Misery Meets Company
Daylight was fading; the shadows of the trees lengthened upon the
grass; yet Atherton made no move to leave the park, but still sat
motionless, oblivious to everything except the turmoil of his
thoughts.
From the office of Holt and Henderson he had walked blindly along,
heedless of his destination, until as he had neared the lake a sudden
weariness had seized him and he had sunk down upon a bench to rest.
For a time, he could scarcely convince himself of the reality of what
had occurred; seen in retrospect, it all appeared fantastic and of the
texture of a dream. But at length, as the afternoon wore on, and the
shrill clamor of the newsboys filled the park, he purchased a paper
and when he read, in black and white, the story of the day's decline,
his last hope vanished and he knew that this was no nightmare, but
reality, and that financially he was a ruined man.
At first, the burden of his calamity seemed too hard to bear. Fifty
thousand dollars! While he had possessed it, never dreaming of its
loss, he had not appreciated its magnitude, but now that it was gone,
he realized what a sum of money it was. So marvellously easy to lose;
so tremendously difficult to regain. But presently, since he was
young, and by no means a coward, he managed to recover his courage. He
had made a bad mistake, but so had other men; he had a difficult task
before him, but others had faced problems still more difficult, and
had triumphantly solved them. Therefore he resolved that beginning
with to-morrow he would put the past behind him, and would think only
of the future; but this afternoon he would not try to plan--his brain
was weary and the tragedy of the day was still too recent and too
deeply in his thoughts. And suddenly, as he lived over again the past
few weeks, it dawned upon him that he had been quite mad, and not he
alone, but all these other men who had sat and talked and laughed
their futile laughter while the narrow ribbon of the tape spelled ruin
for them before their very eyes. How had he dared, he wondered--how
did any of them dare--to speculate in stocks? What did they know of
real conditions throughout the world? In the papers they read bits of
news, already stale and cold, and this news they swallowed and
assimilated until at last they mistook its effect upon their minds for
the process of original thought. So it had been with him. Over and
over again, for days, he had read, first in one form, then in another,
the news that Steel was going up; until he had ended by believing it
with a fervor that nothing could shake; imagining, moreover, that he
had shrewdly reasoned this out for himself, that he was a good judge
of commerce, finance, trade--that because of his ability he could make
a fortune in stocks--he laughed ironically; disillusionment had been
absolute, complete, a hammer stroke--"The Boy Gambler," he murmured to
himself, "A Story of Punctured Pride."
Twilight deepened; the night breeze, grateful and refreshing, swept
across the water, and all at once Atherton remembered that he had not
eaten since his ill-omened luncheon and that he was ravenously hungry.
"It's lucky," he reflected, "that I've enough left for a meal," and
forthwith made his way toward the Sign of the Peacock, a cafe where he
knew that evening dress was not required, and where food, wines and
music vied each with the other in excellence.
The head waiter greeted him with his customary smiling welcome. "All
alone to-night, Mr. Atherton?" he inquired; and Atherton, answering
mechanically, "Yes, for one, please," was shown to a table near the
window, but no sooner had he seated himself than Henri, the second in
command, came bustling up to him. "Ze zhentlemen," he explained,
"across ze room--zey ask ze honnaire--" and he waved his hand with a
gesture deprecatory but inviting.
Atherton glanced in the direction indicated, and immediately
recognized the two men as friends and classmates of his college days.
Blagden, tall, dark, good-looking, had been one of those attractive
but unreliable students who are more brilliant than successful, more
admired than liked, so that on the whole his University course had
been more spectacular than satisfying. But though open to plenty of
criticism on other grounds, no one had ever denied him the qualities
of courage, coolness and "nerve," and these had won for him outdoors
the title of tennis champion, indoors the still more valuable
reputation of being the best poker player in college. The other man,
thickset, solid, rosy, with the neck of a bull, was "Tubby" Mills,
guard upon the eleven for three seasons; never quite of "All-America"
timber, but steady, dependable, and always managing to let the man
opposed to him in the line realize, before the game was ended, that he
had been through an afternoon of exercise perhaps more strenuous than
beneficial. Stolid but likable, "Tubby" made up in genial good nature
what he perhaps lacked in brains.
Atherton rose at once, crossed the room and took the vacant chair at
their table.
"Well, well," Blagden greeted him, "how goes it, old scout?" And so
strong is the force of habit that Atherton, despite the day's
reverses, rejoined, "Oh, first-rate, thanks. How is it with you?"
"Fine," Blagden responded, "couldn't be better. Everything lovely."
"And you, Tubby," said Atherton, turning to Mills.
"Oh, pretty good," the chubby one answered, and pushing the bill of
fare toward Atherton, he added, "Here, what will you have? This is on
me. Better try a porterhouse with onions; we've ordered some fizz."
Atherton followed his advice, and the talk, running back to college
days and college classmates, dealt for a time wholly with the past
until at last, after a pause, Blagden asked the question that Atherton
had been expecting, "And what are you doing with yourself now?"
Atherton hesitated; then, inspired perhaps by the comforting influence
of the steak and the "fizz," he answered impulsively, "Oh, I might as
well tell you the truth. I've been playing the market, and like a fool
I got in so deep that this drop to-day wiped me out. So I'm
practically busted, and wondering what I'm going to do next."
Having finished his disclosure, he awaited the conventional
expressions of sympathy from his friends, but to his surprise neither
of them spoke, and Blagden stared at Mills, and Mills at Blagden until
presently, somewhat to Atherton's resentment, both of them began to
grin broadly.
"Shall we tell him, Tubby?" asked Blagden at length. "Sure thing,"
responded Mills briefly. "He told _us_."
Blagden turned to Atherton. "Well, then," he observed, "to borrow a
phrase from the unregenerate and indefensible game of poker, this
appears to be a case of three of a kind. Last week, I was long of
twelve thousand bales of January cotton, and they dropped the market
on me one hundred and fifty points in two days, and beggared me to the
tune of about ninety thousand dollars. To-day Tubby, who has been a
terrible bear on wheat, and was short up to his eyebrows, got forced
out on the rise, and was stung for--how much was it, Tubby?"
"Oh, about thirty-five thousand," answered Mills regretfully, "between
thirty-five and forty. I bit off more than I could chew."
In spite of himself, Atherton smiled in his turn. "Well, I'll be
damned," was his first rejoinder, and then, as the real significance
of the coincidence dawned upon him, he cried, "What's the trouble with
this speculative game, anyway? Why on earth can't anyone beat it?
We're not all fools. Suppose a hundred men start speculating on the
same day? You'd naturally suppose, on some kind of law of averages,
that half of them would win and half would lose. But what's the
answer? The answer is that the whole darned hundred lose. I never knew
it to fail. And I'd like to know why. It can't be true that everybody
who invests money in cotton and grain and stocks is stark, staring
crazy. There must be some men who understand conditions, who possess
ability enough to calculate and plan; there must be some winners. But
if they are, I never heard of 'em. It's a mighty funny game."
"You're right," Blagden assented. "I've been doing some thinking
myself since last week; I've been asking the very questions you're
asking now. I can't find the answer, but I've got this far; I know why
poor idiots like you and me and Tubby get it in the neck. It's because
we play the game single-handed. And look at what we're up against.
This is an age of consolidation and co-operation. It's so in business
and it's so in the markets. Pools--that's all you hear nowadays--pools
in leather, copper, oil, cotton, corn. And we're fools enough, with a
few thousand dollars, to go into a game where you need millions. And
as for talking about understanding conditions, and calculating what
the market ought to do, why good Lord, Atherton, you ought to know
better than that. Speculation is only another way of spelling
manipulation. Prices don't _go_ up--they're forced up; they don't _go_
down--they're jammed down, and sometimes most curiously far, too. But
as for planning, calculating, reading, studying conditions--good
night!" And he refilled his glass.
There was a thoughtful silence. Atherton, pondering on what Blagden
had said, and remembering, also, what the trader at Holt and
Henderson's had told him, felt that his ideas of speculation had
undergone a violent change. So that at length he answered reluctantly,
"Well, it looks as though you were right. But I wish we'd thought of
this before. Now it's a case of 'They've got the money and we've got
the experience.'"
Mills leaned forward, planting his elbows comfortably upon the table.
"That's so," he agreed, "I never could see much sense in this _post
mortem_ business. The point is: What are we going to do next? And I
for one wish it distinctly understood that I refuse to be licked. I
started out to make a million dollars, and I'm not going to quit until
I'm put away in a box underground. You two fellows were considered
rather clever when you were in college, so instead of all this sob
stuff why don't you furnish some practical wisdom? What are we going
to do? How are we going to get our money back?"
Atherton gazed at his stocky friend, not without admiration for his
grit. "Blagden," he answered, "has made one mighty good suggestion.
Whatever we do, let's not continue this 'lone hand' business; let's
take his tip that this is an age of consolidation, and let's pool our
resources, such as they are, and see if we can't manage to do a little
better."
Mills grunted approval. "Good scheme," he assented. "We'll be a
regular trust. But when you say, 'resources, _such as they are_,'
you've put your finger on our weakest spot. If we have resources,
they're not in cash. What shall we call ourselves? 'The United
Brotherhood of Down and Outs'? Or is that too severe?"
But Blagden, the imaginative, suddenly caught fire at the idea. "No,
no," he objected, "nothing as crude as that. Give a dog a bad name and
hang him. I'll tell you what we'll call ourselves. 'Gentlemen
Adventurers.' That has the proper ring. Every morning we'll start
forth on a tour of discovery; then we'll meet and compare notes and
see if we can't combine our experiences to our mutual advantage."
"That sounds fine," Mills agreed, "but what kind of adventures are we
going to have?"
"Oh, Tubby, Tubby," cried Blagden. "If there's a more prosaic man in
the world than you are, I'd like to see him. Why, you miss the point
of the whole thing. If we knew just what was going to happen to us,
every day of our lives, where would the fun be? Where would be the
romance, the thrill? If you could see an adventure coming half a mile
down the road, then it wouldn't _be_ an adventure; it has to bump into
you from right around the corner. Do you get the idea?"
"Oh, sure," retorted Mills. "At least, I get what you think is the
idea. But that is the trouble with you poetical chaps; you can't
understand that this is a practical world, especially the dollars and
cents part of it. And if you're proposing that we leave here to-night
and start looking for adventure, why we'd better raise an emergency
fund at once. Because instead of finding money, we'll be losing it.
I've started looking for adventure lots of times in my life, and I
always bring up in one of two places--the police station or the
hospital."
"Oh, I don't mean that kind of adventure," Blagden hastened to
explain. "I mean the 'New Arabian Nights' sort of thing. We'll meet
princesses and potentates and you may take my word for it that it
won't be long before we're on the trail of some real money. We'll get
back all we've lost and more too."
He spoke persuasively, but Mills remained unconvinced. "Oh, it's easy
enough," he objected, "to talk like that in here, with the lights and
the music and a couple of glasses of champagne under your belt. But
nothing will really happen. We'll go out of this place and walk
peacefully home again, and in the morning we'll wake up and laugh at
ourselves. I only wish your dreams would come true, Blagden, but they
won't; they're all moonshine. The only real thing is that we're
broke."
But Blagden, always at his best under fire, rallied vigorously to the
support of his theory. "Nonsense," he cried, "you ought to be ashamed
of yourself. One minute you claim to be a fighter and the next you're
ready to quit cold. Why, the trouble with you--the trouble with all
three of us--and the reason we think there's no romance left in the
world is simply that we've gone stale--stale from sitting over the
ticker day after day, without a thought of anything else on earth
except the ups and downs of the market. I would gamble my last cent
that there's waiting for us, right here in this city, adventure enough
to fill a thousand books; adventures of riches and of poverty, of
romance and reality, of battle and murder and sudden death. Here's the
test. What day is this? Tuesday. Friday night, at nine o'clock, we'll
meet in my rooms and compare notes. We'll all three try our best in
the meantime and if by Friday no one of us has had an adventure worthy
of the name, no one of us has chanced on the slightest idea, the
faintest clue, that spells money, then I'll admit that I'm wrong and
that Tubby's right. Now then, you fat guzzler, isn't that fair?"
"Oh, sure, that's fair enough," Mills was forced to agree, "but I
don't believe--"
He stopped abruptly, gazing straight before him, and then, under his
breath, he murmured, "Great Heavens, what a peach!"
The girl who had entered the cafe and taken a seat at a table not far
from their own surely merited his praise. She was tall and slender,
faultlessly gowned in black, and her face, under the broad picture
hat, was of exceptional beauty, yet with an expression of mingled
indifference and assurance that bespoke a plentiful knowledge of the
world. She gave her order, began leisurely to remove her gloves, and
presently, as she glanced about the room, Atherton perceived, to his
surprise, that her eyes remained fixed upon their table with a
singular intentness. Nor was he the only one to notice this, for
immediately Mills observed, "By Jove, one of us seems to have made a
hit. Do you know her, Atherton?"
Atherton shook his head. "No, I haven't the pleasure," he answered.
And as the girl's eyes were suddenly averted, he added, "There was
something, though, about our table, that seemed to attract her. And
reasoning by the process of elimination, I conclude that it must be
Blagden."
"You flatter me," Blagden calmly rejoined. "Just my luck, though, to
be seated with my back to the lady. Is she really so charming?"
"Charming?" Mills echoed fervently, in a tone which answered Blagden's
question in ardent affirmative. And Atherton supplemented, "Yes, if
anybody happens to fancy that particular type, I should almost say
that she is as pretty a woman as I ever saw in my life."
"Why, this is wonderful!" cried Blagden. "This calls for personal
investigation. I don't suppose I can deliberately turn around and
stare, but we might as well be going, anyway, and I must see her, if
only as we depart."
They rose, and as they started to leave the table, Atherton noticed
that the girl's eyes were again turned in their direction, and almost
simultaneously was aware of a smothered ejaculation from Blagden. "So
you know her?" he whispered.
Blagden did not answer directly. "Just a moment," he muttered, "I'll
be right back." And walking swiftly over to the table, he exchanged a
few brief words with its occupant, and then rejoined his companions,
his face eager and expectant.
"I'll see you fellows later," he hurriedly explained; adding hastily,
"What do you think of my theories now. Didn't I tell you this was the
city of adventures. And mine is going to begin right here."
Mills grinned. "You always were a lucky devil," he cried enviously.
"Well, all I can say is that if this is the form our adventures are
going to take, they can't come too fast for me." And he and Atherton
walked slowly in the direction of the door, while Blagden turned and
made his way toward the girl who awaited him.