THE BUBBLE RISES
It was early dawn when Winn stepped from his train and into the
ceaseless babel of the city. Market wagons were crowding the streets,
the army of workers hurrying in every direction, newsboys shouting,
humanity elbowing and pushing, draymen seemingly ready to run over
him,--and this was his welcome back into the monster hive he had left
three months before. What a contrast to Rockhaven!
Then to a hotel, a bath, a barber; and, finally, when he had made
himself somewhat more in keeping with the well-groomed if heartless city
folk that he must now meet, he secluded himself in a corner of a dining
room, where he breakfasted behind a morning paper. He first turned to
the stock page, fully expecting to see the name "Rockhaven" staring him
in the face; but he did not. Then his eye ran down the column of
quotations until, among the unlisted securities, it rested on
"Rockhaven," thirteen bid and fourteen asked. And strange to say, the
thirteen seemed significant; and now he looked elsewhere, feeling sure
that he would find the Rockhaven Granite's Company's advertisement, but
failed. There were others equally alluring, and to his mind equally
deceptive,--oil, mining, development, building, and every other sort of
scheme confronting him, each promising safe and sure returns and
assuring the reader in fervid language that "now is the time to invest."
And so eager were these swindlers to catch the unwary, that some offered
stock for five cents a share, and non-assessable at that. Never before
had Winn realized that schemers could descend to such pitiful methods as
to issue, sign, and keep record of stock at a nickel a share! A trap to
catch even newsboys!
Turning in disgust to the column of market gossip, he read the
following: "Out of the multiplicity of investment organizations now
crowding each other on all sides, a late one, the Rockhaven Granite
Company, has forged to the front, its stock having crept up from one to
fourteen dollars per share. But little is known of this company, and
conservative investors believe the unusually rapid advance in its stock
solely due to manipulation."
In this great human hive and on the pages of this leading newspaper the
million-dollar scheme of Weston & Hill was only entitled to one line in
the list of quotations and a five-line news item.
And Winn thought himself and his troubles to be of small concern.
But his troubles enlarged rapidly when Jack Nickerson came to his room
later on.
"Well, old man," said that cheerful sceptic, looking Winn over, "you
don't seem to have the odor of fish or any barnacles about you. You have
had a hair cut, I see; and now if you will visit a tailor, you will soon
be one of us again."
"Yes," laughed Winn, sarcastically, "I'm back where clothes make the man
and put thieves and honest men on the same footing. But how is Rockhaven
coming on?"
"It's not only coming, but it is here,--at least its only honest
supporter is," answered Jack. "Where is your old fiddling friend,
Hutton? I expected you would bring him along to look us swindlers over."
"No, I left him down at Rockhaven at peace with all the world and
philosophizing on human depravity," answered Winn; "he would be as much
out of place here as you would be there."
"Well, you'd best send for him, or else all the stock you sold on the
island," asserted Nickerson, "and do it now. Matters have reached a
climax, as I wrote you, and Page wants to 'do' old Simmons. We have held
your stock for that purpose, and we want all we can get besides. The
street is all short of it; and when they get scared, as they will soon,
and Simmons tries to unload on them, we propose to be in the dance.
Can't you wire the island?"
And Winn, once more in touch with the active life of the city, paused to
collect himself.
"I might wire Captain Roby," he said, "and reach the island to-night.
But Roby has bought one hundred of this stock, and if he realized the
situation, he'd faint."
"Well, let him," answered Jack, "he'll come to quick enough when he
understands his stock is worth fourteen dollars to-day and may not be
worth one cent to-morrow. My belief is, if you wired him the price now,
he'd point his old boat for the city and shovel coal under the boiler
all the way himself."
"He wouldn't do that," replied Winn, "but he'd start for the island at
once, and in ten minutes every one would know it."
"Well, wire him," said Jack, "and do it now. Tell him to see your
philosopher."
And Winn obeyed.
"Now," said Jack, "you are a prisoner here in this room until Page says
otherwise. If ever Simmons or Weston learns you are in the city, it will
upset our plans. When your old barnacle arrives, we'll lock him up also
until the crash comes, and then take you both into the exchange and let
you see the fun. He will be all the safer anyway. Some one might sell
him a gold brick."
"Not much," answered Winn, stoutly. "Jess Hutton can't be buncoed. He
was keen enough to see through Weston the moment he set foot in his
store, while it took me three months to do it."
"Well, you're getting you eye teeth cut slowly," laughed Jack, "and in a
year or two you'll know sheep from goats. I'm sorry you can't go to call
on Ethel Sherman this evening, but you can't. It's just as well, for
when she hears you have come out on top of Rockhaven and are worth a few
thousand, she'll receive you with more warmth. She is back from the
mountains, brown as an autumn leaf and looking out of sight. If I didn't
know she was the most heartless and selfish hypocrite ever clad in
petticoats, I'd make love to her myself."
And Jack Nickerson, the inveterate scoffer at all things, took himself
away.
That day Rockhaven was bid up to twenty, the short interest more than
doubled, and the two arch conspirators, Weston and Simmons, in the
privacy of the latter's office that night, held a love feast, nudged
each other in the ribs, and laughed and joked while they smoked costly
cigars, feeling sure a small fortune was within sight.
"I think it's best to let 'em bid it up to about forty," said Simmons,
in a self-confident tone, and as though the street were within his
grasp, "and then I'll feed those hungry bears granite chips by the
shovelful."
"I flatter myself," he continued, "that I have engineered this deal as
but few could; and if this pious old hen, Mrs. Converse, attends
strictly to foreign missions a few days longer, all will go well."
"No need to worry about her," responded Weston, whose spirits had also
risen. "I, too, am fairly smooth, and have persuaded her to leave her
stock with me to sell when the right time comes; and I have also
subscribed five hundred toward a home for old ladies she is interested
in. That's the way I _converse_ with her."
And the two laughed at this poor pun.
Little did either realize that Nemesis, with three thousand shares in
reserve, lurked in Broker Page's office, and that another thousand in
the pocket of the "fossil who fiddled," as Weston had once called Jess
Hutton, would be added to that avenging club, inside of twenty-four
hours.