PAYING THE PIPER--PLUS
To go down to the office with the pall of disaster and tragedy over it,
to face the accusatory looks of Hauk and Flaspoller with the dread
consciousness of his own personal responsibility, was the hardest thing
Bojo had ever had to do. Several times in the subway, filled with the
Wall Street crowd excitedly discussing the sudden turn of yesterday,
alarmed for the future, he had a wild impulse toward flight. Before him
were the startling scare-heads of the _Morning Post_, the sole paper to
have the story.
DRAKE BUYS AND SELLS PITTSBURGH AND NEW ORLEANS
SECURED CONTROL AT 6 MONDAY. SOLD AT MIDNIGHT. PROFIT IN
MILLIONS. BROKERS HARD HIT. THREE FIRMS SUSPEND. CLIMAX OF
DRAMATIC DAY.
He saw only dimly what every one else was poring over frantically. He
was reading over for the twentieth time the ugly story of Forshay's
suicide.
WELL-KNOWN BROKER ENDS LIFE AT CLUB
W. O. FORSHAY THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN CAUGHT IN DRAKE'S CLEAN
UP
The bare facts followed, with a history of Forshay's career, his social
connections, an account of his marriage, city house, and country house.
"But after all am I responsible?" he said to himself miserably, and
though he returned always to the premise that he had been an innocent
participant, he began to be obsessed with the spreading sense of ruin
which such victories could occasion.
Forshay would not have blamed him, perhaps, for Forshay had played the
game to the limit of the law and asked no favors. It was not that which
profoundly troubled him and awoke the long dormant ethical sense. Had
Drake figured out just what his conclusions would be and the effect on
the public from allowing him to proceed blindly on a wrong start? In a
word, had Drake deliberately used him to mislead others, knowing that
after the success of Indiana Smelter his prospective son-in-law would be
credited with inside information?
He did not as yet answer these questions in the affirmative; to do so
meant a decision subversive of all his newly acquired sense of success.
But though he still denied the accusations, they would not be thus
answered, constantly returning.
At the offices it was as though the dead man were lying in wait. A sense
of fright possessed him with the opening of the door. The girl at the
telephone greeted him with swollen eyes, swollen with hysterical
weeping; the stenographers moved noiselessly, hushed by the indefinable
sense of the supernatural. The brass plate on the door--W. O.
Forshay--seemed to him something inexpressibly grim and horrible. He had
the feeling which the others showed in their roving glances, as though
that plate hid something, as though there was something behind his door,
waiting.
He went into the inner offices, at a sudden summons. Hauk was at the
table, gazing out of the window; Flaspoller worrying and fussing in the
center of the rug, switching aimlessly back and forth.
Bojo nodded silently on entering.
"You saw?" said Hauk with a jerk of his head.
"Yes. Horrible!"
Flaspoller broke out: "Not a cent in the world. God knows how much the
firm will have to make good. Thirty-five, forty, forty-five thousand,
maybe more. Oh, we're stuck all right."
"Do you mean to say," said Bojo slowly, "that he left nothing--no
property?"
"Oh, a house perhaps--mortgaged, of course; and then do we know what
else he owes? No. A hell of a hole we've got in with your Pittsburgh &
New Orleans."
"That's not quite fair," said Bojo quietly. "I did give you a tip on
Indiana Smelter and you made money on that. I never said anything about
Pittsburgh & New Orleans. I distinctly refused to. You drew your own
conclusions."
"That's a good joke," said Flaspoller with a contemptuous laugh.
"What do you mean?" said Bojo, flushing angrily.
"Well, I'll tell you what I mean," said Flaspoller, discretion to the
winds. "When you come into a firm that has treated you generously as we
have, put up your salary without waiting to be asked, and you bring in
orders, confidential orders, to sell five hundred shares to-day, a
thousand to-morrow, like you sell yourself, and your friends sell
too--if you let your firm go on selling and don't know what's up, you're
either one big jackass or a--"
"Or a what?" said Bojo, advancing.
Something in the menacing eye caused the little broker to halt abruptly
with a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders.
"I wouldn't go too far, Flaspoller," said Bojo coldly. "If this was a
mistake, I paid for it too, as you know. You know what I dropped."
"I know nothing," said Flaspoller, recovering his courage with his
anger, and planting himself defiantly in the young fellow's path. "I
know only what you lost--here, and I know too what _we_ lose."
"Good heavens, do you mean to insinuate that I did anything _crooked_?"
said Bojo loudly, yet at the bottom ill at ease.
"Shut up now," said Hauk, as Flaspoller started on another angry tirade.
"Look here, Mr. Crocker, there's no use wasting words. The milk's spilt.
Well, what then?"
"I'm sorry, of course," said Bojo, frowning.
"Of course you understand after what's happened," said Hauk quietly, "it
would be impossible for us to make use of your services any more."
Much as he himself had contemplated breaking off relations, it gave him
quite a shock to hear that he was being dismissed. He caught his breath,
looked from one to another and said:
"Quite right. There I agree with you. I shall be very glad to leave your
office to-day."
He went to his desk in a towering rage, went through his papers blindly,
and rose shortly to go out where he could get hold of himself and decide
on a course of action. The fact was that for the first time he had a
feeling of guilt. He again assured himself that he was perfectly
innocent, that there was nothing in his whole course which could be
objected to. Yet how many would have believed him if they knew that this
very morning he had deposited a check for a quarter of a million? What
would Hauk and Flaspoller have said at the bare announcement?
He wandered into familiar groups, tarrying a moment and then passing on,
parrying the questions that were showered on him by those who knew the
intimacy of his relations with the successful manipulator. In all their
conversations Drake appeared like a demigod. Men went back to the famous
corners of Commodore Vanderbilt for a comparison with the skill and
boldness of the late manipulator. It was freely said that there was no
other man in Wall Street who would have dared so openly to defy the
great powers of the day and force them to terms.
In this chorus of admiration there was no note of censure. He had played
the game as they played it. No one held him responsible for the tragedy
of Forshay and the unwritten losses of those who had been caught.
Yet Bojo was not convinced. He knew that he had not been able to meet
the partners openly; that despite all the injustice of their attitude,
he had withheld the knowledge of his ultimate winnings, and that he had
withheld it because he would have been at a loss to explain it. More
potent than the stoic indifference of Wall Street was the memory of the
chance acquaintance, wrecked by the accident of this meeting; of
Forshay, calmly matching quarters with him before the opening of the
market, calculating the fatal point beyond which a rise meant to him the
end. And as he examined it from this intimate outlook, he wondered more
and more how free from responsibility and cruelty, from the echoes of
agony, could be any fortune of ten millions made over night, because of
others who had been led recklessly to gamble beyond their means.
Forshay recalled DeLancy, and he shuddered at the thought of how close
the line of disaster had passed to him. Again and again he remembered
with distaste the look in DeLancy's face when at the end he had
persuaded him to take the check. What sat most heavily upon his
conscience was that now, with the ranging of events in clearer
perspective, he began to compare his own attitude with Drake's, with
DeLancy's weak submission to his explanation. If DeLancy had taken money
that Marsh had indignantly rejected, what had he himself done?
At twelve, making a sudden resolve, he went up to the offices. The
partners were still there, brooding over the rout, favoring him with
dark looks at his interruption.
"Mr. Hauk, will you give me the total of Mr. Forshay's indebtedness to
your firm?"
Flaspoller wheeled with an insolent dismissal on his lips, but Hauk
forestalled him. "What business is that of yours?"
"You stated that his losses might amount to forty or forty-five
thousand. Is that correct?"
"That's our affair!"
"You don't understand," said Bojo quietly, "but I think it will be to
your interest to listen to me. Do I understand that you intend to
exercise your claim on whatever property may still be left to Mr.
Forshay's widow?"
"What nonsense is he talking?" said Flaspoller, turning to his partner
in amazement.
"I thought so," said Bojo, taking his answer from their attitude. "I
repeat, kindly give me the exact figures, in detail, of the total
indebtedness of Mr. Forshay to your firm."
"I suppose you want to pay it, eh?" said Flaspoller contemptuously.
"Exactly."
"What!"
The reply came almost in a shout. Hauk, keener than his partner,
perceiving from the exalted calm of the young man that the matter was
serious, caught Flaspoller by the arm and shot him into a chair.
"You sit down and be quiet." He approached Bojo, studying him keenly.
"You want to pay up for Forshay--am I right?"
"You are.
"When?"
"Now."
Hauk himself was not proof against the shock the announcement brought.
He sat down, stupidly rubbing his hand across his forehead, glancing
suspiciously at Bojo. Finally he recovered himself sufficiently to say:
"For what reason do you want to do this?"
"That is my business," said Bojo, "and besides you would not understand
in the least."
"Well, well," said Flaspoller, recovering his eagerness with his
cupidity.
"You're not going to refuse, are you?"
"That's very noble, very generous," said Hauk slowly. "We were a little
hasty, Mr. Crocker. We've lost a good deal of money. We sometimes say
things a little more than we mean at such times. You mustn't think too
much of that. We are very much upset--we thought the world of Mr.
Forshay--"
"All this is quite unnecessary," said Bojo with quiet scorn. "We are
dealing with figures. Have you the account ready--now?"
"Yes, yes--we can have it ready in a moment--look it over--take just a
few moments," said Flaspoller eagerly. "Sit down, Mr. Crocker, while we
look it up."
"Thanks, I prefer to wait outside. Remember I want a complete and minute
statement."
He wheeled and went out with disgust, taking his seat by his old place
at the window, without removing his hat and coat. He waited thus, long
minutes, staring out at the dirt-stained walls of the opposite
skyscraper that, five hundred feet in the air, shut them out from a
glimpse of the sky, oblivious to whispered conversations, curious
glances, or the nervous bustling to and fro of the partners. Presently
the telephone buzzed at his side.
"Mr. Hauk would like you to step into his office, sir."
"Tell him to come to me."
It was bravado, but a revenge that was precious to him. Almost
immediately Hauk came sliding to his desk, laying a paper before him.
"This is it, Mr. Crocker."
"Every claim you have against the estate--every one?" said Bojo,
examining carefully the items.
"Perfectly."
But at this moment Flaspoller arrived hastily and alarmed.
"We forgot the share in the expense of the office," he said hurriedly.
"Put it down," said Bojo, with a wave of his hand. At the point of
bitter scorn at which he had arrived, it seemed to him a sublime thing
to accept all figures without condescending to enter into discussion.
"Anything more, gentlemen?"
Flaspoller in vain tortured his memory at this last summons. Hauk,
misunderstanding the frown and the stare with which Bojo continued to
gaze at the paper, began to explain: "This item here is calculated on a
third share in--"
"I don't want any explanations," said Bojo, cutting him short. "You
will, of course, furnish complete details to the executor of the estate.
Now if this is complete, kindly give me a written acknowledgment of a
payment in full of every claim you hold against the estate of W. O.
Forshay, and likewise an attestation that this is in every respect a
just and true bill of Mr. Forshay's debts." He drew out his check-book.
"Fifty-two thousand, seven hundred--"
"And forty-six dollars," said Flaspoller, who followed the strokes of
the pen with incredulous eyes as though unable to believe in Providence.
Bojo rose, took the acquittals and the bill of items, and handed them
the check, saying: "This closes the matter, I believe."
An immense struggle was going on in the minds of the two
partners--curiosity, cupidity, and a new sense of the financial strength
of the man who could thus toss off checks, plainly written in their
startled expressions.
"Mr. Crocker, Tom, we should be very glad if you forgot what we said
this morning," said Flaspoller hurriedly. "You've been very handsome,
very handsome indeed. You can always have a desk in our offices. Mr.
Crocker, I apologize for mistaking you. Shake hands!"
"Good-by, gentlemen!" said Bojo, lifting his hat with the utmost
punctiliousness.
He took a hasty luncheon and went uptown to the Court, where Della, the
pretty little Irish girl at the telephone desk, opened her eyes in
surprise at this unusual appearance.
"Why, Mr. Crocker, what's wrong?"
"I'm changing my habits, Della," he said with an attempted laugh.
He went to his room and sat a long while before the fireplace, pulling
at a pipe. At length he rose, went to the desk, and wrote:
Dear Doris:
A good many things have come up since I left you. I think it
is better that no announcement be made until we have had a
chance to talk matters over very seriously. I hope that can
be soon.
BOJO.
P.S. Please thank Patsie for packing my bag. I went off in
such a rush I think I forgot.
P.P.S. Tell Gladys that Fred came out all right--shouldn't
be surprised if he'd made a little too.