TOMMY was up and dressed at working-man's hours the next morning. He
had fought until midnight, and finally pushed his fears into a corner
and kept them there. After the friends who always had been friends and,
therefore, would continue always to be friends, were stockholders, he
would allow himself to think of other things.
He breakfasted with his father, but made no allusions to his work. It
was only when he was about to leave the house for the bank that Mr.
Leigh, after a moment's hesitation, said to Tommy:
“You must not feel unduly disappointed, Thomas, if you do not succeed at
the first attempt. It is not easy to raise capital at any time, and just
now the business outlook is not so clear as I wish it might be for your
sake. And so, Thomas, if you do not accomplish as much as you wish as
quickly as you think you ought to, I think you should realize that I am
somewhat familiar with transactions of this character and--and you must
remember, Thomas, that I am as much concerned with your success as you
yourself.”
Mr. Leigh looked at his watch, started nervously, and walked quickly
out of the room, as though he were late and feared a scolding. The
apprehensive manner chilled Tommy to the marrow of his bones. At the
door Mr. Leigh turned and said in a subdued voice, “I wish you luck, my
son.” A moment later Tommy heard the street door close.
“Poor dad!” muttered Tommy, thinking of his father's unbearable burden,
and full of pity for the helplessness that insisted upon helping the
son for whom he had done so much. It was Tommy Leigh who must help Tommy
Leigh--in order that Tommy Leigh might help his father.
He wondered if Rivington was up. He looked at his watch. It was
eight-forty-four. Rivington was not up yet. Tommy went to the corner
drug-store, and from there telephoned to the Willetts' house. He told
the servant who answered the call to tell Mr. Rivington that Mr. Thomas
Leigh would be there at ten sharp--very important!
Rivington was very glad to see Tommy, and showed it in ways that Tommy
good-naturedly thought boyish but sincere, and, therefore, pardonable.
But Rivington's face showed a quite mature respect when Tommy bluntly
told him he wished to see Colonel Willetts on business.
“Does it involve him parting from some of his wad?” asked Rivington.
Tommy perceived that Rivington was still an undergraduate. Therefore he
answered in the same language.
“It do, my boy. That is a necessary part of the operation by which I
hope to do you the greatest favor one true man can do another.”
“The old gentleman is hell on real estate,” warned Rivington.
“We own the most valuable portions of the Lord's green footstool in fee
simple,” said Tommy, reassuringly.
“I tell you again, terra firma is his obsession. And even at that he is
from Missouri.”
“That's the kind I like. For what else was my larynx made?”
“I always understood,” said Rivington, gravely, “that there was money
in éditions de luxe, and that nice old widow ladies always fell for the
young Demosthenes.”
“Lad, it isn't eloquence that I spurt, but a bald narrative of the
facts,” said Tommy, glad to convince Rivington that he was strictly
business.
But Rivington rose to his feet and said, solemnly:
“Thomas, I hereby invite you to dine with my family to-night at
seven-thirty. I do so officially; and kindly take notice that the
invitation has been received by you before you have talked sordid
business to my revered parent. Do you accept?”
“I do,” said Tommy.
“Very well; I shall spread it on the official minutes of this meeting. I
shall tell Marion when she comes in from her ride. That child is a--what
would you call her--a centauress or a lady equestrienne?”
“I call her a Christian martyr every time I think of her brother,” said
Tommy.
“Yes?” said Rivington, very politely. “Well, my father will avenge me.
I'll let him know that we'll be down at his office with an ambulance at
three-ten. The stock-market closes at three. He ought to be fit to talk
to ten minutes later. And now you come with me. I want to show you my
new Parker six.”
“Riv, why don't you drive a car?” inquired Tommy, solicitously.
“Haw! Haw! A Tecumseh, hey? Oh, my appendix! Don't make me laugh when
I'm driving, Tommily.”
“Got a license, son?”
“Better than that. The cops all know me. Come on, I'll learn you
something.”
They rode out into Westchester County, had luncheon at their college
dub, and shortly after three were at Colonel Willetts's office.
“How do you do, Tommy?” said Colonel Willetts, so pleasantly and
unbusinesslike that Tommy felt sorry. “How's the job?” He was a tall,
handsome man with a ruddy complexion that went very well with his
snow-white military mustache. A casual glance made one think of a
martinet; but on closer study one might gather that the colonel was not
a disciplinarian at home, but merely liked the pose. There is a vast
difference between a capitalist and a captain of industry.
“I'm still on it, Colonel,” replied Tommy, thinking of an opening.
“H'm! Can't you find something for a needy friend to do in Dayton?
Rivington”--he used the elaborate sarcasm of the fond father who can't
control his children because his own program changes daily--“is very
anxious to go into business.”
“Tommy's business is automobiles and so is mine,” cut in Rivington,
pleasantly. “I am learning the fine points of the car before I go on the
road.”
“As far as I can make out, your studies seem to be confined to road laws
and all the known varieties of fines.”
“Talking about the law, Tommy is here to talk business with you. He
didn't wish to come, but I broke the law of hospitality and compelled
him to do as I said. If he gave me the chance he is going to give you
I'd take it on the jump.” He turned away and walked toward a
window, that his friend and his father might talk business
without embarrassment. On the way he whispered to Tommy: “Split
commissions--fifty-fifty.” Colonel Willetts looked inquiringly at Tommy.
Tommy decided it was no time for boy talk, so he said very earnestly:
“Colonel, I am more concerned with interesting you in our work than with
the investment of money in our business. We can save time if you will be
good enough to read this statement.” And Tommy laid before the colonel
Mr. Thompson's program. He took it for granted that his best
friend's father not only would read the statement intelligently and
sympathetically, but would be glad of the opportunity to do so. Colonel
Willetts was looking at him almost with the intentness with which we
watch a juggler on the stage. Whereupon Tommy smiled pleasantly to show
that he shared the colonel's pleasure in the prospective perusal of the
document.
The colonel got down to business. “Is this the prospectus?” he asked,
suspiciously.
“No, sir, there is no prospectus. The company is not trying to raise
money in the open market. It doesn't have to. The paper shows what our
plans are. My visit here is merely to give an opportunity for a few of
my personal friends to buy stock that I can't buy myself.”
“Why can't you?”
Tommy smiled good-naturedly. Evidently the rich don't understand that
everybody isn't rich. He answered:
“Because I unfortunately haven't any money.”
“H'm!” grunted Colonel Willetts, looking like the chief of the general
staff. “H'm! Pure friendship! Fine business reason!”
Tommy felt himself on the verge of becoming annoyed, but he subdued his
feelings and answered with what you might call a smile of earnestness.
“Yes, sir--pure friendship. I can't think of a better reason in this
world for a man who is not a hog or a dog in the manger.”
“H'm! Nothing personal in your remarks, I take it.” And the colonel
fixed his fiercely frowning eyes on Tommy. He had inherited the bulk of
his great fortune, but loved to play at doing business with a martial
air.
“Sure, it's personal. Rivington, who is my best friend, happens to be
your son. That's my reason. I consider it a very good reason. Even if I
wanted to sell stock to a stranger, I wouldn't be allowed to do so.”
“Sell stock, hey?”
Tommy did not like the colonel's voice nor his look nor the suggestion
of a sneer. So he said: “Won't you please read that statement, Colonel?
Just a moment, please. I'd like to say something before you begin.”
The colonel looked at him over his eye-glasses and Tommy, his voice
ringing with his own sense of the sacredness of his mission, said:
“Whether you take some of the stock or not, I want you to understand
very clearly, sir, that every word of that paper is true. I vouch for it
personally from my own knowledge. And though it won't hurt the company
in the slightest if you should decide not to make Rivington one of our
stockholders, it will be a great disappointment to me not to have my
friends with me in the work that I propose to devote my life to. Now
won't you please read on?”
The colonel without another word began to read the statement that
Thompson had prepared for Tommy's benefit. When he finished he pursed
up his lips and frowned. He tapped the papers meditatively with his
finger-tips for fully a minute before he spoke.
“Tommy, I never mix altruism with business. When I give money I give it.
When I invest money I expect all the profit that I am legitimately
entitled to.”
“All that any man is legitimately entitled to from the labor of others
is a fair profit. This is not a gamble--”
“All business is a gamble,” interrupted the colonel, shortly.
“Perhaps it wouldn't be if altruism were mixed with it oftener than it
is,” said Tommy, trying not to speak heatedly. He was Door Opener to the
men in the shop--his men. And they were entitled to more than the wages
that he thought Colonel Willetts would like to fix for them.
“Are you a socialist?” frowned Colonel Willetts.
“I'm not a regular socialist, but I can see that business in the future
must be conducted in a different way. Mr. Thompson is looking ahead
farther than most men.”
“He thinks he is.”
“He really is. You see, Colonel, I know him and you don't,” smiled
Tommy. Then he said, very impressively, “I consider him the greatest man
in this country to-day.”
“I have no doubt that you do,” observed the colonel, dryly. “But
granting he is all that you are so sure he is, he proposes innovations
the success of which he cannot possibly guarantee. In special cases for
special reasons they might work.”
“Well, sir, his record guarantees that. He began in a small way and he
has built up a large and very profitable business. The company would
have paid much bigger dividends if he hadn't insisted upon putting most
of the profits back into the business in order to build permanently.
That was good business, wasn't it? And now he is going to carry into
effect plans on which he has been working for years. Here is the
company's dollar-history, Colonel.” And Tommy gave the sheets of figures
to the colonel.
The colonel looked at Tommy as if he never before had seen his son's
chum. Then he studied the figures. When he finished he turned to Tommy,
who instantly anticipated the skeptical questions he thought Colonel
Willetts would ask.
“Our books are open for examination by any accountant you may send. I'll
agree to pay his expenses if he finds anything that does not confirm
what's in that paper.” Tommy instantly felt he had spoken hastily. The
expert's fee might be utterly beyond his ability to pay. But Thompson
had said the experts could be sent. Tommy was betting on Thompson. It
was a safe bet, he thought, and he felt easy once more, not knowing that
in trusting to his judgment of men he had done the most business-like
thing in his business career.
“According to these--er--documents your company expects to make a great
deal more than the stockholders will get. You are asking me--I mean the
stockholders--to authorize the directors to divide the money which our
money makes in any way they see fit.”
“Exactly--after a fair profit is paid to the stockholders, because we
believe that by sharing profits with the men who produce and the men who
buy the product we are dividing the profits among the people that make
the profits possible. If labor, capital, and the public are satisfied,
where's the fight going to come from?” Tommy had never before thought
of profit-sharing as concretely as this, but he was convinced that his
position was not only right, but unanswerable.
“Where did you say your factory is--Utopia?” asked the colonel, with
elaborate politeness.
“Dayton, Ohio. I'd like to have you visit us.”
“Thanks, Tommy. To whom else have you talked about this?”
“My father. He thought it was not a very good time to raise money. But
you see, sir, I am not here to raise money to carry on our business, but
to ask my friends to buy stock that I'd take in a minute if I had the
money.”
The more Tommy thought about it, the more he wished Rivington might be
a large stockholder in the new company that was going to be the world's
model corporation.
“Well, Tommy,” said Colonel Willetts, after a pause, “I'll tell you
frankly, your proposition does not appeal to me.”
Tommy's disappointment showed itself in his face, which thereupon became
impassive, but unfortunately impassive with a quite obvious effort.
Rivington, who had heard his father's decision, broke in cheerfully:
“Market must have gone against you to-day, father. Tommy will come again
when you have gathered in the unearned increment.”
“Hang it,” said the colonel, irascibly, to his only son, “will you ever
be serious--”
“No use getting angry, dad. I'll bring Tommy round to-morrow and the day
after, and so on. There is more labor involved in our daily trips than
in signing one check. In the mean time he is dining with us to-night at
home. We expect you to be there. And in case you change your mind--Ah,
be a sport, dad! Consider what you owe me!”
“What?”
“When I think of what I might have cost you I am astonished at my
moderation.”
Rivington and his father, as a matter of fact, were as chummy as a fond
father and a lighthearted boy full of irresponsibility are bound to be.
Colonel Willetts more than once had blessed Rivington's moderation when
he thought of Rivington's temptations, but he had never thought very
seriously of teaching his son to resist temptation. He turned to Tommy
and said:
“If you take him away and make a man of him, I'll take the stock at your
own price, Tommy. But look here, my boy, you must learn the first lesson
of a business man, and that is not to be disappointed when things
don't come your way. It's friends you want, isn't it, among your
stockholders?”
“Yes, sir.” And Tommy smiled bravely.
“Well, I'll take one hundred shares each for Rivington and Marion. I
guess you can count on their proxies forever. It isn't a bad start. If
your other friends will do as much you are fixed. I wish you luck.”
“Come on, Thomas, we'll call again under more propitious circumstances.
Good day, sir.” And Rivington saluted his father militarily and escorted
Tommy from the office.
Outside, Tommy insisted upon looking up some of his other friends, but
Rivington was against it.
“I tell you you'll have to see the old gentleman again. He always says
no at first. I guess I ought to know.”
“Yes, but even so, I can't expect him to take the whole two thousand
shares. That's two hundred thousand dollars, and I don't blame him--”
“Isn't it a good business?”
“Sure, fine.”
“Then why shouldn't he take it all? He is always saying it's getting
harder every year to find good things to invest in. I tell you, you hold
your horses. Even if he didn't take it all he could place the lot among
our friends a blamed sight more easily than you. Old people have no use
for the beardless Napoleon of Finance. Your trouble, Thomas, is that you
are a boy. Listen to me.”
“You seem to think I've got all the time in the world--”
“Haste makes waste. Now I cherish a delusion that I can beat you--”
“No billiards,” interrupted Tommy.
“Coward! Well, escort me as far as the portals of the sacred edifice.”
Tommy left Rivington early and went home to dress for dinner. He found
his father in the library reading the exasperating _Evening Post_.
Mr. Leigh looked up quickly. “Well, Thomas, did you have any luck
to-day?”
“Colonel Willetts promised to take two hundred shares for Rivington and
Marion. He was not what you'd call enthusiastic.”
“I understand he never is,” said Mr. Leigh, so peevishly that Tommy
looked at him in surprise. “Did you tell him what the company had been
making?”
“Oh yes! What he didn't like was that, no matter how well the company
may do, under Mr. Thompson's new plans the stockholders won't get all
the profits in dividends.”
“Did you tell him that the present stockholders are willing to subscribe
for all the new stock?”
“I told him the capital was provided for, but I had this chance to
interest personal friends.” Mr. Leigh frowned angrily. Tommy, who had
never before seen such a look on his father's face, said, soothingly:
“He took me at my word. Rivington and Marion are my best friends.”
“Did you tell him that your company would be a dividend-payer when other
concerns less far-seeing would be passing their dividends? Did you point
out to him the trend of political thought in this country? Did you tell
him that his own real-estate holdings in New York City, by reason
of municipal extravagance, political maladministration, general
inefficiency, and lack of co-operation among landlords, were not the
safest investments? Did you tell him that Thompson realizes clearly the
changed attitude of the entire world toward property rights and capital
and toward the rights of the producing classes? Did you tell him that a
man who is wise enough to be content with eight per cent, on his money
now when he might get twenty per cent, is more likely to be getting
the same eight per cent. when to-day's twenty-per cent. payers will be
writing off the loss of principal to-morrow? Did you?”
Mr. Leigh's vehemence and the accusing ring of his voice astonished
Tommy.
“No, I didn't,” he answered.
Mr. Leigh calmed down as suddenly as he had flared up.
“And you did not point out to him the absurdly low overhead charge and
the remarkable relation of your gross sales to your capital, and the
complete adequacy of the financial and mechanical machinery of the new
company to meet all emergencies, good and bad alike?”
“Well, I thought the figures spoke for themselves.”
“Thomas,” said Mr. Leigh, sternly, “figures don't speak to the
average man, and often not even to the expert. The man behind the
figures--that's what counts.”
An icy hand squeezed Tommy's heart. An expert at figures had paid for
his education. The only figures that now came into his throbbing mind
were: seventeen thousand dollars! And the man behind those figures was
his own father!
“You must see Willetts again,” said Mr. Leigh, quietly. “Perhaps I'd
better explain the figures to him myself, Thomas.”
“No!” cried Tommy, so peremptorily that he instantly felt compelled to
soften the refusal. “I'd rather not, father. I'll see him again if he'll
let me.”
“He'll have to let you,” said Mr. Leigh. He nodded to himself fully
a dozen times, in the same curious way that to Tommy always seemed so
unpleasantly senile. “Yes! Yes!”
“Rivington thinks”--and Tommy was conscious of a desire to soothe his
father--“that the colonel will even help me to place the entire two
thousand shares among friends.”
“It is I who should help you, Thomas. Your mother would have insisted
upon it.” Mr. Leigh's lips were pressed together grimly, an expression
that Tommy not only remembered, but associated poignantly with his own
life's great tragedy. But he said, bravely:
“Father, I must work out my problems myself.” Mr. Leigh shook his head
decidedly. “You are not qualified to carry this to success unaided,
Thomas. I am not wiser than you, my son, but older.”
“Mr. Thompson foresaw my failure. He has provided for it. He said--”
“No, no!” interrupted Mr. Leigh, so excitedly that his voice rose
shrilly. “You must not fail! You must not fail!”
“Mr. Thompson told me it would not hurt my prospects--”
“You must not fail!” repeated Mr. Leigh, doggedly. “It is my duty to
help you. I am the best judge of your needs. I am your father.”
Tommy was on the verge of denial. All that his father had come to mean
to him, all that had gone before, all that the future meant to him, his
doubts and his fears and his hopes--all had something to say to Tommy.
And the confusion made him temporize.
“I appreciate how you feel, dad; but please don't do anything until I've
tried some of my other friends, will you?”
“The sooner it is settled, the better,” said Mr. Leigh, obstinately.
“Thomas, bear in mind that you are not a business man. You don't
understand that money is never to be had merely for the asking. Your
problem is to get the money as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Leigh was frowning, full of a feverish impatience that alarmed
Tommy. To him his father had always been a slave of routine and method,
almost an automaton. Evidently the old man's nerves were overwrought,
and there was no telling the reason. But his desire to help his son
was prompted by love and loyalty to the living and the dead. Tommy
approached his father and threw an arm about the old shoulders.
“Dad,” he spoke coaxingly, “you don't know what it means to me to
do this thing alone. I want to try hard before I call for help. If I
succeed alone, don't you see how I'll feel?”
The old man did not reply. Presently Tommy felt him draw in his breath;
then Mr. Leigh nodded slowly.
“Very well, Thomas,” he said, in his old voice, steady, emotionless, the
voice a ledger would use if it could speak.
“Thanks, dad. I'll go and dress now. I'm dining at the Willetts'.” And
Tommy left his father.
Marion was as unfeignedly glad to see him as he was to see her, with
this difference--that he did not know how he made her feel, but he knew
she somehow made him feel like the Prodigal Son, only, of course, he
was not down and out--quite the contrary. Through the dinner it was made
plain to Tommy that he was one of the Willetts family. At the end, as he
did not smoke, he followed Marion into the library.
She assured herself that he had a comfortable chair by insisting upon
his taking her own favorite, found another for herself, and then she
said to him, eagerly:
“Tell me all about it!”
Tommy, who had spoken of nothing else at the table but his Dayton
experiences, said, simply: “I am sorry I didn't send you the long letter
I wrote you when I thought I was fired.”
“No; you didn't keep your promise. I expected to hear all about it.
I knew you'd much rather write to Rivington than to me; but I also
thought”--she paused, and then looked him frankly in the eyes--“I
thought you would be so lonely and homesick that you'd like to write to
all your friends, to remind yourself that you had them. I suppose you
were too busy?” She looked as if she expected him to agree with her.
There was but one excuse, and she herself had given it to him and he
accepted it.
“Of course, I had to hustle,” he said; and then he blushed to think of
the easy time he had in Dayton. Everybody expected him to be a slave,
a sweat-shop worker, and pitied him accordingly. The reaction made him
say, “I'll tell you the whole story, if you don't think it will bore
you.”
“You men are always fishing for excuses to do what you ought to be dying
to do anyhow. Go on, and don't skip anything.”
And Tommy gladly began the epic narrative of his Dayton life, barring
only the secret. He told it not only honestly, but in detail. That she
was as interested as he was plain, until he began to fear that he was
making himself into a hero. But it was too late to alter the portrait,
so to preserve his self-respect he began to tell her all about Thompson
and Thompson's dreams and Thompson's plans.
“Tommy,” she exclaimed, excitedly, “he is a wonderful man. I had no idea
business was like that. And you are the luckiest boy in the world to
work in such a place.”
“Yes, and it was by a fluke that I landed the job.”
“I don't care. It was the luckiest thing that ever happened, even if it
took you away from home.”
“I suppose it was, but let me tell you it was mighty tough at first.”
And he told her how he had fought homesickness, so that he actually
believed it. And naturally she also believed him.
“You might have written,” she reproached him.
“If you had read the letters I wanted to write but didn't, you would
have had to put in eight hours a day. It was considerate of me not to,
don't you think?”
“But you promised you would.”
“But I wasn't going to take an unfair advantage of your youth,” he said,
and looked at her with a benevolent smile. And then he wondered why he
had not written every day. He could not understand it now.
“Of course,” he assured her, “now that you are going to be one of our
stockholders I'll have to send you reports of the work quite often.” He
saw himself doing it. She would know everything.
“What do you mean, Tommy?” she asked, excitedly.
He told her how her father had promised to take one hundred shares for
her and one hundred for Rivington. And then he told her he still had
eighteen hundred shares to sell. Why shouldn't he tell her everything?
“To whom are you going to sell the rest?”
“I'm going to try to sell them to friends who will be interested in Mr.
Thompson's experiments with men as well as in the money-making end. It
will be very hard. You see, Marion, our company is going to do business
in a new way. Of course, here in the East, people don't realize what
corporations will have to do hereafter if they expect to stay in
business.”
This sounded very wise and business-like to both of them. Marion paid
him the additional compliment of regarding him as a Westerner. He could
tell by the way she looked when she said:
“And what will your work be?”
So he told her what he so far had kept a secret from her--what Thompson
expected to make of the Tecumseh men through the aid of Thomas Francis
Leigh. He really told it very well, because he kept nothing from her,
and in so doing made his hopes realities.
“Tommy, that is perfectly wonderful! I am so glad for your sake! And you
can do it, too! I can see how you feel about it, and you are bound to
win. And won't you feel glad--”
Colonel Willetts and Rivington walked in. Rivington winked at Tommy--old
signal 18--to show he had been pleading his friend's cause at court.
Marion said to her father:
“Tommy was just telling me about Dayton and his company. You must help
him to sell that stock, papa.”
Colonel Willetts worshiped her. He turned to Tommy: “Unfair weapons
to use on a man in the man's own house, young man. Is that the Western
way?”
“The Western way is the best,” said Marion, positively. She rose and
confronted her father. “Are you going to help Tommy? Yes or no.” Tommy
felt uncomfortable.
“Look here, sir--” he began, apologetically. “Of course I'll help
Tommy,” said Colonel Willetts. “He's coming to the office.” And he
turned the subject.
Marion looked proudly at Tommy.