WHEREIN MR. WALLINGFORD JOINS THE LARGEST CLUB IN THE WORLD
The name of Meers was magic. It is quite probable that the magnetic
Wallingford would have been able to carry through his proposed
consolidation alone; but with the fifth ward alderman to back him his
work was easy. A few of the small dealers were afraid of Meers, but they
were also afraid to stay out; for the most part, however, they were glad
to enter into any combination with him, particularly since it was
tacitly understood that this would open up to them the much coveted
"ping pong" privilege, an attraction which not only increased the sale
of goods but gave an additional hundred per cent. of profit.
The first steps in the incorporation were taken the next day after the
interview of Wallingford and Meers, and within a few days the Retail
Cigar Dealers' Consolidation was formally effected, even to the trifling
little mummeries which covered the state's requirement of a certain
percentage of "fully paid up stock." Wallingford's share of the initial
expense was one hundred dollars, but he had no mind to give up any of
his precious pocket money at this time.
"Suppose you just pay the whole bill yourself, and let us pay you," he
suggested in an offhand way to Meers. "It looks so much better all in
one lump."
Of course, Mr. Meers was agreeable to this eminently respectable
suggestion; but when Wallingford handed over his own check it was dated
a week ahead.
"If this won't do you I'll have to give up some cash," he explained with
an easy laugh. "I'm having some securities negotiated back East to open
an account here, and it may take three or four days to have it
arranged."
Meers heard him with a curious smile.
"I beat a pleasant stranger's head off once for putting up a line of
talk like that," he commented; "but, of course, this is different," and
he took the check.
He had become an enthusiastic admirer of Wallingford's undoubted genius,
and at nothing was he more amused than by the caliber of the three other
incorporators who had been chosen. Stock valuations were at once made
for these three, at an exaggerated estimate of the value of their
concerns, and when they came to Meers himself the same plan was
followed.
[Illustration: "YOUR FINE LITTLE WIFE HERE SWEARS THAT IT WILL"]
"For," said Wallingford, "to make this strong you have to come in just
like the rest, and I have to take up the balance of the stock right now
as trustee."
Meers balked a trifle at that.
"I never feel so cheerful as when I'm my own stakeholder," he stated
frankly. "When I hold all the coin it's a cinch I'll get mine, but when
somebody else holds it I keep trained down for a foot race."
"Fix it any way to suit yourself," offered Wallingford with a
carelessness that he was far from feeling. "If you can figure out a
better stunt, show it to me."
Mr. Meers tried earnestly to think of a better plan but was forced to
concede that there was none.
"Oh, well," he gave in at last, "it don't matter. It's only for a week
or so I'll have to rub salve on my fingers to cure that itch."
"Certainly," Wallingford assured him. "It won't take more than a week,
after we get the stock certificates from the printers, to make all the
transfers, and then we'll have from a hundred and twenty to a hundred
and forty thousand dollars' worth to split up. If we can't make that
yield us five or six thousand a year apiece, aside from salaries, the
buying and manufacturing grafts and other rake-offs, we ought to have
guardians appointed."
"Fine business," agreed Meers complacently.
That complacency, which meant forgetfulness of the fact that all the
stock would be temporarily in Wallingford's hands and under his absolute
legal mastery, was what J. Rufus wished to encourage, and to that end he
arranged for "secret" meetings of the Retail Cigar Dealers during the
constructive period. Here the promoter was at his best. Singly, his big
impressiveness dominated men; in masses, he swayed them. Enthusiasm was
raised to fever heat. Even the smallest among these men grew large.
Individually they were poor; collectively they were rich. Outside the
consolidation not one of them amounted to much; inside it each one was a
part of a millionaire! In the business of cigar selling a new era had
come, and its name was Wallingford! By the close of the second meeting,
scarcely a small dealer in the town but had signed the cleverly worded
agreement.
It was while the stock certificates were being printed that
Wallingford, who almost lived in the resplendent carriage these days,
drove up to Ed Nickel's place of business, at a time when both the
flabby solitaire player and the apathetic watcher had gone out to
whatever mysterious place it was that they secured food.
"I say, Mr. Vice President," asked Wallingford, addressing the amazingly
spruced up Mr. Nickel quite as an equal, "do you know where I could buy
a nice house? One for about fifteen thousand?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," regretted Nickel, pleased to be taken thus
into the great Wallingford's intimacy, "but there ought to be plenty of
them. I wish I could figure on a house like that."
"Stick to me and see what happens to you," advised Wallingford with no
thought of the joke he was uttering. "There's no reason you shouldn't
have anything you want if you just go after the big game. Watch me."
"But you've got money," protested the Vice President.
"Did I always have it?" demanded the eminent financier. "Every cent I
have, Mr. Nickel, I made myself; and you can do the same. The trouble
is, you don't go in big enough. You have only a thousand dollars worth
of stock in our consolidation, for instance. You ought to have at least
ten thousand."
"I haven't the money," said Nickel.
"How much have you?"
"Just a shade over five thousand. Say, man, I'm forty-six years old and
I been slavin' like a dog ever since I was sixteen. Thirty years it took
me to scrape that five thousand together."
"Saved it!" snorted Wallingford. "No wonder you haven't but five
thousand. You can't make money that way. You have to invest. Do you
suppose Rockefeller _saved_ his first million? Tell you what I'll do,
Nickel. Can you keep a secret?"
"Sure," asserted Mr. Nickel, with the eagerness of one who has never
been entrusted with a secret of consequence.
"If you want it and will pay for it on delivery next Saturday, I can
scheme it for you to take up an extra five thousand dollars' worth of
stock in the consolidation; but if I do you must not say one word about
it to any one until after everything is settled, or some of these other
fellows will be jealous. There's Meers, for instance. He's crazy right
now to take over every share of the surplus, but, between you and I, we
don't want him to have such a big finger in the pie."
"I should say not," agreed Mr. Nickel emphatically. "He's too big as it
is. Why, he pretty near runs this town."
"He can't run the consolidation; I'll tell him that!" declared Mr.
Wallingford with much apparent heat. "It's _my_ project and I'll favor
whoever I want to. But about this stock, old man. You think it over, and
if you want it let me know by not later than to-day noon. If it isn't
spoken for by that time I'll take it myself; but remember, not one
word!"
Mr. Nickel promised, on his honor as a man and his self-interest as a
favored stockholder, to say nothing, and Wallingford started out. At the
door he turned back, however.
"By the way," said he, "when we get going I've made up my mind to push
the Nickelfine and the Double Nickel brands. I've been trying those two
boxes you gave me and they're great. But don't say anything. Jealousy,
you know!"
Mr. Nickel put his finger to his lips and smiled and bowed
significantly. Fine man, that Wallingford! Knew a good thing when he saw
it, and easy as an old shoe in spite of all his money. Regular howling
swell, too.
The regular howling swell was at that very moment on his rubber-tired
way to the shop of Alfred Norton, where he made a similar proposition to
the one he had made Nickel. In all his manipulating he had kept careful
track of the gentlemen who had or who might have money, and now he made
it his business to visit each of them in turn, to talk additional stock
with them and bind them to inviolate secrecy. For three days he kept
this up, and on Friday evening was able to mop his brow in content.
"Fanny," he opined, "you have a smart husband."
"That's the only fault I have to find with you, Jim," she retorted
smiling. "What have you done this time?"
"I've just tapped Mr. Joseph O. Meers on the solar plexus," he exulted.
"I'll show that gentleman how to horn into my game and take the rake-off
that's coming to a real artist! He's dreaming happy dreams just now, but
when I leave town with the mezuma he'll wake up."
"I thought you were going to stay here," she objected with a troubled
frown.
He understood her at once, and reached over to stroke her hair.
"Never mind, girl," he said. "I'm as anxious now as you are to settle
down," and he glanced at the fluffy white sewing in her lap; "but this
isn't the town. I had a nice clean business planned here, but the
village grafter tried to jiu-jitsu me, so I just naturally had to jolt
him one. I'll clean up about a hundred thousand to-morrow, and with that
I'll go anywhere you say and into any business you pick out. Suppose we
go back to Battlesburg, clear off that mortgage on your house and settle
down there?"
"Oh, will you?" she asked eagerly. "But who loses this money, Jim?" she
suddenly wanted to know. "I'm more particular than ever about it just
now. I don't want to take a dollar that isn't right."
Again he understood.
"Don't worry about that," he replied seriously. "This money is
legitimate water that I am sopping up out of a reorganization, just like
a Harriman or a Morgan. The drag-down I get is simply my pay as promoter
and organizer, and is no bigger percentage than other promoters take
when they get a chance."
He had never taken so much pains to justify himself in her eyes, and she
felt that this was due to a new tenderness. What if the wonderful
influence that was dawning upon their lives should make a permanent
change in him?
There came a knock at the door. Wallingford opened it and was confronted
by a tall and stoutly built gentleman, who wore a blue helmet and
numerous brass buttons upon his clothes.
"Mr. Wallingford," said the caller, with a laborious wink and a broad
brogue, "could ye step across to the Court House wid me a few minutes
and sign them papers?" and when Wallingford had stepped outside, he
added: "'Twas on account of the lady I told ye that, but on the level,
I'm after arrestin' yez!"
"What's the charge?" asked Wallingford with a tolerant smile, knowing
his entire innocence of wrong.
"Obtainin' money under false pretenses."
Wallingford whistled, and, still unworried, excused himself for a
moment. His statement to his wife was characteristic.
"I'll be back in about an hour," he said, "but I don't feel safe with so
much wealth in my clothes when I'm out with a policeman," and with a
laugh he tossed into her lap practically all the money that he had--an
even fifty dollars.
Of course Wallingford sent immediately for Joseph O. Meers, and that
gentleman came at once.
"Lovely place to find your old college chum," the prisoner cheerfully
remarked. "I wish you'd go find out what this charge is all about and
get me out of this, Meers. It might hurt the consolidation if it becomes
known. There's a mistake some place."
"Oh, is there?" Mr. Meers wanted to know. "I'll bet there ain't a
mistake, because I'm the baby that secured the warrant, and I'm going to
send you over. Tried to double cross me, didn't you?" he asked
pleasantly. "Well, it can't be done. Any grafter that tries to hand me
the worst of it is going to find himself sucking at the sour end of a
lemon,----quick. So I was to be the mark, eh? Just because there wasn't
a paper signed between us to show that I was entitled to half that
surplus stock, you was going to sell the bunch of it and make a quick
get-away. I was to be the fall guy for that nice little futurity check,
too! You remember that little old hundred, don't you? Well, it got you.
I was hep to you day before yesterday, but your date didn't run out on
that check till to-day, so I waited; and I'm going to send you over the
road for as long a stretch as a good lawyer can hand you. Now stay here
and rot!" and Joseph O. Meers, highly pleased with himself, walked out.
Jail! Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford, to whom tufted carpets and soft leather
chairs were not luxuries but necessities, looked around him with the
nearest substitute for a "game" grin that he could muster, and the
prophetic words of Blackie Daw occurred to him:
"Our turn's next!"
"It's a fine joke I played on myself," he mused. "Me that a few weeks
ago had a million in sight and that two hours ago had a hundred thousand
cinched for to-morrow, to lose out like this; _and for a hundred
dollars_!"
That was the rub! To think that after all these years, during which he
had conducted his pleasant and legally safe financial recreations with
other people's money upon a scale large enough to live like a gentleman,
his first introduction to a jail should be because of a miserable,
contemptible hundred dollars! _Why_ had he forgotten that check? _Why_
had he been fool enough to think he could swear a lot of spineless jelly
fish to secrecy? _Why_ hadn't he been content with half? It served him
right, he admitted, and unless Meers relented, the penitentiary yawned
its ugly mouth very close to him. At any rate, he was now a full-fledged
member of the largest organization in the world--the Down and Out Club.
It was queer that in all this thought there came no trace of regret for
what he had done; there came only regret for the consequences, only
self-revilement that he had "overlooked a bet." His "conscience" did not
reproach him at all, except for failure; for, monstrous as it may seem,
to his own mind he had done no wrong! Nor had he meant any wrong! With
no sense of moral obligation whatever--and no more to be blamed for that
than another man is for being born hunchbacked--he merely looked upon
himself as smarter than most men, doing just what they would have done
had they been blessed with the ability. Only at last he had been
unfortunate! Well, the joke was on him, and he must be a good loser.
The humor of the situation rather wore off when, after a night upon a
hard pallet and a breakfast of dry bread and weak coffee, he sent a
message to Ed Nickel and learned from that indignantly virtuous citizen
that he would have nothing to do with swindlers! Then he sent word to
his wife and the answer he got to that message was the last straw. Mrs.
Wallingford had quitted the hotel early that morning! He was sure of
her, however. She would turn up again in her own good time, but what
could she do? Nothing! For the first time in his life, the man who had
never thought to have need of a friend outside a few moral defectives of
his own class, realized what it is to be absolutely friendless. There
was no one left in all this wide world upon whom he could make any
demand of loyalty. Blackie Daw a fugitive, Billy Riggs a convict, all
the old clan scattered far and wide, either paying their penalty, or,
having transgressed the law, fleeing from it, the universe had come to
an end.
Hour after hour he spent in trying to think of some one to whom he could
appeal, and the conviction gradually burned itself in upon him that at
last he was "up against it." It was a bad mess. He had made no deposit
whatever in the local bank upon which he had drawn that check, though he
had intended to do so. Moreover, Meers, to prove fraudulent intent,
could show his intended bad faith in the other matter between them; and
besides all that the alderman cigar dealer had a "pull" of no mean
proportions. It had seemed impossible, the night before, that he who had
dealt only in thousands and hundreds of thousands should be made a felon
for a paltry hundred. It had seemed too absurd to be true, an anomalous
situation that a day would clear up and at which he could afterwards
laugh. Even now he joked with the turnkey, and that guardian of social
recalcitrants was profoundly convinced that in J. Rufus Wallingford he
had the swellest prisoner upon whom he had ever slid a bolt. The
policeman who arrested him and the judge who next morning remanded him
for trial shared that opinion, but it was a very melancholy
satisfaction. After his preliminary hearing he went from the city prison
to a more "comfortable" cell in the county jail, to think a number of
very deep thoughts. Not a friendly eye had been turned on him but that
of Joseph O. Meers, who had come around to see the fun. Mr. Meers had
been quite jovial with him, had handed him a good cigar and told him the
latest developments in the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation. He was
reorganizing it himself. It was really a good "stunt," and he thanked J.
Rufus most effusively for having started it. This was "kidding" of a
broad-gauge type that Wallingford, for the same reason that a gambler
tries to look pleased when he loses his money, was bound to enjoy very
much, and with right good wit he replied in kind; but in this exchange
of humor he was very much handicapped, for really Meers had all the joke
on his side.
Another restless night and another dreary day, and then, just as he had
begun to sincerely pity himself as a forlorn castaway upon the barrenest
shore of all living things, there came visitors for him, and the turnkey
with much deference threw open his cell and led him out to the visitor's
cage. His wife! Well, he had expected her, and he had expected, too,
since this great new tenderness had come upon her, to find her eyes
suffused with bravely suppressed tears as they now were; but he had
never expected to see again the man who was with her. E. B. Lott! the
man to whom he had once sold rights of way to a traction line which he
had never intended to build! one of his most profitable victims!
"So they got you at last, did they, Wallingford?" said Lott briskly, and
shook hands with him, positive pleasure in the meeting beaming from his
grizzled countenance. "I expected they would. A nice little game you
played on me up in Battlesburg, wasn't it? Well, my boy, it was worth
the money. You really had a valuable right of way, with valuable
franchises and concessions, and the Lewisville, Battlesburg and Elliston
Traction Line is doing a ripping business; so I'll forgive you,
especially since you're not an individual criminal at all. You're only
the logical development of the American tendency to 'get there' no
matter how. It is the national weakness, the national menace, and you're
only an exaggerated molecule of it. You think that so long as you stay
inside the _law_ you're all right, even morally; but a man who
habitually shaves so close to the narrow edge is going to slip off some
time. Now you've had your dose and I shouldn't wonder but it _might_
make a man of you. Your fine little wife here, who hunted me up the
minute she found out your real predicament, swears that it will, but I'm
not sure. You're too valuable, though, to coop up in a penitentiary, and
I'm going to buy you off. I can use you. I've been in the traction
business ever since the first trolley touched a wire, and I never yet
have seen a man who could go out and get a right of way for nothing, as
you did, nor get it in so short a space of time, even for money. We
expect to open up two thousand miles of lines this coming year and I'm
going to put you on the job. I can't fix it to make you such quick
riches as you can rake in on crooked deals, but I'll guarantee you will
have more in the end. It's a great chance for you, my boy, and just to
protect you against yourself I'm going to hire a good man to watch
you."
Wallingford had already regained his breadth of chest, and now he began
to laugh. His shoulders heaved and the hundred jovial wrinkles about his
eyes creased with the humor of the thought that had come to him.
"You'd better hire three," he suggested, "and work them in eight-hour
shifts."
Nevertheless there was a bit of moisture in his eyes, and his hand,
dropping down, sought his wife's. Perhaps in that moment he vaguely
promised himself some effort toward a higher ideal, but the woman at his
side, though knowing what she knew, though herself renewed and made over
wholly with that great new reason, though detecting the presence of the
crippled moral sense that was falling back baffled from its feeble
assault upon his soul, pressed her other palm over his hand protectingly
and shook her head--for at last she understood!
Upon thistles grow no roses.
THE END