PATSIE'S SCHEME
When Bojo returned home after a brief stolen interview with Patsie, he
could hardly believe what he had himself witnessed. It seemed incredible
that all that magnificence and luxury might be dissipated in a night,
could depend upon the wavering of an hour in a mad exchange. But deeper
than the feeling of impending disaster--which he even now could not
realize--was the disclosure of the true state of affairs in the Drake
household. Without telling Patsie the extent of her father's danger, he
had told of Drake's applying to his wife for assistance and her refusal.
Then Patsie brokenly had told her part, how she had pled with her mother
and sought in vain to place before her the true seriousness of the
situation, her father's peril and his instant need. To entreaties and
remonstrances Mrs. Drake remained deaf, sheltering herself behind an
invariable answer. Why should she throw good money after bad? What was
to be gained by it? If he had thrown away the family fortune, all the
more reason for her to save what she had. The worst was that Dolly was
abroad and Doris and her husband were cruising off Palm Beach and the
telegram they sent might not reach them in time.
The next morning Bojo waited fitfully for the opening of the Stock
Exchange, with the dreaded memories of Haggerdy's prophecies running in
his head. It took him back to the days when he himself had been a part
of the vast maelstrom of speculation. He breakfasted with one eye on the
clock waiting for the hands to advance to the fatal hour of ten. At five
minutes past that hour he went feverishly across the way to the ticker
in the neighboring hotel brokerage. He had a feeling as though he were
being sucked back into the old life of violent emotions and unreal
theatrical upsets. He remembered the day before the drop in Pittsburgh &
New Orleans when he had waited in the Hauk and Flaspoller offices
matching quarters with Forshay to endure the last few intervening
minutes before the crisis which was to sweep away their fortunes as a
tidal wave obliterates a valley. He had not understood then the ironical
laughter in Forshay's eyes, but as he came back again to the old
associations he felt himself living over with a new poignant
understanding the final act of that tragedy.
Between the Tom Crocker of those breathless days and the ordered self
which he had built up during these last months of discipline there
seemed to intervene unreal worlds.
The group gathered in the hotel branch of Pitt & Sanderson were
indolently interested rather than excited. They were of the flitting and
superficial gambling type, youngsters still new to the excitement of the
game and old men who could not tear themselves away from their
established habit. They formed quite a little coterie in which the
differences of age and wealth were obliterated by the common bond of
the daily hazard. He knew the type well, the reckless plunger risking
thousands on shallow margins, determined to make or lose all at one
killing; the rodent, sharp-eyed, close-fisted veteran, wary from many
failures, who was content to play for half a point rise and take his
instant profit. The lounging group studied him with a moment's
curiosity, seeking in which category to place the intruder, whether
among the shifting truant crowd stopping for the moment's information or
among that harried occasional group of lost souls who came expectant of
nothing but complete disaster.
Bojo went to the tape with almost the feeling with which a reformed
drunkard closes his hand over the glass that had once been his
destruction. His mind, excited by the memories of the night before, was
prepared for a shock. To his surprise the clicking procession of
values--Reading, Union Pacific, Amalgamated Copper, Northern
Pacific--showed but fractional declines. The break he had come to
witness did not develop. He waited a quarter of an hour, half an hour,
an hour. The market continued weak but heavy.
"Nothing much doing," he said, turning to his neighbor, a financial rail
bird of a rather horsy type, grisled and bald.
"Playing it short?"
"Haven't yet made up my mind. What do you think?" he said, to draw the
other on.
"Think?" said the other with the enthusiasm of the gambler's conviction.
"Lord, there's only one thing to think. This market's touched bottom
two weeks ago. When it starts to rise watch things go kiting."
"You think so?" said Bojo, with the instinctive tendency to seek hope in
the slightest straws that is the strangest part of all the strange
acquaintanceships of the moment which speculation engenders. He had to
listen for five minutes to impassioned oratory, to hearing all the
reasons recounted why the long depression was nothing but psychological
and an upward turn a certainty. He slipped away presently, rather
relieved at this confidence from a shallow prophet, and when he met
Patsie by appointment, the news he brought her dispelled the feelings of
foreboding under which she had been suffering the last week.
"After all, perhaps we have been rather panicky," he said, with a new
assumption of cheerfulness. "Remember one thing, your father knows this
game and when he says that the big group does not intend to have a
panic, because they themselves have too much to lose, Patsie, he must
know what he is talking about."
"If Doris were only here," she said, her woman's instinct unconvinced.
"You sent the telegram?"
"Last night. I should have had the answer this morning. That's what
worries me. Perhaps it won't reach them in time and even if it does it
will be over two days before they can get back."
"It would help a good deal," he admitted. The prospect of going to Doris
for help after what had happened was one from which he shrank, yet he
was resolved to stop at nothing, willing to sacrifice his pride if only
to secure the aid which, knowing their connections, he knew Boskirk
could bring the imperilled financier.
"At least I shall do what I can do," she said, with a determined shake
of her head.
He looked at her doubtfully. "I am afraid, Patsie, that a few hundred
thousands will not help much--but if your mind is made up."
"It is made up."
"Very well, what address shall I give them?" He leaned forward and
repeated the number.
Twenty minutes later they were in the office of Swift and Carlson, in
the inner room, talking to the senior partner. Thaddeus C. Swift was one
of the innumerable agents through whom Daniel Drake operated in the
placing of his more serious enterprises, of the older generation of Wall
Street, conservative, seemingly unruffled by the swirling tide of
strident young men which churned about him. He had known Patsie since
her childhood and received her as he would his own daughter, with
perhaps a quizzical and searching glance at the young man who waited a
little uncomfortably in the background. Patsie opened the conversation
directly without the slightest hesitation.
"Mr. Swift," she said imperiously, "you must give me your word that you
will keep my confidence." And as this caused the old gentleman to stare
at her with a startled look, she added insistently: "You must not say a
word of my coming here or whatever I may ask you to do. Promise."
"Sounds quite terrible," said Mr. Swift, smiling indulgently. In his
mind he decided that the visit meant a demand for a few hundred dollars
for some girlish fancy. "Well, how shall I swear? Cross my heart and all
that sort of thing?"
"Mr. Swift, I am serious, awfully serious," stamping her foot with
annoyance, "and please do not treat me as a child."
He saw that the matter was of some importance, and scenting perhaps
complications, withdrew into a defensive attitude.
"Suppose you tell me a little of what you want of me," he said
carefully, "before I give such a promise."
Patsie, who for her reasons did not wish her father to have the
slightest suspicion of this visit, hesitated, looked from Mr. Swift to
Bojo, and turned away nervously, seeking some new method to gain her
end.
"Miss Drake is coming to you as a client," said Bojo, deciding to speak,
"to consult you about her interests. So long as it is about her business
affairs, it seems quite natural, doesn't it, that you should keep her
confidence?"
"Eh, what?" said Mr. Swift, frowning. He seemed to repeat the question
to himself, and answered grudgingly: "Of course, of course, that's all
right, that's true. If it is only to consult me about your business
affairs--"
[Illustration: "'Your promise. No one is to know what I do'"]
"It is absolutely that," said Patsie hastily. She stood beside him,
holding out her hand obstinately. "Your promise. No one is to know what
I do."
Mr. Swift made a mental reservation and nodded his head. The three sat
down.
"How much have I deposited in stocks and bonds to my account?" asked
Patsie.
"Do you wish a list?" said Mr. Swift, preparing to touch a button.
"No, no, not now; only the value--in a general way."
"Of course," said Mr. Swift, caging his fingers and looking over their
heads to the depths of the ceiling, "of course, it depends somewhat on
the state of the market. While what you have is the best of securities,
still, as you must know, even the best will not bring to-day what it
would a year ago."
"Yes, but in a general way," she insisted.
"In a general way," he said carefully, "I should say what you have would
represent a capital of $500,000 to $510,000. Possibly, under favorable
conditions, a little more."
Patsie and Bojo looked at him in astonishment.
"You said $500,000?" she said incredulously.
He nodded.
"You are thinking of Doris," she said, bewildered.
"Not at all. That is approximately the value of your holding. Your
father deposited with me securities to the value of $260,000 on your
coming of age last January."
"Yes, yes; I know that, but--"
"And securities of the par value of $250,000 on the occasion of your
sister's marriage."
"He did that?" exclaimed Patsie, her heart in her throat; "he really did
that?" Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away hastily with an
emotion quite inexplicable to the older man. Bojo himself was much moved
at the thought of how the father in the face of a supreme conflict had
been willing to risk his reserves to provide for the future of his
daughters.
Patsie came back, her emotion in a measure controlled. She placed her
hand upon the shoulder of Mr. Swift, who continued to gaze at her
without comprehension.
"I know you don't understand; you will later. Mr. Swift, I want you to
sell every one of my securities, now, immediately. I want everything in
cash."
Mr. Swift looked at her as though he had seen a ghost and then rapidly
at Bojo. In his mind perhaps was working some fantastic idea of an
elopement. Perhaps Patsie guessed something of this, for she blushed
slightly and said:
"My father needs it. I want to give it to him."
Her words cleared the atmosphere, though they left Mr. Swift obstinately
determined.
"But, Patsie," he said, as a father might to a child, "this is a
bombshell. I can't allow you on my own responsibility to do a thing like
this on impulse. You should not ask me. How do you know your father is
in need? He has not sent you here?"
"No, no; never. Don't you know him better than that? If he knew he never
would permit it. That's the difficulty, don't you see? He must never
know of it and you must arrange some way so he will never guess it is
coming from me."
Mr. Swift stared at her utterly amazed. At length he turned and,
addressing Bojo, said:
"You are in the confidence of Miss Drake? If so, perhaps you can help me
out. Does she know what she is doing, and is it possible that she has
any valid reason for believing that her father can possibly be in need
of such heroic assistance as this?"
His face expressed so much amazement mingled with consternation at the
thought that Daniel Drake could possibly be in difficulties that Bojo
for the first time perceived what he should have foreseen, the direct
danger to the financier from the suspicion of his true situation which
must come from the revelation of Patsie's intentions.
"Mr. Swift," he said, in great perturbation, "I do not know whether we
have done wisely in speaking to you so frankly. You will perhaps
understand now why Miss Drake insisted on a promise of secrecy."
"What! Daniel Drake in need of money?" said Mr. Swift, staring at him or
rather through him, and already perceiving the tremendous significance
of this disclosure upon the distraught times.
"At least Miss Drake believes so," said Bojo carefully. "She may
exaggerate the necessity. What she is doing she is doing because she has
made up her mind herself to do it and not because I have advised her or
suggested it in the slightest. You are too good a friend of the family I
know, sir, to speak of what has occurred."
"Oh, Mr. Swift," said Patsie, breaking in and seizing his hand
impulsively, "you _will_ help me, won't you?"
Mr. Swift gazed at her blankly, a hundred thoughts racing through his
mind; still too upset by the news he had just received, which could not
fail to be full of significance to his own fortunes, to be able to
focus for the moment on the immediate decision.
Patsie repeated her demand with a quivering lip. He came out of his
abstraction and began to think, arranging and rearranging a pile of
letters before him, convinced at last that the situation was of the
highest seriousness.
"Wait, wait a moment; I must think it over," he said slowly. "This is an
unusually serious decision you have put up to me. My dear Patsie, you
know nothing about such matters; you're a child."
"I am eighteen and I have a right to dispose of what belongs to me."
"Yes, yes, you have the right, but I have the right also to advise you
and to make you see the situation as it exists." His manner changed
immediately and he said simply and frankly, "Since you have trusted me,
you must give me your full confidence. I shan't abuse it. Mr. Crocker, I
can see by your manner and your attempt at caution that this matter is
not a trifle. Do you know from your own knowledge how serious it is?
Please do not hide anything from me."
"I won't," said Bojo. "I know of my personal knowledge and I believe it
to be as serious as it can possibly be."
The two men exchanged a glance and the look in both their eyes told
Swift even more than his words revealed, more than he wished Patsie
herself to suspect.
"Suppose the very worst were true," said Mr. Swift after a moment's
thought, "that your father was in danger of complete failure? I am
merely supposing this extreme case to show you the difficulty of my
position. Your father has placed these securities to your account with
the distinct intention that whatever happens to him you shall be
provided for as his other daughters are provided for, and undoubtedly
his wife is taken care of. If I should allow you to do this, even as a
matter of sentiment it is possible in an extreme case everything you
have as well as everything your father possesses might be wiped away. Do
you realize that?"
"And that's just what I am afraid may happen," she exclaimed, worried
beyond the thought of caution by her forebodings.
"And you are willing to take the risk of losing everything?" he said
slowly; "for after all there is no reason why you should sacrifice what
belongs to you rightfully and legally even if your father should fail
completely."
"No reason?" she cried. "Do you think for a moment that money means
anything to me when he, my father, the one who has given it to me, needs
it?"
"But if even this won't save him?" he persisted, shaking his head.
"What has that got to do with the question?" she said impatiently,
almost angrily. "Everything I have I want him to have. That's all there
is to it."
He gazed at her fresh and ardent face a moment and then laid his hand
over hers, muttering something underneath his breath which Bojo did not
catch, although he divined its reverence.
"Then you will do as I wish?" she cried joyfully, guessing his
surrender.
He nodded, gave a helpless glance to Bojo and cleared his throat
huskily. "As you wish, my dear," he said very gently.
"And you will sell everything at once?" she cried.
"I can't promise that," he said quietly. "Such a block of securities
can't be thrown on the market all at once. But I will do my best."
"But how long will it take?" she said in dismay.
"Four days, possibly five."
"But that will be too late. I must have it all the day after to-morrow."
"That will mean a serious sacrifice," he said.
"What do I care? I must have it by to-morrow night."
"You are determined?"
"Absolutely."
"It will have to be so then."
"And when that is done," she cried joyfully, clapping her hands in
delight, "you will help me to send it to him so he will never suspect
it?"
He nodded, yielding every point, perhaps more moved than he cared to
show.
They left the office after Patsie had signed the formal order.
At the house they found a telegram from Doris.
Dear Patsie, your telegram has thrown us into the greatest
anxiety. Jim and I are leaving at once. Will be in New York
day after to-morrow. Courage. We will do everything to help.
DORIS.
This news and their success of the morning restored their spirits
immeasurably. It seemed as though clouds had suddenly cleared away and
left everything with a promise of sunshine and fair weather. They
lunched almost gaily. Mrs. Drake still kept her room and Patsie was
impatient for the day to pass and the next one to have the certainty
that the sale was achieved. Confident from her first success she
declared once Doris was back she would go with her sister to her mother
and shame her if they could not persuade her into a realization of the
gravity of the situation. When Bojo left they had even forgotten for the
space of half an hour that such bugbears as Wall Street, loans and banks
could exist. The realization of the seriousness of human disasters had
somehow left them simple and devoid of artifices or coquetry before each
other. He found again in her the Patsie of earlier days. He comprehended
that she loved him, had always loved him, that the slight
misunderstanding that had momentarily arisen between them had come from
the long summer renunciation and the passionate jealousy of one sister
for the other. He comprehended this all, but did not take advantage of
his knowledge. On leaving her he held her a moment, his hands on her
shoulders, gazing earnestly into her eyes. From this intensity of his
look she turned away a little frightened, not quite reconciled. Already
his, but still hesitating before the final avowal. The knowledge of how
indispensable he was to her in these moments of trial restrained him in
the impulsive movement towards her. He took her hand and bowed over it a
deep bow, a little quixotic perhaps, and hurried away without trusting
himself to speak. Outside he went rushing along as though the blocks
were mere steps, swinging his cane and humming to himself gloriously. He
was so happy that the thought that any one else could be unhappy, that
any disaster could threaten her or any one who belonged to her, seemed
incredible.
"Everything is going to turn out all right," he repeated to himself
confidently. "Everything; I feel it."
He went back to the Court radiant and gay and dressed for dinner,
surprising Granning, who came in preoccupied and anxious, with the flow
of animal spirits. At the sight of his contagious happiness Granning
looked at him with a knowing smile.
"Well, things aren't so black after all, then?"
"You bet they're not!"
"Glad to hear it. You had me scared last night. My guess is that
something besides stocks and bonds must have cheered you up," he added
suspiciously with a wise nod of his head. "Glad to see it, old fellow.
You've been mum and gloomy as a hippopotamus long enough."
"Have I?" said Bojo, laughing with a little confusion. "Well, I'm not
going to be any longer. You're an old hippopotamus yourself." He got him
around the knees and flung him with an old time tackle on the couch, and
they were scrambling and laughing thus when the telephone rang. It was
Patsie's voice, very faint and pitiful.
"Have you heard? The Clearing House has refused to clear for the
Atlantic Trust. Oh, Bojo, what does it mean?"