling back the years to his own beginnings.
"Tom, if you're going in," he said all at once, "go in with your eyes
open and make up your mind soon what you want; but when you've made up
your mind don't fool yourself. If you want to plod along safe and sane,
you can do it just as well in Wall Street as anywhere else. But I reckon
that's not what you're after." He chuckled at Bojo's confused
acknowledgment of the patness of his surmise and continued:
"Well, then, recognize that what you're going into is war, nothing more
nor less. You see, we're a curious people; we haven't had the chance to
develop as others. And there's something instinctive about war; in a
growing nation it lets off a lot of wild energy. Now there's a group of
the big fellows here that ought to have had a chance at being field
marshals or admirals, and because they haven't the chance they've
developed a special little battlefield of their own to fight each other.
And, say, the big fellows don't fool themselves--they know what they're
doing! They're under no illusions. But there're a lot of big little men
down there who go around hugging delusions to their hearts, who'll sack
a railroad or lay siege to a corporation with the idea they're ordained
to grab the other fellow's property. Now I don't fool myself: that's my
strong point. I'm grabbing as fast as the other fellow, but I know the
time's coming when they won't let us grab any more. I do it because I
want to, because I love it and because we're founding aristocracies here
as the Old World did a couple of centuries ago. Well, to come back to
you. I'll see you start in a good firm--"
"I'd rather do it myself."
"As you wish. Got any money?"
"Fifty thousand dollars," said Tom, who then related his father's
prediction.
"Ordinarily he's a good guesser," said Drake, laughing. "But we may put
one over on him. There's a scheme I've been brewing over for a big
combine in the woolen industry that may give him a pleasant surprise.
Well, then, start in on your own feet, my boy. Learn all you can of men.
Study them--browse around in figures, if you want, but everlastingly
keep your eyes on men! It's the man and not the proposition that's
gilt-edged or empty. You've got to learn how the other fellow thinks,
what he'll do in a given situation, if you're going to think ahead of
him, and that's the quality that counts. That's where I've got them
guessing, every minute of the day; there isn't one of them can figure
out now if I'm twenty millions to the good or ten behind."
"Why, Tom, there was a time when I was stone broke--by golly, even my
creditors were broke, which is an awful thing; and everything depended
on my getting the right backing on the proposition that saved me. Do you
think any one of those sleuth-hounds were on? Not on your life. I was
living at the biggest hotel, in the biggest suite, spilling money all
over the city--on tick, of course. And, say, in the critical week, when
I was dodging my own tailor, I sent the missus (she didn't know
anything, either) up to Fifth Avenue to buy a $100,000 necklace. That
settled it. The other fellows, the fellows whose brains wind up like
clocks, couldn't figure it out. I got my backing."
"But supposing you hadn't," said Bojo involuntarily. He had been
listening to this recital open-eyed like a child at a circus. "What
would have happened?"
Drake laughed contentedly. "There you are. That's all the other fellow
could figure on. Now don't imagine you can do what I did--you can't. I
suppose there's no use telling you not to speculate, because you're
going to, no matter what you think now. You will; because the young
fellow who goes into Wall Street and doesn't think he's a genius in the
first three months hasn't been born yet! But the first time it comes
over you, throw only a third of your capital out of the window. Do you
get me?"
"I won't do that," said Bojo resolutely.
"Go on. Do. You ought. It's cheap at that! I paid seven hundred thousand
for the same information," said Drake, giving him his hand. He caught
his shoulder in his powerful grip and added: "If you get in too much
trouble, come to me! Remember that and good luck!"