A DEAL IN STOCKS
The wolf-face, seamed with hatred and anger, and hideous with evil
passions, that had glowered for a moment out of the smoky frame of
the Chinese den, was still haunting me as I forced myself once more to
return to the office. Wednesday morning had come, and I was due to meet
Doddridge Knapp. But as I unlocked the door, I took some comfort in the
reflection that I could hardly be more unwilling to meet the Wolf than
he must be to meet me.
I had scarcely settled myself in my chair when I heard the key turn in
the lock. The door swung open, and in walked Doddridge Knapp.
I had thought to find at least some trace of the opium debauch through
which I had gained the clue to his strange and contradictory acts--some
mark of the evil passions that had written their story upon his face
at the meeting in the passage. But the face before me was a mask that
showed no sign of the experiences through which he had passed. For all
that appeared, he might have employed the time since I had left here two
days before in studying philosophy and cultivating peace and good-will
with his neighbors.
“Ah, Wilton,” he said affably, rubbing his hands with a purring growl.
“You're ready for a hard day's work, I hope.”
“Nothing would please me better,” I said cheerfully, my repugnance
melting away with the magnetism of his presence. “Is the black flag up
today?”
He looked at me in surprise for an instant and then growled, still in
good humor:
“'No quarter' is the motto to-day.” And I listened closely as the King
of the Street gave his orders for the morning.
I marveled at the openness and confidence with which he seemed to treat
me. There was no trace nor suggestion in his demeanor to-day of the man
who sought my life by night. And I shuddered at the power of the Black
Smoke to change the nature of this man to that of a demon. He trusted me
with secrets of his campaign that were worth millions to the market.
“You understand now,” he said at the end of his orders, “that you are
to sell all the Crown Diamond that the market will take, and buy all the
Omega that you can get below one hundred.”
“I understand.”
“We'll feed Decker about as big a dose as he can swallow, I reckon,”
said the King of the Street grimly.
“One thing,” I said, “I'd like to know if I'm the only one operating for
you.”
The King of the Street drew his bushy brows down over his eyes and
scowled at me a moment.
“You're the only one in the big Board,” he said at last. “There are men
in the other Boards, you understand.”
I thought I understood, and sallied forth for the battle. At Doddridge
Knapp's suggestion I arranged to do my business through three brokers,
and added Lattimer and Hobart to Wallbridge, and Bockstein and Eppner.
Bockstein greeted me affably:
“Velgome to de marget vonce more, Mr.--, Mr.--”
“Wilton,” said Eppner, assisting his partner in his high, dry voice,
with cold civility. His blue-black eyes regarded me as but a necessary
part of the machinery of commerce.
I gave my orders briefly.
“Dot is a larch order,” said Bockstein dubiously.
“You don't have to take it,” I was about to retort, when Eppner's
high-pitched voice interrupted:
“It's all right. The customary margin is enough.”
Wallbridge was more enthusiastic.
“You've come just in the nick of time,” said the stout little man,
swabbing his bald head from force of habit, though the morning was
chill. “The market has been drier than a fish-horn and duller than a
foggy morning. You saved me from a trip to Los Angeles. I should have
been carried off by my wife in another day.”
“You have got Gradgrind's idea of a holiday,” I laughed.
“Gradgrind, Gradgrind?” said the little man reflectively. “Don't know
him. He's not in the market, I reckon. Oh, I'm death on holidays! I come
near dying every day the Board doesn't meet. When it shut up shop after
the Bank of California went to the wall, I was just getting ready to
blow my brains out for want of exercise, when they posted the notice
that it was to open again.”
I laughed at the stout broker's earnestness, and told him what I wanted
done.
“Whew!” he exclaimed, “you're in business this time, sure. Well, this is
just in my line.”
Lattimer and Hobart, after a polite explanation of their rules in regard
to margins, and getting a certified check, became obsequiously anxious
to do my bidding.
I distributed the business with such judgment that I felt pretty sure
our plans could not in any way be exposed, and took my place at the rail
in the Boardroom.
The opening proceedings were comparatively tame. I detected a sad
falling-off in the quality and quantity of lung power and muscular
activity among the buyers and sellers in the pit.
At the call of Confidence, Lattimer and Hobart began feeding shares to
the market. Confidence dropped five points in half a minute, and the
pit began to wake up. There was a roar and a growl that showed me the
animals were still alive.
The Decker forces were taken by surprise, but with a hasty consultation
came gallantly to the rescue of their stock. At the close of the call
they had forced it back and one point higher than at the opening.
This, however, was but a skirmish of outposts. The fighting began at the
call of Crown Diamond.
It opened at sixty-three. The first bid was hardly made when with
a bellow Wallbridge charged on Decker's broker, filled his bid, and
offered a thousand shares at sixty-two.
There was an answering roar from a hundred throats and a mob rushed
on Wallbridge with the apparent intent of tearing him limb from limb.
Wallbridge's offer was snapped up at once, but a few weak-kneed holders
of the stock threw small blocks on the market.
These were taken up at once, and Decker's brokers were bidding
sixty-five.
At this Eppner gave a blast like a cornet, and, waving his arms
frantically, plunged into a small-sized riot. I had entrusted him with
five thousand shares of Crown Diamond to be sold for the best price
possible, and he was feeding the opposition judiciously. The price
wavered for a moment, but rallied and reached sixty-six.
At this I signaled to Wallbridge, and with another bellow he started an
opposition riot on the other side of the room from Eppner, and fed Crown
Diamond in lumps to the howling forces of the Decker combination.
The battle was raging furiously.
I had no wish to break the price of the stock. I was intent only at
selling shares at a good price, but I had convinced the Decker forces
that there was a raid on the stock, and they had rallied to protect it
at whatever cost.
The price see-sawed between sixty-six and sixty-five, and amid a tumult
of yells and shouts I sold twelve thousand shares. At last they were
gone, but the offers still continued.
Outsiders had become scared at the persistent selling, and were trying
to realize before a break should come, and in spite of Decker's efforts
the price ran down to sixty.
There was a final rally of the Decker forces, and the call closed with
Crown Diamond at sixty-three.
I was pleased at the result. Doddridge Knapp had intrusted me with the
shares with the remark, “I paid fifty for 'em and they're not worth a
tinker's dam. I got an inside look at the mine when I was in Virginia
City. Feed Decker all he'll take at sixty. He's been fooled on the
thing, and I reckon he'll buy a good lot of them at that.”
I had sold Doddridge Knapp's entire lot of the stock at an average of
over sixty-five, had netted him a profit of fifteen dollars a share, and
had, for a second purpose, served the plan of campaign by drawing the
enemy's resources to the defense of Crown Diamond and weakening, by so
much, his power of operating elsewhere.
By the time Omega was reached I had the plans fully in hand.
The assault on Crown Diamond had caused a nervous feeling all along the
line, and under rumors of a bear raid there had been a drop of several
points.
Omega felt the results of the nervousness and depression, and opened at
seventy-five.
There was a moment's buzz--the quiet of a crowd expectant of great
events. Then Wallbridge charged into the throng with a roar. I could not
distinguish his words, but I knew that he was carrying out my order
to drop five thousand shares on the market. At his cry there was an
answering roar, and the scene upon the floor turned to a riot. Men
rushed hither and thither, screaming, shouting, waving their arms,
pushing, jostling, tearing each other to get into the midst of the
throng, whirling about, mobbing first one and then another of the
leather-lunged leaders who furnished at each moment fresh centers for
the outbreak of disorder. How the market was going, I could only guess.
At Wallbridge's onset I saw Lattimer and Eppner make a dive for him and
then separate, following other shouting, screaming madmen who pirouetted
about the floor and tried to save themselves from a mobbing. I heard
seventy shouted from one direction, but could not make out whether it
set the price of the stock or not. The din was too confusing for me to
follow the course of events.
At last Wallbridge staggered up to the rail, flushed, collarless and
panting for breath, with his hat a hopeless wreck.
“We've done it!” he gasped in my ear. “The dogs of war are making the
fur fly down here, you bet! Don't you wish you was in it?”
“No, I don't!” I shouted decidedly. “How does it go?”
“I sold down to seventy-one--average seventy-three, I guess--and she's
piling in fit to break the floor.”
“Did Lattimer and Eppner get your stock?” I could not help asking.
“They got about three thousand of it. Rosenheim got the rest.”
I remembered Rosenheim as the agent of Decker, and sighed. But Lattimer
and Eppner were busy, and I had hopes.
“Where is it now?” I asked.
“Sixty-nine and a half.”
I meditated an instant whether to use my authority to throw another five
thousand shares on the market. But I caught sight of Decker opposite,
pale, hawklike, just seizing an envelope from a messenger. He tore it
open, and though his face changed not a line, I felt by a mysterious
instinct that it brought assurance of the aid he sought.
“Buy every share you can get,” I said promptly. “Don't get in the way of
Lattimer or Eppner. Put on steam, too.”
“Two-forty on a turnpike road,” said Wallbridge. And, refreshed by a
minute of rest, he gave a prolonged bellow and charged frantically for a
stout man in a white waistcoat who was doing the maniac dance across the
hall.
A moment later the clamor grew louder and the excitement increased. I
heard shouts of seventy-five, seventy-eight, eighty and eighty-five.
Decker's men had entered into the bidding with energy. The sinews of
war had been recruited, and it was a battle for the possession of every
block of stock.
Thus far I had followed closely the plan laid down for me by Doddridge
Knapp, and the course of the market had agreed with the outlines of his
prophecy. But now it was going up faster than he had expected. Yet I
could do nothing but buy. I dared not set bounds to the bidding. I dared
not stop for an instant to hear how the account of purchases stood, for
it might allow Decker to get the stock that my employer would need to
give him the control of the mine. I could only grip the railing and wait
for the end of the call.
At last it came, and “Omega, one hundred and five and three-quarters”
was the closing quotation. I feverishly took the totals of my purchases
from the brokers, and gave the checks to bind them. Then I hastily made
my way through the excited throngs that blocked the entrance to the
Exchange, brought thither by the exciting news of “a boom in Omega,” and
hurried to the office.
Doddridge Knapp had not yet come, and I consumed myself with impatience
for ten minutes till I heard his key in the lock and he entered with a
calm smile on his face.
“What luck, Wilton?” was his greeting. The King of the Street, whose
millions had been staked in the game, was less excited than I who risked
nothing.
I gave him my memoranda, and tried to read his face as he studied them.
“You did a good job with Crown Diamond,” he grunted approvingly.
“Thanks,” I returned. “I thought it wasn't bad for a stock that was not
worth mentioning.”
“Um, yes. Decker can light his cigars with it next month.”
“A million dollars' worth of cigar-lighters might be called a piece of
extravagance,” I murmured.
“You'll think so if you ever buy 'em, Wilton,” growled the King of the
Street feelingly. “And here is seven thousand six hundred shares of
Omega bought and five thousand sold. That scheme worked pretty well. We
made twenty-six hundred by it. Um--the price went up pretty fast.”
The King of the Street looked sourly at the figures before him. “You
ought to have got more stock,” he growled.
This was a shock to my self-congratulation over my success, and I gave
an inquiring “Yes?”
“As I figure it out,” he said, “somebody else got seven thousand shares
and odd. There were over fifteen thousand shares sold in your Board.”
I murmured that I had done my best.
“Yes, yes; I suppose so,” said my employer. “But we need more.”
“How much?” I asked.
“I've got a little over forty-eight thousand shares,” he said slowly,
“and I must have near sixty thousand. It looks as though I'd have to
fight for them.”
“Which will cost you about a million and a half at present rates,” I
returned.
“I'll give you a million commission, Wilton, if you'll get them for
that.”
The King of the Street plainly did not underrate the task he had set.
“Well, Decker isn't any better off than you,” I said consolingly.
“He's ten or fifteen thousand shares worse off than I am.”
“And he's put a fortune into Crown Diamond, and is pretty well loaded
with Confidence.”
“True, my boy.”
“And so,” I argued, “he must be nearer the bottom of his sack than you
are.”
“Very good, Wilton,” said the King of the Street with a quizzical
look. “But you've left one thing out. You don't happen to know that
the directors of the El Dorado Bank had a secret meeting last night and
decided to back Decker for all they are worth.”
“Rather a rash proceeding,” I suggested.
“Well, he had three millions of their money in his scheme, so I reckon
they thought the tail might as well follow the hide,” explained my
employer.
“The only thing to do then is to get a bank yourself,” I returned.
Doddridge Knapp's lips closed, and a trace of a frown was on his brows.
“Well, this isn't business,” he said. “Now here is what I want,” he
continued. And he gave directions for the buying at the afternoon
session.
“Now, not over one hundred and twenty-five,” was his parting injunction.
“You may not get much--I don't think you will--though I have a scheme
that may bring a reaction.”
Doddridge Knapp's scheme for a reaction must have been one of the kind
that goes off backward, for Omega jumped skyward on the afternoon call,
and closed at one hundred and thirty. Rumors were flying fast that a big
bonanza, “bigger than the Consolidated Virginia,” had been discovered
on the six-hundred-foot level, and the great public was rushing to Pine
Street to throw its dollars into the blind pool against Knapp, Decker
and the El Dorado bank. And I had been able to get a scant one thousand
five hundred shares when the call was over.
“I did better than you,” said Doddridge Knapp, when I explained to him
the course of the session. “I found a nest of two thousand five hundred,
and gathered them in at one hundred and twenty. But that's all right.
You've done well enough--as well as I expected.”
“And still eight thousand to get,” I said.
“Nearly.”
“Well, we'll get them in due time, I suppose,” I said cheerfully.
“We'll have 'em by Monday noon, or we won't have 'em at all,” growled
Doddridge Knapp.
“How is that?”
“You seem to have forgotten, young man, that the stock transfer books of
the Omega Company close on Monday at two o'clock.”
As I had never heard this interesting piece of information before, I
could not in strictness be said to have forgotten it.
“Well, we ought to have the stock by that time,” I said consolingly.
“We ought,” said the King of the Street grimly, pausing in the doorway,
“but things don't always happen as they ought.”
As I remembered that if things had happened as they ought Doddridge
Knapp would be in jail, I gave a hearty assent to the proposition as the
door closed behind my retreating employer.