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HERE was a double wedding at Merrifield in September, and, next to
McCarthy and myself, the happiest man there was Sam, who shook my hand
before the ceremony to give me courage, and spoke a cheering word.
“You'll be glad you done it when it's all over,” he said.
So glad have I ever been that I hold my peace when I think of that day
and of her, the dearest blessing of my life. There are things which had
better be let alone, even though one had the tongue of an angel. Such
is that sense of pride and joy that came to me when I put my arms around
her, and knew that she was mine at last. And, after all, the loves and
marriages of the gentleman and myself are only small incidents of our
history, which has to do with the loves and marriages of commerce, and
there is yet a little to be added.
We went to Saratoga on our wedding journey. The day we arrived I met my
old friend Swipes in the office of the Grand Union Hotel. He was cashier
in the great gambling-house of John Morrissey. He told me that Bony had
lost fifty thousand dollars in play the night before.
“It broke him,” said Swipes. “He had to borrow a hundred dollars from
the old man.” That very day I met Bony on the street. “Look here, old
chap,” he said, as we stepped aside, “I'm broke, and if you'll lend me
ten thousand dollars I can do you a favor.”
He paused and looked into my eyes, but I made no answer.
“I know that McCarthy has been looking for evidence against the Erie
party for their sins in Albany,” he went on. “That's why he split with
the Commodore. I can help him. I could tell him things that would put
some of them behind the bars. The consolidation of the Central and
Hudson River systems will be coming on this fall. I'll put a whip in
your hands that will keep them out of Albany.”
I found McCarthy, and brought the two men together. The gentleman
listened while Bony set forth his evidence and promised two affidavits
in support of it.
“All right,” said McCarthy, “bring your witnesses to me. If they're
satisfactory, I'll buy your note for one year for ten thousand dollars,
on the understanding that we're both acting in the interest of public
decency.”
Jo and I left for New York a few days later.
I had a letter in my pocket to the Prince of Erie. It was from the
Hon. Bonaparte Squares, and advised the Prince of certain facts in our
possession, and gave him a word of warning. We thought that the letter
should go straight to his hands, and I undertook to deliver it.
“He'll know who you are, and that will set him thinking,” said McCarthy.
“You may talk, if necessary, but don't say a word.”
I turned into Broad Street with the letter early in the afternoon of
Black Friday--that memorable twenty-fourth day of September, 1869. Those
two cunning men, Fisk and his partner, had a corner in gold. For an hour
its price had been mounting by leaps and bounds.
Wall and Broad streets were like brimming rivers full of boiling rapids
and roaring whirlpools and slow eddies and deep undercurrents. Now and
then one heard a shrill cry like that of a man drowning. The currents
swept me along, wavering from curb to curb. A friend touched my arm and
shouted:
“Shake, old man! We haven't much to lose, and we're lucky. Every minute
now somebody is going broke.”
I took my letter to Fisk's office. By that time the price of gold had
begun to tumble. Fisk's door was open, and I walked in. There, in the
middle of a large room, stood the greatest gambler of an age of hazards.
He wore a coat of blue velvet with a white flower in its lapel. He stood
by a small table, and was pouring champagne into a row of glasses. A
basket of wine lay at his feet. The chairs around the room seemed to be
filled with dead men, their faces ghastly white, their eyes staring. A
colored boy passed the wine. The Prince of Erie raised his glass, and
said:
“Boys, when you're picking a goose, the point is to get as many feathers
as you can every grab, with as little squawking as possible.”
He took the letter I carried, and went with me into the outer office,
reading as he walked. Men crowded about us, seeking a word with Fisk. He
turned to me, and said:
“Sit down a minute; I'm very busy now.”
I took a chair, and watched the great gambler as he spoke to the men who
pressed about him. He was jocular, good-natured, kindly.
“Cheer up, old fellow,” he would say, with an affectionate tap on the
shoulder, “your turn will come one of these days.”
I waited for an hour or more.
The market closed. The half-crazed players in this temple of fortune
were moving out of its door. Soon the place was empty of all save the
clerks and the Prince himself and two or three hangers-on.
As Fisk was turning to me a man of clerical dress and manners accosted
him.
“Mr. Fisk,” said he, “we need a fence around the cemetery up there in
Bennington, and I've come to ask you to help us.”
What a finish for that deadly day of torment!
The Prince laughed.
“A fence around a cemetery!” he exclaimed. “You don't need it. Those
who are in can't get out, and those who are out don't want to get in, so
what's the use; but here's fifty dollars.”
He gave him the money, and turned to me, and said:
“Sorry I kept you so long. Come into my room a minute.”
I followed him, and he sat down beside me. He had carefully considered
his plan.
“I've had a hard battle,” he said. “War is war, whether you fight with
guns or money. Here in Wall Street we cut close to the heart sometimes,
but we don't kill, and we don't try to make ourselves believe that God
is on either side--at least, nobody but Uncle Dan'l, and, you know, he
builds a church whenever he grabs a million as a reward to Providence.
We're like a lot of soldiers. We take what we can get, and when we're
surrounded we cut our way out if we can. Do you like Albany?”
He smiled as he put the question.
“Very much,” was my answer.
“Well, I don't,” said he. “I'm going to keep away from there, and so
are my friends. It's full of temptations. Think of that bargain counter!
There's nothing like it in the world. I never saw such an array of
jewelry, and all so cheap!”
We laughed, and I left him, and thought of the wise, far-seeing
gentleman who had sent me there. I thought, too, of the long war of the
Rebellion, and of all that its years of slaughter and pillage had cost
us--a loss of respect for sacred things, which was, somehow, signalized
in the character of Colonel Fisk, to whom business was war and property
the prize of battle.
I had other things to do, and when I walked up Broad Street, in the
early evening, the banks were all open and the Street crowded, and I saw
numbers of men who had been rich that morning sitting dejectedly on the
curb together eating sandwiches, and among them was Bony.
That night I heard General Hampton say, in the lobby of the St.
Nicholas, that there would have been no war if our railroads had run
north and south instead of east and west, and it was true.
There was a great awakening in the land. It was the age of invention.
Hundreds of corporations, with millions behind them, joined the armies
of steam-power and marched upon the capitals demanding favor. Enthusiasm
ran high. Many a captain forgot other considerations in thinking of the
greatness of his cause. They did much harm, but they were building the
pyramids for us and our children forever, and we may say now, as we
gather the fruit of their toil: Poor fellows! how little time was given
them in which to regret or enjoy the things they did! After all, we can
afford to repair the evil for the sake of the good.
I thank God that I have lived to see the harnessing of the swift horses
of Niagara, and the great earth laced with streams of power that turn
night into day and day into immeasurable service.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Hand-Made Gentleman, by Irving Bacheller