The Amateur Napoleon of Wall Street
At the beginning of April, the situation in the three stocks Percival
had bought so heavily grew undeniably tense. Consolidated Copper went
from 109 to 103 in a week. But Percival's enthusiasm suffered little
abatement from the drop. "You see," he reminded Uncle Peter, "it isn't
exactly what I expected, but it's right in line with it, so it doesn't
alarm me. I knew those fellows inside were bound to hammer it down if
they could. It wouldn't phase me a bit if it sagged to 95."
"My! My!" Uncle Peter exclaimed, with warm approval, "the way you
master this business certainly does win _me_. I tell you, it's a mighty
good thing we got your brains to depend on. I'm all right the other
side of Council Bluffs, but I'm a tenderfoot here, sure, where
everybody's tryin' to get the best of you. You see, out there,
everybody tries to make the best of it. But here they try to get the
best of it. I told that to one of them smarties last night. But you'll
put them in their place all right. You know both ends of the game and
the middle. We certainly got a right to be proud of you, son. Dan'l J.
liked big propositions himself--but, well, I'd just like to have him
see the nerve you've showed, that's all."
Uncle Peter's professions of confidence were unfailing, and Percival
took new hope and faith in his judgment from them daily.
Nevertheless, as the weeks passed, and the mysterious insiders
succeeded in their design of keeping the stock from rising, he came to
feel a touch of anxiety. More, indeed, than he was able to communicate
to Uncle Peter, without confessing outright that he had lost faith in
himself. That he was unable to do, even if it were true, which he
doubted. The Bines fortune was now hanging, as to all but some of the
Western properties, on the turning of the three stocks. Yet the old
man's confidence in the young man's acumen was invulnerable. No shaft
that Percival was able to fashion had point enough to pierce it. And he
was both to batter it down, for he still had the gambler's faith in his
luck.
"You got your father's head in business matters," was Uncle Peter's
invariable response to any suggestion of failure. "I know that
much--spite of what all these gossips say--and that's all I _want_ to
know. And of course you can't ever be no Shepler 'less you take your
share of chances. Only don't ask _my_ advice. You're master of the
game, and we're all layin' right smack down on your genius fur it."
Whereupon the young man, with confidence in himself newly inflated,
would hurry off to the stock tickers. He had ceased to buy the stocks
outright, and for several weeks had bought only on margins.
"There was one rule in poker your pa had," said Uncle Peter. "If a hand
is worth calling on, it's worth raising on. He jest never _would_ call.
If he didn't think a hand was worth raising, he'd bunch it in with the
discards, and wait fur another deal. I don't know much about the game,
but _he_ said it was a sound rule, and if it was sound in poker, why
it's got to be sound in this game. That's all I can tell you. You know
what you hold, and if 'tain't a hand to lay down, it must be a hand to
raise on. Of course, if you'd been brash and ignorant in your first
calculations--if you'd made a fool of yourself at the start--but
shucks! you're the son of Daniel J. Bines, ain't you?"
The rule and the clever provocation had their effect.
"I'll raise as long as I have a chip left, Uncle Peter. Why, only
to-day I had a tip that came straight from Shepler, though he never
dreamed it would reach me. That Pacific Cable bill is going to be
rushed through at this session of Congress, sure, and that means enough
increased demand to send Consolidated back where it was. And then, when
it comes out that they've got those Rio Tinto mines by the throat,
well, this anvil chorus will have to stop, and those Federal Oil sharks
and Shepler will be wondering how I had the face to stay in."
The published rumours regarding Consolidated began to conflict very
sharply. Percival read them all hungrily, disregarding those that did
not confirm his own opinions. He called them irresponsible newspaper
gossip, or believed them to be inspired by the clique for its own ends.
He studied the history of copper until he knew all its ups and downs
since the great electrical development began in 1887. When Fouts, the
broker he traded most heavily with, suggested that the Consolidated
Company was skating on thin ice, that it might, indeed, be going
through the same experience that shattered the famous Secretan corner a
dozen years before, Percival pointed out unerringly the vital
difference in the circumstances. The Consolidated had reduced the
production of its controlled mines, and the price was bound to be
maintained. When his adviser suggested that the companies not in the
combine might cut the price, he brought up the very lively rumours of a
"gentlemen's agreement" with the "non-combine" producers.
"Of course, there's Calumet and Hecla. I know that couldn't be gunned
into the combination. They could pay dividends with copper at ten cents
a pound. But the other independents know which side of their stock is
spread with dividends, all right."
When it was further suggested that the Rio Tinto mines had sold ahead
for a year, with the result that European imports from the United
States had fallen off, and that the Consolidated could not go on for
ever holding up the price, Percival said nothing.
The answer to that was the secret negotiations for control of the
European output, which would make the Consolidated master of the copper
world. Instead of disclosing this, he pretended craftily to be
encouraged by the mere generally hopeful outlook in all lines. Western
Trolley, too, might be overcapitalised, and Union Cordage might also be
in the hands of a piratical clique; but the demand for trolley lines
was growing every day, and cordage products were not going out of
fashion by any means.
"You see," he said to his adviser, "here's what the most conservative
man in the Street says in this afternoon's paper. 'That copper must
necessarily break badly, and the whole boom collapse I do not believe.
There is enough prosperity to maintain a strong demand for the metal
through another year at least. As to Western Trolley and Union Cordage,
the two other stocks about which doubt is now being so widely expressed
in the Street, I am persuaded that they are both due to rise, not
sensationally, but at a healthy upward rate that makes them sound
investments!'
"There," said Percival, "there's the judgment of a man that knows the
game, but doesn't happen to have a dollar in either stock, and he
doesn't know one or two things that I know, either. Just hypothecate
ten thousand of those Union Cordage shares and five thousand Western
Trolley, and buy Consolidated on a twenty per cent margin. I want to
get bigger action. There's a good rule in poker: if your hand is worth
calling, it's worth raising."
"I like your nerve," said the broker.
"Well, I know some one who has a sleeve with something up it, that's
all."
By the third week in April, it was believed that his holdings of
Consolidated were the largest in the Street, excepting those of the
Federal Oil people. Uncle Peter was delighted by the magnitude of his
operations, and by his newly formed habits of industry.
"It'll be the makings of the boy," he said to Mrs. Bines in her son's
presence. "Not that I care so much myself about all the millions he'll
pile up, but it gives him a business training, and takes him out of the
pin-head class. I bet Shepler himself will be takin' off his silk hat
to your son, jest as soon as he's made this turn in copper--if he has
enough of Dan'l J.'s grit to hang on--and I think he has."
"They needn't wait another day for me," Percival told him later. "The
family treasure is about all in now, except ma's amethyst earrings, and
the hair watch-chain Grandpa Cummings had. Of course I'm holding what
I promised for Burman. But that rise can't hold off much longer, and
the only thing I'll do, from now on, is to hock a few blocks of the
stock I bought outright, and buy on margins, so's to get bigger
action."
"My! My! you jest do fairly dazzle me," exclaimed the old man,
delightedly. "Oh, I guess your pa wouldn't be at all proud of you if he
could see it. I tell you, this family's all right while you keep
hearty."
"Well, I'm not pushing my chest out any," said the young man, with
becoming modesty, "but I don't mind telling you it will be the biggest
thing ever pulled off down there by any one man."
"That's the true Western spirit," declared Uncle Peter, beside himself
with enthusiasm. "We do things big when we bother with 'em at all. We
ain't afraid of any pikers like Shepler, with his little two and five
thousand lots. Oh! I can jest hear 'em callin' you hard names down in
that Wall Street--Napoleon of Finance and Copper King and all like
that--in about thirty days!"
He accepted Percival's invitation that afternoon to go down into the
Street with him. They stopped for a moment in the visitors' gallery of
the Stock Exchange and looked down into the mob of writhing,
dishevelled, shouting brokers. In and out, the throng swirled upon
itself, while above its muddy depths surged a froth of hands in
frenzied gesticulation. The frantic movement and din of shrieks
disturbed Uncle Peter.
"Faro is such a lot quieter game," was his comment; "so much more ca'm
and restful. What a pity, now, 'tain't as Christian!"
Then they made the rounds of the brokers' offices in New, Broad, and
Wall Streets.
They reached the office of Fouts, in the, latter street, just as the
Exchange had closed. In the outer trading-room groups of men were still
about the tickers, rather excitedly discussing the last quotations.
Percival made his way toward one of them with a dim notion that he
might be concerned. He was relieved when he saw Gordon Blythe, suave
and smiling, in the midst of the group, still regarding the tape he
held in his hands. Blythe, too, had plunged in copper. He had been one
of the few as sanguine as Percival--and Blythe's manner now reassured
him. Copper had obviously not gone wrong.
"Ah, Blythe, how did we close? Mr. Blythe, my grandfather, Mr. Bines."
Blythe was the model of easy, indolent, happy middle-age. His tall hat,
frock coat with a carnation in the lapel, the precise crease of his
trousers, the spickness of his patent-leathers and his graceful
confidence of manner, proclaimed his mind to be free from all but the
pleasant things of life. He greeted Uncle Peter airily.
"Come down to see how we do it, eh, Mr. Bines? It's vastly engrossing,
on my word. Here's copper just closed at 93, after opening strong this
morning at 105. I hardly fancied, you know, it could fall off so many
of those wretched little points. Rumours that the Consolidated has made
large sales of the stuff in London at sixteen, I believe. One never can
be quite aware of what really governs these absurd fluctuations."
Percival was staring at Blythe in unconcealed amazement. He turned,
leaving Uncle Peter still chatting with him, and sought Fouts in the
inner office. When he came out ten minutes later Uncle Peter was
waiting for him alone.
"Your friend Mr. Blythe is a clever sort of man, jolly and
light-hearted as a boy."
"Let's go out and have a drink, before we go up-town."
In the _cafe_ of the Savarin, to which he led Uncle Peter, they saw
Blythe again. He was seated at one of the tables with a younger man.
Uncle Peter and Percival sat down at a table near by.
Blythe was having trouble about his wine.
"Now, George," he was saying, "give us a real _lively_ pint of wine.
You see, yourself, that cork isn't fresh; show it to Frank there, and
look at the wine itself--come now, George! Hardly a bubble in it! Tell
Frank I'll leave it to him, by Gad! if this bottle is right."
The waiter left with the rejected wine, and they heard Blythe resume to
his companion, with the relish of a connoisseur:
"It's simply a matter of genius, old chap--you understand?--to tell
good wine--that is really to discriminate finely. If a chap's not born
with the gift he's an ass to think he can acquire it. Sometime you've a
setter pup that looks fit--head good, nose all right--all the
markings--but you try him out and you know in half an hour he'll never
do in the world. Then it's better to take him out back of the barn and
shoot him, by Gad! Rather than have his strain corrupt the rest of the
kennel. He can't acquire the gift, and no more can a chap acquire this
gift. Ah! I was right, was I, George? Look how different that cork is."
He sipped the bubbling amber wine with cautious and exacting
appreciation. As the waiter would have refilled the glasses, Blythe
stopped him.
"Now, George, let me tell you something. You're serving at this moment
the only gentleman's drink. Do it right, George. Listen! Never refill a
gentleman's glass until it's quite empty. Do you know why? Think,
George! You pour fresh wine into stale wine and what have
you?--neither. I've taught you something, George. Never fill a glass
till it's empty."
"It beats me," said Uncle Peter, when Blythe and his companion had
gone, "how easy them rich codgers get along. That fellow must 'a' made
a study of wines, and nothing worse ever bothers him than a waiter
fillin' his glass wrong."
"You'll be beat more," answered Percival, "when I tell you this slump
in copper has just ruined him--wiped out every cent he had. He'd just
taken it off the ticker when we found him in Fouts's place there. He's
lost a million and a half, every cent he had in the world, and he has a
wife and two grown daughters."
"Shoo! you don't say! And I'd have sworn he didn't care a row of pins
whether copper went up or down. He was a lot more worried about that
champagne. Well, well! he certainly is a game loser. I got more respect
fur him now. This town does produce thoroughbreds, you can't deny
that."
"Uncle Peter, she's down to 93, and I've had to margin up a good bit. I
didn't think it could get below 95 at the worst."
"Oh, I can't bother about them things. Just think of when she booms."
"I do--but say--do you think we better pinch our bets?"
Uncle Peter finished his glass of beer.
"Lord! don't ask _me_," he replied, with the unconcern of perfect
trust. "Of course if you've lost your nerve, or if you think all these
things you been tellin' me was jest some one foolin' you--"
"No, I know better than that, and I haven't lost my nerve. After all,
it only means that the crowd is looking for a bigger rake-off."
"Your pa always kept _his_ nerve," said Uncle Peter. "I've known him to
make big money by keepin' it when other men lost theirs. Of course he
had genius fur it, and you're purty young yet--"
"I only thought of it for a minute. I didn't really mean it."
They read the next afternoon that Gordon Blythe had been found dead of
asphyxiation in a little down-town hotel under circumstances that left
no doubt of his suicide.
"That man wa'n't so game as we thought," said Uncle Peter. "He's left
his family to starve. Now your pa was a game loser fur fair. Dan'l J.
would'a' called fur another deck."
"And copper's up two points to-day," said Percival, cheerfully. He had
begun to be depressed with forebodings of disaster, and this slight
recovery was cheering.
"By the way," he continued, "there may be another gas-jet blown out in
a few days. That party, you know, our friend from Montana, has been
selling Consolidated right and left. Where do you suppose she got any
such tip as that? Well, I'm buying and she's selling, and we'll have
that money back. She'll be wiped off the board when Consolidated
soars."