For many years Daniel Dittenhoeffer had desired the ruin of John F.
Greener. “Dutch Dan,” as the Street called Dittenhoeffer was a burly man
with very blonde hair, a very red nose and a very loud voice. Greener
was a sallow, swarthy bit of a man, with black hair and a squeaky voice.
He had furtive brown eyes and a very high forehead; while Dittenhoeffer
had frank blue eyes and the pugnacious chin and thick neck of a prize
fighter. Both were members of the New York Stock Exchange but Greener
was never seen on the “floor” after one of his victims lifted him bodily
by the collar and dropped him fifteen feet into a coal cellar on
Exchange Place. He would plan the wrecks of railroad systems as a
measure preliminary to their absorption, just as a boa constrictor
crushes its victims into pulp the more easily to swallow them. But the
practice, unchecked for years, had made him nervous and soul-fidgetty.
Dan spent his days from 10 to 3 on the Stock Exchange and his nights
from 10 to 3 at the roulette tables or before a faro lay-out. Restless
as the quivering sea and suffering from chronic insomnia, he had
perforce to satisfy his constitutional craving for powerful stimulants,
but as he hated delirium tremens he gave himself ceaselessly big doses
of the wine of gambling—it does as much for the nerves as the very best
whiskey. He would buy or sell 50,000 shares of a stock and he would bet
$50,000 on the turn of a card. On an occasion he offered to wager a
fortune that he could guess which of two flies that had alit on a table
would be the first to fly away. Greener found, in the Stock Exchange,
the means to a desired end. Despite innumerable bits of stock jobbing,
he had no exalted opinion, in his heart of hearts, of stock operations.
But Dittenhoeffer thought the stock market was the court of last resort,
whither financiers should go, when they were in the right, to get their
deserts; and when they were in the wrong to overcome their deserts by
the brute force of dollars. It was natural that in their operations in
the market the two men should be as dissimilar as they were in their
physical and temperamental characteristics—Machiavelli and Richard
Cœur-de-Lion.
Nobody knew exactly how the enmity between Greener and Dittenhoeffer
began. The “Little Napoleon of Railroading” had felt toward Dutch Dan a
certain passive hostility for interference with sundry stock market
deals. But Dan hated Greener madly, probably for the same reason that a
hawk may have for hating a snake: the instinctive antipathy of the
utterly dissimilar.
Scores of men had tried to “bust” Greener, but Greener had grown the
richer by their efforts, the growth of his fortune being proportionate
to the contraction of theirs. Sam Sharpe had come from Arizona with
$12,000,000 avowedly to show the effete East how to crush “financial
skunks of the Greener class.” And the financial skunk learned no new
lesson, though the privilege of imagining he was giving one cost Sharpe
a half-million a month for nearly one year. Then, after Sharpe had
learned more of the game—and of Greener—he joined hands with
Dittenhoeffer and together they attacked Greener. They were skilful
stock operators, very rich and utterly without financial fear. And they
loathed Greener. In a more gorgeous age they would have cut the Little
Napoleon to pieces and passed his roasted heart on a platter around the
festive board. In the colorless XIX century they were fain to content
themselves with endeavoring to despoil him of his tear-stained millions;
to do which they united their own smile-wreathed millions—some seven or
eight of them—and opened fire. Their combined fortune was divided into
ten projectiles and one after another hurled at the little man with the
squeaky voice and the high forehead. The little man dodged the first and
the second and the third, but the fourth broke his leg and the fifth
knocked the wind out of him. The Street cheered and showed its
confidence in the artillerists by going short of the Greener stocks. But
just before the sixth shot Greener called to his assistance old Wilbur
Wise, the man with the skin-flinty heart and thirty millions in cash. A
protecting rampart, man-high, of government bonds was raised about the
prostrate Napoleon and the financial cannoneers ceased firing precious
projectiles. The new fortifications were impregnable and they knew it;
so they contented themselves with gathering up their own shot and a
small railroad or two dropped by Greener in his haste to seek shelter.
Then Sharpe went to England to win the Derby and Dittenhoeffer went to
Long Branch to amuse himself playing a no-limit faro game that cost him
on an average $10,000 a night for a month.
There was a period of peace in Wall Street following the last encounter
between the diminutive Napoleon and Dutch Dan. But after a few months
the fight resumed. Greener was desirous of “bulling” his stocks
generally and his pet, Federal Telegraph Company, particularly. Just to
show there was no need to hurry the “bull” or upward movement Dan sold
the stock “short” every time Greener tried to advance the price. Four
times did Greener try and four times Dittenhoeffer sold him a few
thousand shares—just enough to check the advance. Up to a certain point
a manipulator of stocks is successful. His manipulation may comprise
many ingenious and complex actions and devices, but the elemental fact
in bull manipulation is to buy more than the other fellow can or wishes
to sell. Greener was willing to buy, but Dan was even more willing to
sell.
Greener really was in desperate straits. He was committed to many
important enterprises. To carry them out he needed cash and the banks,
fearful of stock market possibilities, were loath to lend him enough.
Besides which, there was the desire on the part of the banks’ directors
to pick up fine bargains should their refusal to lend Greener money
force him to throw overboard the greater part of his load. Greener had
despoiled innumerable widows and orphans in his railroad wrecking
schemes. The money lenders should avenge the widows and orphans. It was
a good deed. There was not a doubt of it in their minds.
Federal Telegraph, in which Greener’s commitments were heaviest, had
been slowly sinking. Successful in other quarters of the market, Dutch
Dan decided to “whack the everlasting daylights out of Fed. Tel.” He
went about it calmly, just as he played roulette—selling it
methodically, ceaselessly, depressingly. And the price wilted. Greener,
unsuccessful in other quarters of the Street, decided it was time to do
something to save himself. He needed only $5,000,000. At a pinch
$3,000,000 might do; or, for the moment, even $2,500,000. But he must
have the money at once. Delay meant danger and danger meant
Dittenhoeffer and Dittenhoeffer might mean death.
Of a sudden, rising from nowhere, fathered by no one, the rumor whirled
about the Street that Greener was in difficulties. Financial ghouls ran
to the banks and interviewed the presidents. They asked no questions in
order to get no lies. They simply said, as though they knew: “Greener is
on his uppers.”
The bank presidents smiled, indulgently, almost pityingly: “Oh, you’ve
just heard it, have you? We’ve known it for six weeks!”
Back to the Stock Exchange rushed the ghouls to sell the Greener
stocks—not Federal Telegraph which was really a good property, but his
reorganized roads, whose renascence was so recent that they had not
grown into full strength. Down went prices and up went the whisper:
“Dittenhoeffer’s got Greener at last!”
A thousand brokers rushed to find their dear friend Dan to congratulate
him—Napoleon’s conqueror, the hero of the hour, the future dispenser of
liberal commissions, but dear Dan could not be found. He was not on the
“floor” of the Exchange nor at his office.
Some one had sought Dittenhoeffer before the brokers thought of
congratulating him—some one who was the greatest gambler of all, greater
even than Dutch Dan—a little man with furtive brown eyes and a squeaky
voice; also a wonderful forehead: Mr. John F. Greener.
“Mr. Dittenhoeffer, I sent for you to ask you a question,” he squeaked,
calmly. He stood beside a garrulous ticker.
“Certainly, Mr. Greener.” And Dittenhoeffer instantly had a vision of
humble requests to “let up.” And he almost formulated the very words of
a withering refusal.
“Would you execute an order from me?”
“Certainly, Mr. Greener. I’ll execute anybody’s orders. I’m a broker.”
“Very well. Sell 50,000 shares of Federal Telegraph Company for me.”
“What price?” jotting down the figures, from force of habit, his mind
being paralyzed.
“The best you can get. The stock,” glancing at the tape, “is 91.”
“Very well.”
The two men looked at one another—Dutch Dan half menacingly, Greener,
calmly, steadily, his furtive eyes almost truthful.
“Good-morning,” said Dittenhoeffer at length and the little man’s
high-browed head nodded dismissingly.
Dittenhoeffer hastened back to the Exchange. At the entrance he met his
partner, Smith—the “Co.” of D. Dittenhoeffer & Co.
“Bill, I’ve just got an order from Greener to sell 50,000 shares of
Federal Telegraph.”
“Wh-what?” gasped Smith.
“Greener sent for me, asked me whether I’d accept an order from him, I
said yes, and he told me to sell 50,000 shares of Telegraph, and I’m——”
“You’ve got him, Dan. You’ve got him,” exultantly.
“I’m going to cover my 20,000 shares with the first half of the order
and sell the rest the best I can.”
“Man alive, this is your chance! Don’t you see you’ve got him? Smilie of
the Eastern National Bank tells me there isn’t a bank in the city will
lend Greener money, and he needs it badly to pay the last $10,000,000 to
the Indian Pacific bondholders. He’s bit off more than he can chew, damn
‘im!”
“Well, Bill, we’ll treat Mr. Greener as we do any other customer,” said
Dittenhoeffer.
“But—” began Smith, with undisguised consternation; he was an honest
man, when away from the Street.
“Oh, I’ll get him yet. This won’t save him. I’ll get him yet,” with a
confident smile.
It would have been very easy for him to take advantage of Greener’s
order to make a fortune. He was short 20,000 shares which he had put out
at an average price of 93. He could have taken Greener’s block of 50,000
shares and hurled it bodily at the market. Not even a gilt-edge stock
could withstand the impact of such a fearful blow, and the price of
Federal Telegraph doubtless would have broken 15 points or more, and he
could easily have taken in his shorts at 75 or possibly even at
70–-which would have meant a profit of a half-million of dollars—and a
loss of a much needed million to his arch-foe, Greener. And if he
allowed his partner to whisper in strict confidence to some friend how
Dan was selling out a big line of Telegraph for Greener the “Room” would
have gone wild and everybody would have hastened to sell and the decline
would have gone so much further as to cripple the little Napoleon
possibly beyond all hope of recovery. Had Greener made the most colossal
mistake of his life in giving the order to his enemy?
Dan went to the Federal Telegraph post where a score of madmen were
shouting at the top of their voices the prices they were willing to pay
or to accept for varying amounts of the stock. He gave to twenty brokers
orders to sell 1,000 shares each at the best obtainable price and he
himself, through another man took an equal amount. On the next day he in
person sold 20,000 shares and on the third day the last 10,000 shares of
Greener’s order. This selling, the Street thought, was for his own
account. It was all short stock; that is, his colleagues thought he was
selling stock he didn’t own, trusting later on to buy it back cheaply.
Such selling never has the depressing effect of “long” stock because it
is obvious that the short seller must sooner or later buy the stock in,
insuring a future demand, which should exert a lifting influence on
prices; for
“_He who sells what isn’t his’n
Must buy it back or go to pris’n._”
And Dittenhoeffer was able to get an average of $86 per share for
Greener’s 50,000 shares of Federal Telegraph Company stock, for the
Street agreed, with many headshakings, that Dan was becoming too
reckless and Greener was a slippery little cuss and the short interest
must be simply enormous and the danger of a bad “squeeze” exceedingly
great. Wherefore, they forebore to “whack” Telegraph. Indeed, many
shrewd traders saw, in the seeming weakness of the stock, a trap of the
wily little Napoleon and they “fooled” him by astutely buying Federal
Telegraph!
With the $4,300,000 which he received from the sale of the big block of
stock, Greener overcame his other troubles and carried out all his
plans. It was a daring stroke, to trust to a stock broker’s professional
honor. It made him the owner of a great railroad system. Dutch Dan’s
attacks later did absolutely no harm. Greener had made an opportunity
and Dittenhoeffer had lost one.