THE CRASH
"What has happened?" he asked himself a hundred times during the
headlong drive. A corner in Pittsburgh & New Orleans--that was possible
but hardly probable. But if a corner had taken place it meant ruin,
absolute ruin--and worse. The thought was too appalling to be seized at
once. He reassured himself with specious explanations. There might be a
flurry; Gunther and his crowd, who were in control of the system, might
have attempted a division to support their property; but the final
attack at which Joseph Skelly had hinted more than once as timed for the
coming week, the throwing on the market of 100,000 shares--200,000 if
necessary--must overwhelm this support, must overwhelm it. What was
terrible, though, was the unknown--to be hours from New York, cut off
from communication, and not to know what was this shapeless dread.
When they swung into Jenkinstown, orange lights from the windows cut up
the snowbound streets in checkerboard patterns of light and shade: an
organ was beginning in mournful bass from a shanty church; a cheap
phonograph in a flickering ice-cream parlor was grinding out a ragged
march. Through the windows, heavy parties still at the Sunday newspapers
were gathered under swinging lamps. The cutter drew up by the hovel of
a station and departed, leaving him alone in the semi-darkness, a prey
to his thoughts. A group returning after a day's visit trudged past him,
laughing uproariously, Slavic and brutish in type, the women in imitated
finery, gazing at him in insolent curiosity. He began to walk to escape
the dismal sense of unlovely existence they brought him. Beyond were the
mathematical rows of barracks--other brutish lives, the bleak ice-cream
parlor, the melancholy of the evening service. It was all so one-sided,
obsessed by the one idea of labor, lacking in the simplest direction
toward any comprehension of the enjoyment of life.
The crisis he had reached, the threatened descent from the sublime to
the ridiculous, brought with it that contrition which in men is a
superstitious seeking for the secret of their own failures in some
transgressed moral law. His own life all at once seemed cruelly selfish
and gluttonous before this bleak view of the groping world and,
profoundly stirred to self-analysis, he said to himself:
"After all--why am I here--to try and change all this a little for the
better or to pass on and out without significance?" And at the thought
that year in and year out these hundreds would go on, doomed to this
stagnation, there woke in him a horror, a horror of what it must mean to
fall back and slip beneath the surface of society.
He arrived in New York at three in the morning, after an interminable
ride in the jolting, wheezing train, fervently awake in the dim and
draughty smoking-car where strange human beings huddled over a greasy
pack of cards or slept in drunken slumber. And all during the lagging
return one thought kept beating against his brain:
"Why didn't I close up yesterday--yesterday I could have made--" He
closed his eyes, dizzy with the thought of what he could have netted
yesterday. He said to himself that he would wind up everything in the
morning. And there would still be a profit, there was still time ...
knowing in his heart that disaster had already laid its clutching hand
upon his arm. The city was quiet with an unearthly, brooding quiet as he
reached the Court, where one light still shone in the window of a
returned reveler. Marsh and DeLancy came hurriedly out at the sound of
his entrance.
"What's wrong?" he cried at the sight of Fred's drawn face.
"Everything. The city's full of it," said Marsh. "It leaked out this
afternoon, or rather the Gunther crowd let it leak out. Pittsburgh & New
Orleans will declare an additional quarterly dividend to-morrow."
"It's the end of us," said Fred. "The stock will go kiting up."
"We've got to cover," said Bojo.
"In a crazy market? If we can!"
"It may not be true."
"I've got it as direct as I could get it," said Marsh, shaking his head.
"Suppose there is a corner and we have to settle around 100 or 150?"
said DeLancy, staring nervously away.
There was no need for Bojo to ask how deeply involved they were. He
knew.
"Some one's been buying large blocks of it. That's known," said Marsh,
calmer than the rest. "Ten to one it's Gunther's crowd. They had the
advance information. Ten to one they've laid the trap and sprung a
corner."
"No, nonsense! It's not as bad as that. If they're putting out an extra
dividend, the stock's going to jump up--for a while. That's all. And
then some one else may have a card up his sleeve," said Bojo, fighting
against conviction.
"Call up Drake," said Fred.
Bojo hesitated. The situation called for any measure. He went to the
telephone, after long minutes getting a response. Mr. Drake was out of
town on a hunting trip; was not expected back until the following night.
There remained Drake's agent Skelly, but a quick search of the book
revealed no home telephone.
"Can you put up more margin?" asked Bojo.
DeLancy shook his head.
"I can, but it may be better to take the loss," said Marsh. "We'll have
to wait and see. Quick work to-morrow! By the way, there's a call for
you from Forshay to be at the office by eight o'clock to-morrow. Well,
let's get a few winks of sleep if we can. Luck of the game!"
"I'm sorry," said Bojo desperately.
"Shut up. We're over age," said Marsh, thumping him on the back, but
DeLancy went to his room, staring. The moment he was gone Marsh turned
to Bojo. "Look here, whatever we do we've got to save Fred. You and I
can stand a mauling. Fred's caught."
"If we can," said Bojo, without letting him know how serious the
situation was for him. "How deep in is he?"
"Close to 2,000 shares."
"Good heavens, where did he get the money?"
Marsh looked serious, shook his head, and made no further reply.
At seven o'clock, when Bojo was struggling up from a sleepless night,
Granning came into his room, awkwardly sympathetic.
"Look here, Bojo, is it as bad as the fellows feared?"
"Can't tell, Granny. Looks nasty."
"You in trouble too?"
Bojo nodded.
"I say, I've got that bond for a thousand tucked away," said Granning
slowly. "Use it if it'll help any."
"Bless your heart," said Bojo, really touched. "It's not a thousand,
Granny, that'll help now. You were right--gambler's luck!"
"Cut that out," said Granning, shifting from foot to foot. "I'm damned
sorry--tough luck, damned tough luck. I wish I could help!"
"You can't--no use of throwing good money after bad. Mighty white of you
all the same!"
* * * * *
When he reached the offices, he learned for the first time how deeply
the firm had speculated on the information of Drake's intentions.
Forshay was cool, with the calm of the sportsman game in the face of
ruin, but Flaspoller and Hauk were frantic in their denunciations. It
was a trick, a stock-jobbing device of an inner circle. Nothing could
justify an additional dividend. The common stock had not been on a two
per cent. basis more than three years. Nothing justified it. Some one
would go behind the bars for it! Forshay smoked on, shrugging his
shoulders, rather contemptuous.
"Hit you hard?" he said to Bojo.
"Looks so. And you?"
"Rather."
"You call up Drake. Maybe he come back," said Flaspoller, ungrammatical
in his wrath.
"He won't be in," said Bojo, and for the twentieth time he received the
invariable answer.
[Illustration: "The message was the end of hope"]
At nine o'clock Skelly's office called up. A clerk gave the message, Mr.
Skelly being too occupied. Bojo listened, hoping desperately against
hope, believing in the possibility of salvation in an enormous block to
be thrown on the market. The message was the end of hope!
"Cancel selling orders. Buy Pittsburgh & New Orleans at the market up to
20,000 shares."
He tried ineffectively to reach Skelly personally and then communicated
the order to the others, who were waiting in silence.
"If Drake's out, good-by," said Forshay, who went to the window,
whistling. "Well, let's save what we can!"
The realization of the situation brought a sudden calm. Hauk departed
for the floor of the Stock Exchange. The others prepared to wait.
"Match you quarters," said Forshay with a laugh. He came back, glancing
over Bojo's shoulder at a few figures jotted down on a pad, reading off
the total: "12,350 shares. I thought you were in only ten thousand."
"Twenty-three fifty Saturday," said Bojo, staring at the pad. "At 5 per
cent. margin too."
"Lovely. What cleans you out?"
Bojo figured a moment, frowned, consulted his list, and finally
announced: "Thirty-seven and one-half wipes me out nice and clean."
"I'm good for a point higher. I say, there's rather a rush on this
office; have you got buying orders elsewhere?" Bojo nodded. "Good. Take
every chance. What did we close at Saturday, thirty-one and one-half?"
"Thirty-two."
"Oh well, there's a chance." He looked serious a moment, turning a coin
over and over on his hand, thinking of others. "No fool like an old
fool, Tom. If I've been stung once I've been stung a dozen times! It's
winning the first time that's bad. You can't forget it--the sensation of
winning. Sort of your case too, eh? Well, come on. I'm matching you!"
An hour later, with the announcement of the additional dividend, they
stood together by the tape and watched Pittsburgh & New Orleans mount by
jerks and starts--5000 at 33--2,000 at 35-1/2--1,000 at 34-1/2--4,000 at
35-3/4--500 at 34.
"Having a great time, isn't it? Jumping all over the place. Orders must
be thick as huckleberries. Selling all over the place so fast they can't
keep track of it."
Flaspoller came in with the first purchase by Hauk, who was having a
frantic time executing his orders.
"I've bought 2,000 at 34, thank God," said Bojo, returning from the
telephone. "What's it now?"
"Touched 36: 10,000 at 35-1/2--big orders are coming in. Thirty-six
again. Lovelier and lovelier."
Back and forth from telephone to ticker they went without time for
luncheon, elated at the thought of shares purchased at any price, grimly
watching the ominous figures creep up and up, mute, paralyzing
indications of the struggle and frenzy on the floor, where brokers flung
themselves hoarse and screaming into knotted, swaying groups and
telephone-boys swarmed back and forth from the booths like myriad angry
ants trampled out of their ant-hills.
At two o'clock Pittsburgh & New Orleans had reached 42. An hour before
Bojo had left the ticker, waiting breathlessly at the telephone for the
announcement of purchases that meant precious thousands. At two-thirty
the final dock of 500 shares came in at 42-1/2. Mechanically he added
the new figures to the waiting list. Of the $83,000 in the bank and the
$95,000 which yesterday summed up his winnings on paper, he had to his
credit when all accounts were squared hardly $15,000. The rest had
collapsed in a morning, like a soap bubble.
"Save anything?" said Forshay, struck by the wildness in the young man's
look.
"I can settle my account here, I'm glad to say," said Bojo with
difficulty. "That's something. I think I'll pull out with around fifteen
thousand. Hope you did better."
"Thanks, awfully."
"Cleaned out?" said Bojo, startled.
"Beautiful. Clean. Well, good-by, Tom, and--better luck next time."
Bojo looked up hastily, aghast. But Forshay was smiling. He nodded and
went out.
Bojo reached the court still in a daze, unable to comprehend where it
had all gone--this fortune that was on his fingers yesterday. Yesterday!
If he had only closed up yesterday! Then through the haze of his numbed
sense of loss came a poignant, terrifying recall to actuality. He stood
pledged to Drake for the amount of $50,000, and he could not make good
even a third! If the pool had been wiped out--and he had slight hopes of
saving anything there--he would have to procure $35,000 somewhere,
somehow, or face to Drake and his own self-respect that he could not
redeem his own word. What could he say, what excuse offer! If the pool
had collapsed--he was dishonored.
The realization came slowly. For a long while, sitting in the embrasure
of the bay window--his forehead against the cold panes, it seemed to him
incredible the way he had gone these last six months; as though it had
all been a fever that had peopled his horizon with unreal figures,
phantasies of hot dreams.
But the unblinkable, waking fact was there. His word had been pledged
for $50,000 to Drake, to the father of the girl he was to marry. Marry!
At the thought he laughed aloud bitterly. That, too, was a thing that
had vanished in the bubble of dreams. He thought of his father, to whom
he would have to go; but his pride recoiled. He would never go to him
for aid--a failure and a bankrupt. Rather beg Drake on his knees for
time to work out the debt than that!
"How did I do it? What possessed me! What madness possessed me!" he said
wearily again and again.
At eight o clock, when all the high electric lights had come out about
the blazing window of the court, recalled by the sounds of music from
the glass-paneled restaurant he went out for dinner, wondering why his
friends had not returned. At ten when he came back after long tramping
of the streets, a note was on the table, in Granning's broad
handwriting.
Hoped to catch you. Fred's gone off on a tear; God knows
where he is. Roscy and I have been trying to locate him all
day. Hope you pulled through, old boy.
GRANNING.
At twelve o clock, still miserably alone, tortured by remorse and the
thought of the wreck he had unwittingly brought his chums, he could bear
the suspense of evasion no longer. He went up to Drake's to learn the
worst, steeled to a full confession.
In the hall, as he waited chafing and miserable, Fontaine, Gunther's
right-hand partner, passed out hurriedly, jaws set, oblivious. Drake was
in the library in loose dressing-gown and slippers, a cigar in his
mouth, immersed in the usual contemplation of the picture puzzle.
"By George, he bears it well," Bojo thought to himself, moved to
admiration by the calm of that impassive figure.
"Hello, Tom," he said, looking up, "what's brought you here at this time
of night? Anything wrong?"
"Wrong?" said Bojo faintly. "Haven't you heard about Pittsburgh & New
Orleans?"
"Well, what about it?"
Bojo gulped down something that was in his throat, steadying himself
against the awful truth that meant ruin and dishonor to him.
"Mr. Drake--tell me what I owe you? I want to know what I owe you," he
said desperately.
"Owe? Nothing."
"But the pool?"
"Well, what about the pool?" said Drake, eyeing him closely.
"The pool to sell Pittsburgh & New Orleans."
"Who said anything about selling!" said Drake sharply. "The pool's all
right." He looked at him a long moment, and the boyish triumph,
suppressed too long, broke out with the memory of Fontaine's visit. "I
bought control of Pittsburgh & New Orleans at eleven o'clock this
morning and sold it ten minutes ago, for what I paid for it, plus--plus
a little profit of ten million dollars." He paused long enough to let
this sink into the consciousness of the reeling young man and added,
smiling: "On a pro rata basis, Tom, your fifty thousand stands you in
just a quarter of a million. I congratulate you."