akimbo, and with the other hand plucked slowly at the narrow strip of
beard which extended from his lower lip to the peaked end of his chin.
“Very well, Mr. Bradish,” he remarked, after the latter had lifted the
blotter from the check.
Bradish rose and bowed, and started to leave. He was a tall and shapely
young man, with a waist, with a carriage. His garb was up-to-the-minute
fashion--repressed. He was a study in brown, as to fabric of attire and
its accessories. One of those white-faced chaps who always look a bit
bored, with a touch of up-to-date cynicism! One of those fellows who
listen much and who say little!
“Just a moment, Bradish,” invited Marston, and the young man stopped.
“I like your way in these matters. You don't ask questions. You show no
silly interest in any check you sign.”
Bradish reflected an instant on the check in the restaurant cashier's
drawer, and pinched his thin lips a little more tightly.
“I'm quite sure you don't do any broadcast talking about the nature of
these special duties.” The financier pointed to the check. “I'll say
quite frankly that I didn't select you for this service until I had
ascertained that you did no talking about your own affairs in the office
with my other clerks.”
Bradish inclined his head respectfully.
“In financial matters it is necessary to pick men carefully. I trust
you understand my attitude. These transactions are quite legitimate.
But modern methods of high finance make it necessary to manipulate the
details a little. Your attitude in accepting these duties, as a matter
of course is very gratifying from a business standpoint. As a little
mark of our confidence in you, you will receive seventy-five dollars per
week hereafter.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Martson allowed himself a quick, dry smile. “This isn't a bribe,
you understand. There is nothing attached to this nominal service which
requires bribing. We merely want to make it worth while for a prudent
and close-mouthed young man to remain with us.”
A buzzer, as unobtrusive as were all the characteristics of Financier
Marston, sounded its meek purr.
“Yes,” he murmured into the receiver of the telephone which communicated
with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. “Who? Oh, she
may come in at once.”
“Wait here a moment, if you please, Mr. Bradish. It is my daughter who
has dropped in for a moment's word with me. I have something more for
you to attend to.”
Bradish walked to one of the windows. He stared sharply at the girl who
hurried in. Her hat and face were shrouded in an automobile veil, and
the cloistered light of the big room helped to conceal her features.
But Bradish seemed to recognize something about her in spite of the
vagueness of outline. When she spoke to her father the young man's eyes
snapped in true astonishment.
“I couldn't explain it very well over the telephone, papa, so I came
right down. Do forgive me if I bother you for just a minute.” She
glanced quickly at the young man beside the window, but found him merely
an outline against the light.
“Only one of our clerks,” said her father. “What is it, my girl?”
“It's Nan Burgess's house-party at Kingston! There's to be an automobile
parade--all decorated--at the fête, and I want to go in our big car,
and have it two days. I was afraid you'd say no if I asked you over the
telephone, but now that I'm right here, looking you in the eyes with all
the coaxing power of my soul, you just can't refuse, can you, papa?”
“I think perhaps I would have consented over the telephone, Alma.”
“Then I may take the car?” Her playful tones rose in ecstatic crescendo.
The impulsiveness of her nature was displayed by her manner in accepting
this favor. She danced to her father and threw her arms about him.
She exhibited as much delight as if he had bestowed upon her a gift of
priceless pearls. The exuberance of her joy appeared to annoy him a bit.
“Gently, gently, Alma! If you waste your thanks in this manner for a
little favor, what will you do some day for superlatives when you are
really eager to thank some-body for a big gift?”
“Oh, I'll always have thanks enough to go around--that's my disposition.
The folks who love me, I can love them twice as much. You're a dear old
dad, and I know you want me to run along so that you can go to making a
lot more money. So I'll just take myself out from underfoot.”
When she turned she glanced again at the person near the window, and
this time she got a good look at his face. Even the veil could not
hide from Bradish the color which spread into her cheeks. She was so
conscious of her embarrassment and of her appearance that she did not
turn her face to her father when he spoke to her.
“One moment, Alma! Seeing that my big car is going to have a two days'
vacation in the country, I may as well make it do one last business
errand for me.”
He called Bradish to the desk by a side jerk of the head.
“I want that check put into the hands of the brokerage firm of Mower
Brothers as quickly as possible. My car is at the door, and it may as
well take you along. Alma, allow this young man of ours to ride with you
to the place where I'm sending him.”
He did not present Bradish to Miss Marston. Bradish did not expect the
financier to do so. But this dismissal of him as a mere errand-boy--with
the young lady staring him out of countenance in a half-frightened
way--did cut the pride a bit, even in the case of a mere clerk. And
this clerk was pondering on the memory that only the night before he
had clasped this young lady--then a party unknown who was evidently bent
upon an escapade _incog_.--had encircled this selfsame maiden with his
arms during many blissful dances in one of the gorgeous Broadway public
ball-rooms. And he had regaled her and a girl friend on viands for which
his twenty-five-dollar check had scarcely sufficed to pay.
Bradish was pretty familiar with the phases and the oddities of the
dancing craze, but this _contretemps_ rather staggered him.
They had asked no questions of each other during those dances. They had
been perfectly satisfied with the joy of the moment. She had looked at
him in a way and with a softness in her eyes which told him that she
found him pleasing in her sight. She had been enthusiastic, with that
same exuberance he had just witnessed, over his grace in the dance. They
had promised to meet again at the ball-room where social conventions did
not prevent healthy young folks from enjoying themselves.
“Good heavens!” she whispered to him, as she preceded him through the
door. “You work in my father's office?”
“You are surprised--a little shocked--and I don't blame you,” he
returned, humbly. “As for me, I am simply astounded. But I am not a
gossip.”
She stole a look at his pale, impassive face, and some of her father's
instinct in judging men seemed to reassure her.
“One must play a bit,” she sighed. “And it's so stupid most of the time,
among folks whom one knows very well. There are no more surprises.”
As he shut the door softly behind them Bradish heard Marston, once more
immersed in his affairs of business, directing over the telephone that
one Fletcher Fogg be located and sent to him.
“I apologize,” said Bradish, in the corridor. They were waiting for the
elevator.
“For what?” She lifted her eyebrows, and there was no hint of annoyance
in her dark eyes.
“For--well--seeing how the matter stands, it almost seems as if I had
presumed--was masquerading. I am only a clerk, and--”
“But you are a clerk in Julius Marston's offices,” she said, with pride,
“and that means that you are to be trusted. I require no apology from
you, Mr.--er--”
“My name is Ralph Bradish.”
“I dodged away from dullness last evening; I was hoping to have a bit
of a frolic. And I found a young gentleman who asked no impertinent
questions, who was very gracious, and who was a delight in the dance. It
was all very innocent--rather imprudent--but altogether lovely. There!”
“I thank you.”
“And--well, after Nan Burgess's house-party, I--”
She glanced up at him, provocation in her eyes.
“But I don't dare to hope, do I, that you will condescend to come again
and dance with me?”
“Julius Marston has taught his daughter to keep her promise, sir. If I
remember, I promised.”
He did not reply, for the elevator's grille door clashed open for them
to enter.
And in the elevator, and later in the car, he was silent, as became the
clerk of Marston's offices in the company of Marston's daughter when
there were listeners near.
Her eyes gave him distinct approval and her lips gave him a charming
smile when he alighted at his destination.
Bradish stood for a moment and gazed after the car when it threaded its
way into the Broadway traffic.
“She's a flighty young dame, with a new notion for every minute,” he
told himself. “You can see that plain enough. It's probably all jolly on
her part. However, in these days, if a fellow keeps his head steady and
his feet busy, there's no telling what the tango may lead to. This may
be exactly, what I've been paying tailors' bills for.”
Indicating that in these calculating times the spirit of youth in the
ardor of love at first sight is not as the poet of romance has painted
it.
XVII ~ “EXACTLY!” SAID MR. FOGG
“O I am not a man o' war or privateer,” said he,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we!
“But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee,
Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree.”
--Shanty of the “Prince Luther.”
Mr. Fletcher Fogg privately and mentally and metaphorically slapped
himself on the back whenever he considered his many activities.
He was perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general
operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure
when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit
instructions as to the details of procedure.
The look of grief and regret that the fat face of Mr. Fogg could assume
when said gentleman--after the job was done--blamed the methods as
unsanctioned, even though the result had been achieved--that expression
was a study in humility--humility with its tongue in its cheek.
If Mr. Fogg could have advertised his business to suit himself--being
not a whit ashamed of his tactics--he would have issued a card inscribed
about as follows:
“Mr. FLETCHER FOGG: Promoting and demoting. Building and
busting. The whole inside of any financial or industrial
cheese cleaned out without disturbing the outside rind. All
still work done noiselessly. Plenty of brass bands for loud
work. Broad shoulders supplied to take on all the blame.”
Mr. Fogg, in the presence of Julius Marston, was properly obsequious,
but not a bit fawning. He wiped away the moisture patches beside his
nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast
pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his
legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On
account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in
the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple tie with the other
hand.
“I'm glad I was in reach when you wanted me,” he assured Mr. Marston.
“I'm just in on the _Triton_. And I want to tell you that you're running
that steamboat line in the way an American business man wants to have
it run. If I had been on any other line, sir, I wouldn't have been
here to-day when you were looking for me. Everything else on the coast
prowling along half-speed, but down slammed the old _Triton_, scattering
'em out from underfoot like an auto going through a flock of chickens,
but not a jar or a scrape or a jolt, and into her dock, through two days
of thick fog, exactly on the dot. That's the way an American wants to be
carried, sir.”
“I believe so, Mr. Fogg,” agreed Julius Marston. “And that's why we feel
it's going to be a good thing for all the coast lines to be under one
management--our management.”
“Exactly!”
“It's true progress--true benefit to travelers, stockholders, and all
concerned. Consolidation instead of rivalry. I believe in it.”
“Exactly!”
“As a broad-gauged business man--big enough to grasp big matters--you
have seen how consolidation effects reforms.”
“No two ways about it,” affirmed Mr. Fogg.
“That was very good missionary work you did in the matter of the Sound &
Cape line--very good indeed.”
“It's astonishing what high and lofty ideas some stockholders have
about properties they're interested in. In financial matters the poorest
conclusion a man can draw is that a stock will always continue to pay
dividends simply because it always has done so. I had to set off a
pretty loud firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to
show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination
would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates.
Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value
notions.” Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the
intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly
into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. “I don't want to praise my own
humble efforts too much,” he went on, “but I truly believe that inside
another thirty days the Sound crowd would have been ready to cash in at
fifty, in spite of that minority bunch that was hollering for par. That
was only a big yawp from a few folks.”
“Fifty was a fair price in view of what's ahead in the way of
competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to
clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our boys around with the
check.”
Mr. Fogg beamed. He used his purple handkerchief on his cheeks once
more. He allowed to himself a few words of praise: “They'll understand
some day that I saved 'em from a bigger bump. But it's hard to show some
people.”
“Now, Mr. Fogg, we come to the matter of the Vose line. What's the
outlook?”
Mr. Fogg looked sad. “After weeks of chasing 'em, I can only say that
they're ugly and stubborn, simply blind to their best interests.”
“Insist on par, do they?”
“Worse than that. Old Vose and his sons and those old hornbeam
directors--retired sea-captains, you know, as hard as old turtles--they
have taken a stand against consolidation. They belong in the dark ages
of business. Old Vose had the impudence to tell me that forming this
steamboat combine was a crime, and that he wouldn't be a party to a
betrayal of the public. He won't come in; he won't sell; he's going to
compete.”
Mr. Marston stroked his strip of beard. “In order for our stock to be
what we intend it to be, the Paramount Coast Transportation has got
to operate as a complete monopoly, as you understand, Mr. Fogg. A
beneficent monopoly--consolidation benefiting all--but nevertheless
a monopoly. With one line holding out on us, we've got only a limping
proposition.”
“Exactly!”
“What are we going to do about the Vose line?”
“Let it compete, sir. We can kill it in the end.”
“Possibly--probably. But that plan will not serve, Mr. Fogg.”
“It's business.”
“But it is not finance. I'm looking at this proposition solely as a
financier, Mr. Fogg. I hardly know one end of a steamboat from the
other. I'm not interested in rate-cutting problems. I don't know how
long it would take to put the Vose line under. But I do know this, as a
financier, handling a big deal, that the Paramount stock will not appeal
to investors or the bonds to banks unless we can launch our project as
a clean, perfect combination, every transportation charter locked up.
I handle money, and I know all of money's timidity and all of
money's courage. You think the Vose directors are able to hold their
stockholders in line, do you?”
Mr. Fogg uncrossed his legs, put both feet on the floor, hooked
his hands across his paunch, and gazed up at the ceiling, evidently
pondering profoundly.
“I repeat, I'm not viewing this thing as a steamboating proposition,
not figuring what kind of tariffs will kill competition,” stated Mr.
Marston. “I'm not estimating what kind of tariffs will make a profit for
the Paramount. I'd as soon sell sugar over the counter. My associates
expect me to make money for them in another way--make it in big lumps
and on a quick turn. The Vose line, competing, kills us from the
financial viewpoint.”
“Exactly.”
There was silence in the room for some time.
“There's never any telling what stockholders will do,” remarked Mr.
Fogg, his eyes still studying the panels of the ceiling.
Mr. Marston did not dispute that dictum.
His field-marshal slowly tipped down his head and gave his superior
another of those bland stares.
“So I'll go right ahead and see what they'll do, sir.”
He rose and kicked the legs of his trousers into place.
“You understand that in this affair, as in all matters where you have
been employed, there must be absolutely clean work. There must be no
come-back. Of course, I have instructed you to this effect regularly,
but I wish to have you remember that I have repeated the instructions,
sir.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg's eyes did not blink.
“You will be prepared to testify to that effect in case the need ever
arises.”
“Exactly!”
Mr. Fogg delivered that word like a countersign. Into it, in his
interviews with Julius Marston, he put understanding, humility, promise.
“May we expect quick action?” asked the financier. “The thing mustn't
hang fire. We have a lot of our nimble money tied up as it is.”
“Exactly!” returned Mr. Fogg, on his way to the door. “Quick action it
is!”
“This is probably the craziest idea that ever popped into a man's head
when that man was sitting in Julius Marston's office,” reflected Mr.
Fogg, marching through the anteroom of this temple of finance. “There's
one thing about it that's comforting--it's so wild-eyed it will never
be blamed on to Julius Marston as any of his getting up. And that's his
principal lookout when a deal is on. It seems to be up to me to deliver
the goods.”
He sat down on a bench in the waiting-room and rubbed his knuckles over
his forehead.
“Just let me get this thing right end to,” he told himself. “How did
the idea happen to hit me, anyway? Oh, yes! Old Vose bragging to me that
every stockholder in the Vose line was behind him, and that the annual
meeting was about to come off, and then I would see what a condemned
poor show I stood to get even the toe of my boot into the crack of the
company door. He's a Maine corporation. I've known of cases where that
fact helped a lot. There are plenty of ifs and buts in this thing, but
here goes!”
He applied himself to one of the office telephones, asked for several
numbers, one after the other, and put questions with eagerness and
rapidity.
The information he received seemed to disturb him considerably. He came
out of the booth and scrubbed his cheeks with his purple handkerchief.
“Their annual meeting at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, four hundred
miles from here! Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful that it's not
being held right now,” Mr. Fogg informed himself, determined to fan that
one flicker of hope with both wings of his optimism. “But I've got to
admit that twenty-four hours is almighty scant time for a job of this
sort, even when the operator is the little Fogg boy himself. Damme, I
haven't come to a full, realizing sense yet of all I've got to do and
how I'm going to do it.”
He hurried out, dove into an elevator, and was shot down to the street.
He was lucky enough to find a taxi at the curb.
“Grand Central,” he told the driver. “I've got five dollars that
says you can beat the Subway express and land me in season for the
ten-o'clock limited for Boston.”
As soon as it became evident to Mr. Fogg that his driver had seen his
duty and was going to do it, traffic squad be blowed, the promoter
settled back, and his thoughts began to revolve faster than the taxi's
wheels.
“It's going to be like the mining-camp 'lulu hand,'” was his mental
preface to his plans. “It can be played only once in a sitting-in; it
has got to be backed with good bluff, but it's a peach when it works.
And what am I a promoter for? What have I studied foreign corporation
laws for?”
Mr. Fogg took off his hat and mopped his bald spot, wrinkling his
eyelids in deep reflection.
“The idea is,” he mused, “I'm a candidate for the presidency of the Vose
line at to-morrow's meeting. But I haven't been elected yet!”
However, Mr. Fogg's preliminary sniffing at the affairs of the Vose line
had informed him where he could pick up at least ten scattered shares of
their stock. He figured that before midnight he would have them in his
possession. As to the next day and the next steps, well, the nerve of a
real American plunger clings to life until the sunset of all hopes, even
as the snake's tail, though the serpent's head be bruised beyond repair,
is supposed to wriggle until sunset.
He despatched a telegram at New Haven. He received a reply at
Providence, and he read it and felt like a gambler who has drawn a
card to fill his bobtail hand. When a design is brazen and the game is
largely a bluff, plain, lucky chance must be appealed to.
The telegram had been addressed to Attorney Sawyer Franklin, in a Maine
city. It had requested an appointment with Mr. Franklin on the following
morning.
The reply had stated that Mr. Franklin was critically ill in a hospital,
but that all matters of business would be attended to by his office
force, as far as was possible.
Attorney Sawyer Franklin, as Mr. Fogg, of course, was fully aware, was
clerk of the Vose line corporation, organized according to the Maine
law as a “foreign corporation,” under the more liberal regulations which
have attracted so many metropolitan promoters into the states of Maine
and New Jersey.
XVIII ~ HOW AN ANNUAL MEETING WAS HELD--ONCE!
O, a ship she was rigged and ready for sea,
And all of her sailors were fishes to be!
Windy-y-weather,
Stormy-y-weather!
When the wind blows we're all together!
--The Fishes.
Fletcher Fogg, suave, dignified, radiating business importance,
freshened by a barber's ministrations, walked into the Franklin
law-offices the next morning at nine-thirty.
He announced himself to a girl typist, and she referred him to a young
man who came forth from a private room.
“I have power of attorney from Mr. Franklin to transact his routine
business,” explained the young man. “Of course, if it's a new case or a
question of law--”
“Neither, neither, my dear sir! Simply a matter of routine. But,” he
leaned close to the young man's ear, “strictly private.”
Mr. Fogg himself closed the door of the inner office when the two had
retired there.
“One of your matters to-day, I believe, is the annual meeting of the
Vose line. I am a stockholder.”
Fogg produced a packet of certificates and laid them on the desk.
“Are there to be any officers or other stockholders present?” he asked,
showing just a bit of solicitude, in spite of himself.
“I think not,” returned the young man. “Nothing has been said about it.
The proxies and instructions have been sent in, as usual, by registered
mail.” He indicated documents stacked on the desk. “I was just about to
begin on the matter.”
“I suppose our proxies run to the clerk of the corporation, as usual,
with full power of substitution, clerk to follow instructions,” said
Mr. Fogg, a bit pompously, using his complete knowledge of corporation
routine.
“Yes, sir. We handle most of the corporation meetings that way when it's
all cut and dried. In this case, it's simply a re-election of the old
officers.”
“Exactly!”
Mr. Fogg pulled his chair closer, dabbed his purple handkerchief on
each side of his nose, and inquired, kindly and confidentially: “My son,
what's your name?”
“David Boyne.”
“Law student here--secretary, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Exactly--and a long, hard pull ahead of you. It's too bad you're not in
New York, where a young man doesn't have to travel the whole way around,
but can cut a corner or two. I could give you a lot of examples of
bright young chaps who have grabbed in when the grabbing was good.
“But I haven't the time. You take my word for it. I'm a plain, outspoken
business man, and I'm in with the biggest financial interests in New
York. And I'm going to offer you the grandest opportunity of your life
right now, David.”
He picked up his certificates and arranged them in one hand, as a player
arranges his cards.