individual--all good men. You don't know them, but I do. They are
connected with our big interests. And I'm right here as a stockholder.
Do you realize, David, that instructing you to hold this meeting without
a single stockholder present is really asking you to do something that's
not strictly legal?”
“We usually do it this way,” faltered Boyne.
“Exactly! Men like those who are running the Vose line are always asking
an innocent man to do something illegal. I'm going to come right to
the point with you, David. Those old moss-backs who have sent those
instructions are trying to wreck the Vose line. I want you to disregard
those instructions. I am anxious to be president and general manager
of the line. I want you to elect as directors these stockholders.” He
tapped his finger on the certificates.
The young man was both frightened and bewildered. He turned pale. “I
can't do that,” he gasped.
“Yes, you can. There are the proxies. It's up to you to vote 'em as you
want to. They allow full power of substitution, usual fashion!”
“But I can't disobey my instructions.”
“I say you can, if you've got grit enough to make a good thing for
yourself.”
“Such a thing was never done here.”
“Probably not. It's a new idea. But new things are being done right
along in high finance. You ought to be up where big things are happening
every day. You stand in with me, and I'll put you there. You see, I'm
getting right down to cases on this matter with you, David. Vote those
proxies as I direct and I'll hand you five thousand dollars inside of
two hours, and will plant you in a corking job with my people as soon as
this thing calms down. I could have palavered a long time before coming
to business in this way, but I see you're a bright young fellow and
don't need a lot of hair-oil talk. I don't ask you to hurt anybody in
especial. You can elect the old treasurer--we don't want to handle the
money--this is no cheap brace game. But I want a board of directors
who will put me in as general manager until certain reforms can be
instituted so as to bring the line up to date. Five thousand dollars,
mind you, and then you'll be taken care of.”
“But I'll be put into state prison.”
“Nonsense, my boy! Why would you vote those proxies according to your
instructions? Why, because it would be for your interest to do so if
I hadn't come in here with a better proposition. Now it's for your
interest to vote 'em as I tell you. The most they can make out of it
is a breach of trust, and that amounts to nothing. With five thousand
dollars in your mitt, you wouldn't need to hang around here to take
a lot of slurs. I'll slip you another thousand for your expenses on a
little trip till the air is all clear.”
Boyne stared at this blunt and forceful tempter; his hand which clutched
the chair-arms trembled; “I'm going to be still more frank with you,
my boy. And, by the way, you must know that I'm no mere four-flusher.
You've heard of Fletcher Fogg, eh? You knew who I was when you got that
wire from me yesterday?”
“Why, yes, I know of you through our corporation work, sir.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg assumed even more unctuously the manner of an old
friend. “Now, as I say, I'm going to be frank--take you in on the ground
floor. Of course, they can have another--a special meeting of the Vose
line after a thirty days' notice to the stockholders. They will probably
call that meeting, and I don't care if they do. But I have an ambition
to be general manager of the line for those thirty days to make--well, I
want to make a little investigation of general conditions,” declared Mr.
Fogg, resorting to his purple handkerchief. “That's all I care to say.
At the end of thirty days we may--I'm speaking of the big interests
I represent--we may decide to buy the line and make it really worth
something to the stockholders. You understand, I hope. It's strictly
business--it's all right--it's good financiering. After it's all over
and those old, hardshell directors wake up, I'll venture to say they'll
be pleased all around that this little turn has been made. In the
mean time, having been taken care of, you needn't mind whether they're
pleased or not.”
Boyne looked at the sheaf of certificates in Fogg's hand; he bent
frightened gaze on the documents stacked on the desk. They lay there
representing his responsibility, but they also represented opportunity.
The sight of them was a rebuke to the agitated thoughts of treason
which assailed him. But the mere papers had no voice to make that rebuke
pointed.
Mr. Fogg did have a voice. “Five thousand dollars in your fist, my boy,
as soon as I can work the wire to New York--and there's no piker about
the man who can have five thousand flashed in here when he asks for it.
You can see what kind of men are behind me. What do you care about old
man Vose and his crowd?”
“There's Mr. Franklin! I'll be doing a mighty mean trick, Mr. Fogg. No,
I'll not do it.”
Mr. Fogg did not bluster. He was silent for some time. He pursed his
lips and stared at Boyne, and then he shifted his gaze to the ceiling.
“It's too bad--too bad for a young fellow to turn down such an
opportunity,” he sighed. “It can be done without you, Boyne, in another
way. The same result will happen. But you might as well be in on it.
Now let me tell you a few instances of how some of the big men in this
country got their start.”
Mr. Fogg was an excellent raconteur with a vivid imagination, and it did
not trouble his conscience because the narratives he imparted to this
wide-eyed youth were largely apocryphal.
“You see,” he put in at the end of the first tale, “what a flying start
will do for a man. Suppose that chap I've just told you about sat back
and refused to jump when the road was all open to him! You don't hear
anybody knocking that man nowadays, do you? And yet that's the trick he
pulled to get his start.”
With a similar snapper did Mr. Fogg touch up each one of his stories of
success.
“I--I didn't have any idea--I thought they managed it some other way,”
murmured David Boyne.
“Your horizon has been limited; you haven't been out in the world
enough to know, my son.”
“I have heard of all those men, of course. They're big men to-day.”
“You didn't think they got to be millionaires by saving the money out of
clerks' salaries, did you? Of course, Boyne, I admit that in this
affair you'll be up to a little sharp practice. But you're not stealing
anything. Nobody can lug off steamships in a vest pocket. It's only a
deal--and deals are being made every day.”
Fogg was a keen judge of his fellow-men. He knew weakness when he saw
it. He could determine from a man's lower lip and the set of his nose
whether that person were covetous. And he knew now what signified the
flush on Boyne's cheeks and the light in his eyes. However, there was
something else to reckon with.
“I will not betray Mr. Franklin's confidence in me. Positively, I will
not,” said the young man. “He's sick, and that would make it worse.”
“How sick is he?”
“He is very, very ill. It was an operation, and he has had a relapse.
But we hope he's coming out all right.”
“What hospital is he in?”
Boyne gave the name.
“I think I'll call up and ask when it is expected that he can see
visitors,” announced Fogg, with business briskness. “I wish Franklin had
been here on deck--Franklin, himself.”
“I don't believe Mr. Franklin would turn a trick of this sort,” asserted
the clerk. “I'd hate to face him, after doing it myself.”
“Franklin would be able to see further into a financial deal than a
young chap,” said Mr. Fogg, severely, and then he found his number and
made his call. “Good heavens!” he blurted, after a question. “I am in
his office. Yes, I'll tell Boyne.”
With a fine affectation of grief and surprise, he snapped the
transmitter upon the hook and whirled on Boyne. His back had been toward
the young man--he had spoken with hand across the receiver.
“He has just died--he's dead! Franklin has passed away.”
“I would have been notified,” gasped Boyne.
“They were just going to call you. You heard me say I'd inform you.”
“But I must call the hospital--offer my services. I must go up there.”
Mr. Fogg put out his hand and pressed the young man back into his chair.
“A lulu must be played quick and the pot raked sudden,” he reflected.
“Just a moment, my son. Now you're standing on your own bottom. You
won't have to explain to Mr. Franklin.”
He pointed to the clock. His stories had consumed time. The hour was
ten-thirty-five.
“That annual meeting of the Vose line was called for ten of the clock
to-day. Mr. Franklin was alive at that hour. He was the clerk of that
corporation. What happens now will not embarrass you so far as he's
concerned. Be sensible. Make a stroke for yourself. You're out of a job,
anyway. Go to it, now.”
Fogg spoke sharply, imperiously. He exerted over the young man all the
force of his personality.
“Five thousand dollars--protected by my interests--slipped out of sight
for a few months--it's easy. Sit down there and make up your records;
vote those proxies. Vote 'em, I say. This meeting was held at ten
o'clock. Make up your records.”
He stood over Boyne, arguing, promising, urging, and the young man,
at last, sweating, flushed, trembling, bent over his documents, sorted
them, and made up his records.
“We'll send on a copy to the office of the Vose line by registered
mail,” commanded Fogg. “Attest it as a copy of the true record by
notary. When it drops in on 'em I will be there, with my directors and
my little story--and the face of Uncle Vose will be worth looking at,
though his language may not be elevating. You come out with me, Boyne.
I'm going to the telegraph office.”
“But I must get in touch at once with Mr. Franklin's family--offer my
services,” pleaded the clerk.
“There isn't a thing you can do right now,” snapped the masterful
gentleman from New York. “I suggest that you close the office. Send the
girl home. You should do that much out of respect to your employer's
memory.”
Ten minutes later the record had been mailed and the flustered Boyne
was trotting around town with Mr. Fogg. The latter seemed to have a
tremendous amount of business on his hands. He hired a cab and was
hustled yon and thither, leaving the young man in the vehicle, with
instructions to stay there, whenever a stop was made. But at last Mr.
Fogg returned from an errand with some very tangible results. He put a
packet of bank-notes into Boyne's shaking hands.
“Did you ever see as much real money before, my son?” asked Fogg,
genially. “That's your five thousand. And here's five hundred toward
that expense money we promised. I'm suggesting that you leave town
to-night. Tuck that cash away on yourself and duck out of sight.”
Having secured the money and placed that powerful argument in the young
man's hands, Mr. Fogg's hurry and anxiety seemed to be over. When he had
seen the packet buttoned inside Boyne's coat he smiled.
“The trade is clinched and the job is done, son, and I feel sure that,
being a healthy young American citizen with plenty of cash to pay your
way, you're not going to let go that cash nor do any foolish squealing.”
“I've gone too far to back out,” admitted Boyne, patting the outside of
his coat. “But it seems like a dream.”
“I've heard a little piece of good news while I've been running
around--forgot to tell you,” said Fogg, in a matter-of-fact way.
“That fool attendant at the hospital must have misunderstood me, or I
misunderstood him. Franklin isn't dead.”
“He-isn't-dead?”
“No. Last report is that he's better this forenoon. But that's the way
some of these crazy attendants mix things up when anybody inquires at a
hospital. Now, of course, seeing that the registered copy is on its way
and Franklin is getting better, that's all the more reason why you don't
care to hang around these diggings and be annoyed. I've got a scheme. It
will take you out of town in a very quiet style. I have telephoned down
to the docks, and there's a Vose freighter in here discharging rails. Do
you live at home or at a boarding-place?”
“I board,” said Boyne, still wrestling with the sickening information
that he had betrayed an employer who was alive; somehow the sentiment
that it was equally base to betray a deceased employer had not impressed
itself on his benumbed conscience. He was now keenly aware that he
feared to meet up with a living and indignant Lawyer Franklin. Fogg
questioned, and Boyne gave his boarding-house address.
“We'll drive there, and I'll wait outside in the cab until you can
scratch together a gripful of your things. Don't load yourself down too
much. Remember, you've got plenty of cash in your pockets.”
A little later Fogg escorted the young man up the gang-plank of the
_Nequasset_, from whose hold the last of her load of clanging rails was
being derricked by panting windlass engines. To Captain Zoradus Wass,
who was lounging against the rail just outside the pilot-house, Mr. Fogg
marched with business promptitude, and spoke with assurance.
“Captain, my name is Fletcher Fogg. Within forty-eight hours the
directors of the Vose line will elect me president and general manager.
That news may be rather astonishing, but it's true.”
The veteran skipper did not reply. He shifted a certain bulge from one
cheek to the other.
“Well?” queried Fogg, a bit sharply.
“I ain't saying anything”
“You believe what I tell you, don't you?”
“I don't know you.”
“This young man is David Boyne, acting clerk of the Vose line
corporation. The annual meeting has just been held in this city. He made
the official records. He will tell you that a new board of directors has
been chosen--the old crowd is out.”
“That is so,” stated Boyne, obeying the prompting of Fogg's quick
glance.
“I don't know you, either.”
Mr. Fogg was not abashed. “It isn't especially necessary that you know
us. How soon do you leave?”
“We're going out light as soon as them rails are on the wharf.”
“I am sending Mr. Boyne with you on a tour of inspection, captain.
Please give him quarters and use him right.”
“Nothing doing till I get orders from the owners,” declared Captain
Wass.
“Haven't I told you that I shall be general manager of this line
to-morrow, or next day, at the latest?”
“When you're general manager come around and give off your orders, sir.”
“I'll do it. I'll come aboard in New York--”
“I'm ordered to Philadelphia,” prompted Captain Wass. “That's where
you'll find me.”
“Philadelphia, then! I'll come aboard and fire you.”
“Do just as you feel like doing.”
“You refuse to take along this young man?”
“This ain't a passenger-boat. I don't know you. Show orders from
owners--otherwise nothing doing.”
Mate Mayo had come out of his cabin, near at hand. With a young man's
quicker perception of possibilities and contingencies he realized that
his skipper might be letting an old man's obstinacy block common sense.
The first mate had an eye for men and their manners. He had been
listening to Mr. Fogg. That gentleman certainly seemed to know what he
was talking about. And young Mate Mayo, having a nose for news as well
as an eye for men, understood that the coast transportation business
was in a touchy state generally. He gave Mr. Fogg further inspection and
decided that a little skilful compromising was advisable.
“Captain Wass, will you step aside with me a moment?” asked the mate.
“What for?”
“I want to have a word with you.”
“Have it right here,” said the captain, tartly. “I never have any
business that's got to be whispered behind corners.” He scowled when his
mate gave him a wink, both suggestive and imploring. “Spit it out!”
“The law doesn't allow us to take passengers, as you suggest. And
naturally you don't like to act without orders from owners.” He looked
at Mr. Fogg as he spoke, plainly offering apology to that gentleman.
“But we need a second steward and--”
“We don't!” Captain Wass was blunt and tactless.
“I beg pardon--we really do. And we can sign this young man in a--a sort
of nominal way, and then when we get to Philadelphia we'll probably find
the matter all straightened out.”
“What's your name?” asked Mr. Fogg.
“Boyd Mayo, sir. First mate.”
“Mr. Mayo, you're a young man with a lot of common sense,” declared
Fogg.
To himself, staring at the young man, he said: “I'm going to play this
game out with two-spots, and here's one ready for the draw!”
“I'll see you in Philadelphia, Mr. Mayo,” he continued, aloud. “I am
exactly what I say I am. Captain Wass, you've got something coming to
you. Mr. Mayo, you've got something coming to you, also--and it's
good!” His assertiveness was compelling, and even the captain displayed
symptoms of being impressed. “It isn't at all necessary that my agent
make this trip with you, Captain Wass. Perhaps I had no distinct right
to bring him here. But I am a hustling sort of a business man and I want
to get at matters in short order. However, I ask no favors. Come on,
Boyne!”
“We'll sign him on as steward to cover the law,” proffered the captain,
as terse in consent as he was in refusal.
“Very well,” agreed Fogg. “You've got an able first mate, sir.” He
flipped his watch out. “I've got a train to make, gentlemen. Good day!”
He took Boyne by the arm and led him to the ladder from the bridge.
“Son,” said he, “you dig into that Mayo chap till you know him up and
down and through and through. I'm going to use him. And you keep your
mouth shut about yourself.” He backed down the ladder, feeling his
way cautiously with his fat legs, trotted to the waiting cab, and was
whirled away.
At high noon the next day Fletcher Fogg marched into the general
offices of the Vose line in company with ten solid-looking citizens.
Imperturbable and smiling, he allowed President Vose to shriek anathema
and to wave the certified copy of the record of the annual meeting under
the snub Fogg nose.
“What you say doesn't change the situation in the least,” affirmed Mr.
Fogg. “You'll find the actual records of the meeting deposited in the
usual place in the state of your incorporation. If you think these
new directors are not lawfully and duly elected, you can apply to the
courts.”
“You confounded thief, it's likely to take a year to get a decision.
This is damnable. It's piracy. You know what courts are!”
“Poke up your courts, then. It isn't my fault if they're slow.”
The new directors filed into the board-room and with great celerity
proceeded to elect Fletcher Fogg to be president and general manager of
the Vose line.
“What are you going to do?” pleaded the deposed executive head. “My
money is in here--my whole life is in it--my pride--my intention to see
that the public gets a square deal. You infernal rogue, what are you
going to do with my property?”
“That's my own business,” said Fletcher Fogg.
“You can't get away with it--you can't do it!” raged Vose. “I'll get
at the inside of how that meeting was conducted. You'd better take
backwater right now, Fogg, and save yourself. I'm not afraid to tell
you what I'm going to do. I'll have a temporary injunction issued. I'll
prove fraud was used at that meeting--bribery, yes, sir!”
Mr. Fogg smiled and sat down at the president's desk. “First he'll have
to find a young man by the name of David Boyne,” he told himself.
“Vose,” said the new president, “all you can show a court is the record
of an annual meeting, duly and legally held. And if the judge wants to
have a look at me he'll find me running this line a blamed sight better
than you have ever run it.”
“It's a cheap, plain trick,” bleated the aged steamship manager. “Your
crowd is going to sell out to the Paramount--it's your plot.”
“Oh no! We're not inviting injunctions and law and newspaper talk and
slurs and slander, Mr. Vose. If there's ever any selling out you'll be
the first to suggest it; I never shall. You see, I'm just as frank with
you as you are with me. Selling this line to the Paramount right now,
just because the new board is in, would be ragged work--very coarse
work. Thank Heaven, I have a proper respect for the law--and what it can
do to bother a fool. I am not a fool, Mr. Vose.”
XIX ~ THE PRIZE PACKAGE FROM MR. FOGG
Our captain stood on his quarter-deck,
And a fine little man was he!
“Overhaul, overhaul, on your davit tackle fall,
And launch your boats to the sea,
Brave boys! And launch your boats to the sea.”
--The Whale.
A slowing, tug, tooting fussy and staccato blasts which Captain Wass
translated into commands to hold up, intercepted the _Nequasset_ in
Hampton Roads.
Mr. Fletcher Fogg was a passenger on the tug. In a suit of natty gray,
he loomed conspicuously in the alley outside the tug's pilot-house. He
cursed roundly when he toilsomely climbed the ladder to the freighter's
deck, for the rusty sheathing smutched the knees of his trousers.
“I'm doing a little better than I promised you, captain,” he stated when
he arrived finally in the presence of the master. “I said Philadelphia.
But here I am. Do you know me now?”
“Your name is Fogg,” returned Captain Wass, exhibiting no special
delight.
“And I'm manager of this line. As it seems to be pretty hard for you to
get anything through that thick nut of yours, I'll ask you to glance at
a paper which will save argument.”
The paper was an attested notification, signed by the directors, stating
in laconic legal phrase what Mr. Fogg had just declared.
“You recognize my authority, do you?”
“Your bill o' lading reads O. K.,” assented the skipper.
“Very well! Exactly! Then you take your orders. Proceed to an anchorage
off Lambert Point below Norfolk, pick a berth well off the channel, and
put down both hooks. The boat is going out of commission. I find you're
not making any money for the owners.”
“It ain't my fault. With charters at--” began the master, indignantly.
“I haven't any time for a joint debate. You are laid off. Bring your
accounts to the main office as soon as you have turned the steamer over
to the caretaker--he'll come out from Norfolk.” Manager Fogg turned on
his heel to meet Mate Mayo. “You will report at the main offices, too,
Mr. Mayo. Have you master's papers?”
“I have, sir--Atlantic waters, Jacksonville to East-port.”
“Very good--you're going to be promoted. I shall put you aboard the
passenger-steamer _Montana_ as captain.” He looked about sharply. “Where
is my agent?”
“There, in the quartermaster's cabin. We gave him that,” replied Captain
Wass, gruffly. “I'm glad I'm out of steamboating. I've learned how to
run a boarding-house and make money out of it.”
Mr. Fogg did not understand that sneer, and he paid no attention to the
captain's manner. He started for the cabin indicated.
“Well, you can swell around in gold braid now and catch your heiress,”
observed Captain Wass to his mate.
“I'm sorry, skipper,” said the young man, with real feeling. “You are
the man to be promoted, not I. It isn't right--it doesn't seem real.”
“There isn't any real steamboating on this coast any longer. It is--I
don't know what the devil it is,” snarled the veteran. “I have been
sniffing and scouting. I'd like to be a mouse in the wall of them New
York offices and hear what it is they're trying to do to us poor cusses.
Ordered one day to keep the law; ordered the next day to break the law;
hounded by owners and threatened by the government! I'm glad I'm out of
it and glad you've got a good job. That last I'm specially glad about.
But keep your eye peeled. There are queer doings round about you!”
Fogg entered the cabin and shut the door behind him. He found Boyne
sitting on a stool and looking somewhat apprehensive. “Hiding?” inquired
Fogg.
“I thought I wouldn't show myself till I was sure about who was on that
tug,” said the young man.
“That's the boy, David,” complimented Fogg, with real heartiness.
“You're no fool. Nothing like being careful. Pack your bag and go aboard
the tug.” He marched out.
“Philadelphia charter has been canceled, eh?” asked Captain Wass. The
tone of his voice did not invite amity.
“It has, sir.”
“Seems queer to turn down a cargo that's there waiting--and the old boat
can carry it cheaper than anybody else, the way I've got expenses fined
down.”
“Are you trying to tell me my business?”
“I have beep steamboating forty years, and I know a little something
about it.”
Mr. Fogg looked at the old mariner, eyes narrowed. He wanted to inform
Captain Wass that the latter knew altogether too much about steamboating
for the kind of work that was planned out along the coast in those
ticklish times.
“Then I ain't to expect anything special from now on?” asked the
skipper. In spite of his determination to be crusty and keep his upper
lip stiff, he could not repress a little wistfulness, and his eyes roved
over the old freighter with affection.