THE BUBBLE BURSTS
In response to Winn's summons, dressed in a somewhat faded and
nondescript garb, with bell-crowned silk hat of ancient style, Jess
Hutton reached the city.
And he was a picture!
His coat, a surtout with small gilt buttons, a reddish brown vest,
trousers of gray mixed stuff, a high collar with black satin stock, and
his ruddy brown face with fringe of gray beard and keen twinkling blue
eyes made him conspicuous. He carried a cane, limping a little as
always, and when he greeted Winn on the station platform, the latter
felt that all Rockhaven had arrived.
"Ain't this a _leetle_ sudden?" he said, when the two had shaken hands.
"I sorter cac'lated ye'd send fer me, an' when I got the message I
thought o' old Abner Tucker's tombstone. He'd allus been skeered o'
lightnin', an' when he got hit his widder had his stun sot up 'n' put
on't, 'I 'spected this, but not so soon.'"
"I'm glad you came," said Winn, heartily, "and hope you have brought all
the stock I sold on the island."
"Oh, I fetched it all, even the parson's, 'n' he told me a blessin' went
with hisn," responded Jess.
And then Winn, more light-hearted than ever before in his life, hurried
the old man into a carriage.
"We are to keep in hiding," he said, "until my friends say the word, and
then I'll take you to the stock exchange and we will see our stock
sold."
"I don't see no use in hidin' in this 'ere jumble o' humanity," asserted
Jess, as their vehicle became entangled in a street blockade, "the
puzzle on't here 'ud be to find anybody ye wanted."
"It's best that we hide, however," replied Winn. "If Weston caught sight
of either of us, he would know our errand here at once."
"I don't cac'late he'd 'member me," said Jess, "though I'd recklect them
gray stun'sls o' hisn out o' a million."
And Winn, contrasting the old man's present raiment with what he usually
wore, concluded he was right.
But that evening, when Page and Nickerson were ushered into the room
where Jess was held in (to him) durance vile, there was a scene.
"I'm powerful glad to meet ye, gentlemen," Jess asserted, shaking the
hand of each in a way that made them wince, "I'd a sorter cac'lated
brokers had horns 'n' claws the way ye're spoken on, but ye look purty
harmless. I suppose ye air brokers," looking from one to the other, "an'
which sort air ye, bulls or bears?"
"Either one or the other, as occasion serves," answered Page, laughing
heartily. "We get together and toss or claw one another, according to
the market, and when the fracas is over, count our cash and go out and
drink to each other's good luck."
And this, be it said, fairly expresses the financial warfare daily waged
"on 'change."
"I've read 'bout yer doin's," continued Jess, "an' I allus cac'lated ye
were all a purty slick crowd o' deceivers, an' best ter steer clear on.
I'm a sort o' an old barnacle livin' on an island, 'n' when this 'ere
Weston woke me up one day, I made a fairly good dicker with him, an'
'long come this young man, 'n' I'll own up I kinder took ter him, bein's
I hadn't chick nor child 'n' nothin' fer company but an old fiddle, 'n'
just ter help him out, bought a leetle stock. I got a few o' the rest to
buy some, 'greein' I'd see they wasn't to lose by it. I fetched it
'long, 'n' I tell ye, Mr. Hardy, yer message has stirred up quite a
fuss. I'll bet yer landlady, the Widder Moore, hain't slept a wink
sense, 'n' if Roby hadn't been obligated to Uncle Sam, he'd 'a' started
fer the mainland that night."
"You are just in time, Mr. Hutton," observed Page, interested in this
honest old man at once, "and unless all signs fail, I'll sell your stock
to-morrow at ten or twenty times its cost. How would you like to carry
back five thousand dollars for yourself and double that to distribute
among your friends?"
"They'd all hev fits," answered Jess, "an' 'ud quit fishin' an' start to
quarryin' right away. But I don't cac'late ye will, Mr. Page, an' we'll
all on us be satisfied to git our hats back. Hope ye may, though; but
thar's no use in countin' chickens till they're hatched."
And Jess Hutton, the cool and collected philosopher that he was, did not
for one moment hope even that he would more than receive his money back.
In his understanding of the matter, this quoted price for the stock was
a mere fiction, and he felt sure that when it was actually offered for
sale, no one would buy. To him it seemed like selling so much air. Never
in his life had he set foot in a stock exchange, and when the next day,
just as the great clock in the exchange marked nine-fifty, and he with
Winn and Nickerson took seats in the gallery, no hint of the coming
turmoil came to Jess, and fortunately no suspicion of his or Hardy's
presence in the city had reached Weston or Simmons.
Then the gong sounded and bedlam ensued.
[Illustration: THE BUBBLE BURSTS.]
In an instant, a hundred men who had been chatting with one another in
the pit, and as many more, as if by magic, leaped out of hiding, and a
howl went up. They gathered in knots around the poles, pushing, pulling,
yelling like demons, waving their arms aloft with fingers open, closed,
or separated--a deaf mute alphabet used by these delirious men to buy or
sell; and as they screamed and screeched and pushed and swore in a mad
scramble, fortunes melted away or were created.
And on one side of that fiscal arena, tall, gaunt, with a fringe of gray
hair about his poll, and watching with eyes as merciless as a lynx ready
to spring, stood Simmons.
On the other, as alert, but younger, with the easy _sang froid_ of one
skilled in this battle of values, stood Page.
Full well he knew what his enemy's tactics would be, and that when the
crowd began to rally around the Rockhaven pole, he would creep up like a
panther, and at the right moment overbid the highest. None were buyers,
for none wanted Rockhaven at its present price, except frightened bears
seeking to cover, and well Simmons knew it.
And so did Page, with his four thousand shares, waiting for the bear
panic sure to come.
Rockhaven's turn now came. It opened at sixteen, then up to seventeen,
eighteen, nineteen, without a halt; a breathless trio in the balcony
attentively watched the dial where its price was recorded, or Page, who
held their fortunes in his hand.
And then came the panic; for it had reached twenty, and Simmons, like a
spectre, advanced, bidding twenty-one for ten thousand shares!
Then two bears, short as much each at five and six, lost their heads.
Up, up it went by leaps of two, three, and five points, bid by these
half-crazed speculators, while Page eyed Simmons.
Two tigers of finance, cool, calculating, merciless!
The jam about the pole grew worse. A screaming, pushing, mad mass of
beings, insane with greed!
Some on top, some under, and all cursing, yelling, a writhing monster,
all heads and hands, the like of which can nowhere else be found. Thirty
was bid, then thirty-two, four, six, eight!
Then forty!
And then Page, calculating to a nicety, leaped in!
In an instant, almost, the price fell twenty points, for Simmons, quick
to see his enemy's offer to sell, lost his nerve and offered blocks of
ten and twenty thousand shares down, down at any price!
And the scared bears, as quick as he to see the tide had turned, joined
the downward bidding.
But Page had sold!
Winn and Jess were saved!
The bubble had burst!
Conscience, as in all great climaxes of human feeling, was a factor in
the crash; for Simmons, knowing that he had once wronged and robbed
Page, intuitively felt that a revenge was coming, and to save what he
could out of the wrecked plot, joined the insane selling. For once in
his life he played the coward.
After the financial delirium was over, there was a scene between him and
Weston, over which it were best to draw the veil.
A more hilarious episode, however, occurred in Page's office, when all
met there after the exchange closed.
"I didn't win out as I hoped," Page said to the rest, "for the market
broke like an egg-shell. I unloaded the four thousand at an average of
twenty, however, and had the pleasure of seeing Simmons gnash his false
teeth and shake his fist at me, which was worth as much more." Then
turning to Jess he added: "How did you enjoy the pow-wow?"
Jess smiled.
"I've seen a passel o' hungry hogs squealin' an' pawin' over a trough,
an' two dogs fightin' over a bone. I've seen a cage o' monkeys all mad
an' makin' the fur fly, an' if the whole kit 'n' boodle had been put in
a pen 'n' sot a-goin', it wouldn't 'a' ekalled the fracas I've seen
to-day. How any on 'em got out 'thout broken bones is more'n I kin see.
I'd 'a' gin a hundred to 'a' held the nozzle o' a fire-engine hose 'n'
squirted water on 'em."
"How would you have enjoyed being among them?" put in Nickerson, to whom
the old man with his grotesque raiment and speech was a source of
merriment.
"I wouldn't 'a' sot foot 'mong that crowd o' loony-tics fer a hundred
dollars," answered Jess. "I cac'late they'd 'a' turned to 'n' bit me,
same ez mad dogs."
"They'd have played foot-ball with your hat," responded Jack, who knew
the ways of brokers, "and in two minutes you wouldn't have had a whole
garment on you. I've seen them tie a man's legs and drag him around the
room with a rope, then toss him in a blanket for a wind-up. They are a
tough lot, and a stranger who gets into their hands meets hard usage."
"That's about the idee I had on 'em," said Jess; "they're wuss'n Injuns,
an' ain't satisfied with takin' a man's money, they want his hair, hide,
'n' toe nails. If ever one on 'em comes ashore on Rockhaven 'n' I'm
around, he'll think he's run into a hornet's nest. We'll use him wuss'n
we did Abe Winty. He was a shiftless cuss that got out into the island
somehow 'bout ten year ago, an' begun beggin' for a livin'. He 'lowed he
had asmer an' heart troubles an' a tech o' liver complaint, 'n' jest
couldn't do no liftin' or any sort o' hard work. He fooled us a spell,
till we began missin' things 'n' found they were gittin' into the hands
o' a low-down fellar who sold rum on the sly, 'n' then we held a sort o'
indignation caucus, 'n' Abe wa'n't invited. We had diskivered by this
time that Abe's heart 'n' liver was doin' business 'bout ez usual, 'n'
the only thing that ailed him was downright laziness. We sorter compared
idees at the meetin', an' the upshot on't was we concluded the island
wa'n't big 'nuff for him. We'd tried all manner o' talk to shame him,
but callin' names an' 'busin' him didn't hev no more 'fect than rain on
a duck's back. We'd tried coaxin' an' cussin' to git him to work, but
him 'n' work wus mortal enemies, 'n' when he couldn't beg 'nuff to eat
he'd steal it. Suthin' had to be did, 'n' we did it. Fust we ketched 'n'
shackled him 'n' locked him up in a fish-house fer two days, feedin' him
on bread 'n' water,--mostly water at that,--an' when he'd got good 'n'
hungry we sarved him a meal cooked with drug stuff, 'nuff in it to turn
the stomach o' a Digger Injun. He was that starved he et it middlin'
quick, an' then, to make the preceedin's more interestin' to Abe, the
man that took the vittles to him told him pizen had been put in 'em 'n'
he hadn't more'n an hour to live. Then we gathered round, peekin' in the
door 'n' winders ez if cac'latin' to enjie Abe's dyin' agonies. It
wa'n't long 'fore the drug stuff began workin', an' Abe, he got more
scared than old Bill Atlas was when we sot the sea sarpint up to meet
him. He hollered for mercy, an' when his vittles started to worry him he
began prayin' an' took on woful, an' we just lookin' at him sober-like,
ez if his end was clus to. The perceedin's lasted 'bout two hours, 'n'
by that time Abe wus so weak he couldn't hold up his head. Then we
straddled him on a rail 'n' carried him to the boat, 'n' Cap'n Roby sot
him ashore."
"How would you like to serve Weston that way?" put in Winn when the
story was ended.
"I wouldn't mind," answered Jess, chuckling at the thought, "though I
cac'late we've come purty near gettin' square with him. I'd like to see
him humsoever, jist about now, 'n' tell him old Rip Van Winkle hez woke
up, 'n' if he wants any more quarries I'll 'commodate him if he'll come
to Rockhaven."
Then when Page had made up the accounts of all three whose stock he had
sold, handing each a check for their dues, all shook hands and
separated.
And so warm was Winn's heart toward the old man who had "sorter took to
him on sight" that he escorted him to the hotel and remained with him
until he left for Rockhaven the next morning.