SPECULATION.
A few months afterwards, when Mr. Townsend had, from repeated failures
to realize anticipated gains in commerce, grown distrustful of the
means of prosperity so long successfully applied, he listened with more
interest to what Cleveland had to say about the new roads to wealth
that had been opened.
“Depend upon it, Townsend,” said the individual to him, one day, “that
you are standing still, while other men are seizing upon the golden
opportunities that offer themselves on every hand. Times have greatly
changed. A new order of things prevails. Wealth is no longer to be
gained in the old channels, or, at least, not without twenty times
the labor required in the new channels. Notwithstanding your want of
confidence in my ‘Sandy Hill and Dismal Lake Canal’ stock, I managed it
just as I said I would. I controlled the Board and had the excavations
entered upon with great vigor. I had an office procured in a public
location, where a clerk was placed, and every thing reduced to an
active business aspect. I secured one or two editors in favor of the
work, and got one or two shrewd brokers interested in the stock. Every
thing went on just as I desired. The price advanced steadily until
about ten days ago, when it reached the maximum of my wishes, since
which time I have been selling it as fast as I can without creating
suspicion. The stock is still firm. In a week or ten days more I
shall not own a share, and then the company can take care of its own
interests.”
“And you will have cleared fifty thousand dollars by the operation?”
“Yes, every cent of it.”
“I can hardly credit it.”
“I bought for eighty cents, and am selling for a dollar and thirty. You
can make the calculation yourself. And what is more than all this, Mr.
Townsend, I have not had to use ten thousand dollars real money from
beginning to end. My credit was enough. Although such a handsome profit
has been made, only two or three of the first notes given for the stock
have fallen due.”
“You sold on time?”
“Certainly. But the notes of such men as D---- and P----, J. S----, and
L----, are as good as so much gold, any day.”
“It’s surprising,” remarked Townsend, thoughtfully.
“But no more so than true,” said Cleveland, in a confident voice. “Now
is the time for a man who possesses good credit and a clear head to
make or double his fortune. I shall treble mine, and you can easily do
the same, and this, too, without interfering at all with your regular
business operations. Mine go on the same as usual.”
Mr. Cleveland believed what he said. But he was slightly mistaken. To
these grand speculating schemes he gave up all his own thoughts and
attention, and left his regular business in charge of his eldest clerk,
in whom he had unlimited confidence. He was satisfied to believe that
every thing was conducted as well as it could have been done, if he had
given to it all his personal attention. In this, however, he was in
error.
Mr. Townsend hardly knew what to think. His confidence in the old way
that he had been for years pursuing, was impaired, and in spite of
his better judgment, confidence in the new way was gaining strength.
It occurred to him that he might be neglecting, unwisely, to improve
the golden opportunities that were presenting themselves every day,
because they did not exactly accord with his old notions of business.
He remembered how successful he had been, many years before, in
speculating in flour and cotton, and then asked himself why he might
not be quite as successful, if he tried his hand in some of the many
money-making schemes that were put in operation all around him.
Another disastrous voyage, which no human foresight could have
prevented, completely unsettled his mind, and, in this state, with a
kind of bewildered desperation, he stepped aside from the old beaten
way, into one of the many paths that diverged towards the mountains of
wealth that were seen in the distance, towering up to the skies.
Cleveland, like a tempting spirit, was near him to suggest the path he
should take. Stocks, Townsend had a prejudice against, except United
States Bank stock, and in that there was not sufficient fluctuation
in the price to make its purchase desirable. As a safe investment of
money, he would have preferred it to almost any thing else; but as a
matter of speculation, the inducements were not strong.
“I do not like to have any thing to do with stocks,” he said to
Cleveland, who proposed their buying up a majority of the stock of a
broken bank, the charter of which was perpetual, and embraced several
advantages not usually possessed by banking institutions. “To me there
is something intangible about them. A ship, a bale of cotton, or a
piece of real estate, have a certain value in themselves; will always
bring a certain price; but scrip is merely a representative of property
that may or may not exist. You are never certain about it.”
“You may be certain enough. As to the Eagle Bank stock, it may be had
for thirty cents on the dollar, and, by proper management, in twelve
months, or even a less time, be made worth, in the market, from seventy
to eighty cents, or even par. It has been done with the People’s Bank,
and can and will be done with this. I know several monied men who are
beginning to turn their thoughts towards this charter, and if we don’t
take hold of the matter at once, the opportunity will pass by. Another
such a chance is not likely soon to offer.”
Mr. Townsend, with all his love of money, had a certain degree of
integrity about him, more the result of education as a merchant of the
old school than any thing else. The scheme proposed, he took a day to
reflect on, seriously. He looked at it in its incipiency, progress,
and termination, and saw that, although he might make twenty or thirty
thousand dollars, by selling off his stock when it had reached the
highest price to which their forcing system could raise it, others
would lose all he made; for the stock must inevitably fall in price.
In fact, he saw that he would make himself a party to a fraud upon the
public, and this he was unwilling to do. So he refused to enter into
this scheme. Cleveland then proposed to sell him out his interest in
“Eldorado,” that he might have more means, and a freer mind, to enter
into the Eagle Bank speculation--a thing that he said he was determined
to do.
“I have already sold lots enough to pay for the original purchase, and
now own nearly half of the town,” he said.
“What will you take for your interest?” Mr. Townsend asked.
“Forty thousand dollars; and I wouldn’t part with it for less than
double the price, were it not for my determination to push through
this matter of the Eagle Bank. In six months you can sell lots enough
to clear the whole purchase, and still be owner of at least a third of
the town. Come into my counting-room, and let me point out to you the
singular advantages that ‘Eldorado’ possesses.”
Mr. Townsend went to the store of the ardent speculator, to look at
the city on paper. There stood “Eldorado,” all laid off into streets
and city squares, with churches and public buildings scattered about
it quite thickly. In the centre was a large depot, where two extensive
lines of railroad crossed each other at right angles; and upon each,
at points east, west, north, and south, were long trains of passenger
and burden cars, gliding towards, or rushing away from the city. Across
the stream, upon the banks of which it stood, dams had been thrown, and
flour-mills and extensive factories were seen, admirably located, and
furnished with water-power that was inexhaustible.
“All this,” said Cleveland, sweeping his hand around an imaginary vast
extent of country to the southwest of “Eldorado,” “is a wheat-growing
country, one of the finest in the world. From sixty to a hundred
bushels to the acre is the common yield. The mills will, therefore,
always have the fullest supply of grain. And this,” sweeping his
hand as before, but to the north of the city, “is a hilly country,
admirable for sheep, and the farmers are already finding it to their
advantage to graze them. Along the rich vallies that lie to the east,
millions of bushels of corn and thousands of head of cattle are
annually raised, for which ‘Eldorado’ will be the great entrepot. In
five years from this time, I prophesy that it will be the third city in
the State, and, in ten years, but little behind any city in the West.”
And thus Cleveland continued to show the superior advantages possessed
by “Eldorado.” About a city with its houses, public squares, churches,
mill sites, etc., there was something more real to the mind of the
merchant, than about stocks in banks, railroads, or canals, and he felt
much better pleased with “Eldorado” than he did with the Eagle Bank.
After considering the matter for a week, and holding several long
conversations with large holders of lots in “Eldorado,” Mr. Townsend
concluded to purchase out Cleveland’s entire interest, and then turn
his attention towards forwarding the improvements already begun. This
intention was put into execution forthwith. All the necessary papers
were drawn, and duly recorded, and the plan of “Eldorado” transferred
from the walls of Mr. Cleveland’s counting-room, to those of Mr.
Townsend. Previous to this, the notes of the latter for the large sum
of forty thousand dollars, passed into the hands of the former, and
were immediately converted into cash.