Loaded Dice Part 21

he scoffed. "Nonsense, Herman, I'm as fit as possible. A man's got to hustle if he wants to get ahead these days; it won't hurt me; so don't you worry."

There was a moment's pause; then Gordon glanced keenly at his companion's dissatisfied face. Suddenly he leaned forward, and laid a hand on Vanulm's knee. "d.a.m.n it, Herman," he cried good-naturedly, "why don't you give it to me straight? You never got me out here to tell me I was working too hard. What did you pick out the Konaha.s.sett for? Anything wrong with that?"

Vanulm laughed uneasily. Then suddenly he drew a long breath.

"Confound it, d.i.c.k," he cried, a note of apology in his tone. "I hate to interfere this way, but I've known you a long time, and I like you too much to have things seem to begin to go wrong with you now. Since you've asked me, I'll tell you straight out that people are beginning to talk about this Konaha.s.sett scheme. They don't like it, d.i.c.k, and, as far as I can see, you can't really blame them. Your capitalization _is_ big, and beyond that, your methods of getting it before the public--well, they're unusual, d.i.c.k, if we simply let it go at that.

Lamson tried that sort of thing, and you know where he wound up; Prince tried a clumsy imitation of Lamson, with all Lamson's lack of conscience, and none of Lamson's brains to back it up with, and he's where he won't do any more advertising for some time to come. And now you're working along the same lines that they did, and it's costing you your standing around the Federal, and down-town, too. There's not a doubt of it, d.i.c.k; and I can't bear to see it going on this way.

What's the use?"

Gordon grinned somewhat malevolently. "Meaning the ads?" he queried.

Vanulm nodded. "Princ.i.p.ally the ads," he answered. "They are cheap, d.i.c.k; cheap as the devil, and you know it."

For answer Gordon pulled from his pocket a sheaf of the evening papers, and at random turned to the financial page of the _Observer_.

There, sure enough, in huge black capitals, his latest bit of advice to investors stared the reader in the face:

COPPERS--COPPERS--COPPERS

ran the big head-lines; then, in smaller type, Gordon's brief pithy argument in favor of the purchase of copper stocks; the future of the metal; the expansion of telegraph and telephone; the electrification of railroads; the vain search for a subst.i.tute; the immense foreign demand; then good words for half a dozen other mines, all well and favorably known, and, lastly, a glowing paragraph devoted to the past, present and future of the Konaha.s.sett, its great area, the wonderful richness of its copper, its boundless possibilities within the next few years. The deduction was as obvious as the type which proclaimed it to the world.

KONAHa.s.sETT--KONAHa.s.sETT

ran the next to last line, and then, for a parting shot at the hesitating speculator, with splendid vigor and decision:

BUY KONAHa.s.sETT--BUY IT OUTRIGHT AND BUY IT NOW

Gordon grinned again. "And you say they don't care for that at the Federal?" he asked.

Vanulm shook his head. "They most certainly do not," he answered. "In fact, from all I hear, it's going to cost you your place on the House Committee at the next election."

Gordon's lip curled. "Well," he said, composedly enough, "I'm sorry to hear that, and I'm sorry they don't approve of my taste in advertising, but I don't know what they're going to do about it. I've got hold of too good a thing to let go of it now."

Vanulm's face showed his disapproval. "d.a.m.n it, d.i.c.k," he exclaimed, with unusual profanity and real feeling, "that's _another_ thing.

You're going to get snowed under one of these fine days. No one can make the success you have, and forge to the front down-town the way you have, without making enemies. And I know, on the best of authority, that you're being gunned for, and right on this very stock we're talking about--the Konaha.s.sett. And the interests that are after you are interests that you can't withstand--that no man in the country, for that matter, could withstand."

Gordon's eyes narrowed. "You mean the Combine?" he queried.

Vanulm nodded. "I mean the Combine," he answered. "The argument's perfectly plain, d.i.c.k. You're in too many things; you're cheapening yourself by this advertising business on the Konaha.s.sett, and you're courting ruin, besides. You've made enough, d.i.c.k; pull out, now, and quit while you've got a chance. For Heaven's sake, don't wait till it's too late."

Gordon's face set obstinately. "One thing first Herman," he said, "I'll tell you frankly that I wouldn't sit here and take all this advice from any man on earth except yourself, but I know the spirit you're offering it in, and I appreciate it, too. Now, to answer your arguments; in the first place, I won't admit that I'm courting ruin, as you put it; in the second place, I'll acknowledge that my methods of getting the Konaha.s.sett before the public are cheap, if you choose to use that word, but they suit the general public, and therefore they suit me; as to my doing too many things at once, that may be an open question; personally I don't think I am, but, of course, I may be wrong. Anyway, I can't stop now; I've got too much to straighten out first. I don't mean to keep up this pace for ever; if things go right a while longer, I shan't have to."

There was a long silence before Vanulm spoke again. "All right, d.i.c.k,"

he said slowly; "I see the force of what you say, and, after all, every man _has_ got to live his own life in his own way. I'll drop the subject, seeing that I look at it one way and you another; I've had my say, and you've been very considerate to take my interfering the way you have; and now, if you'll bear with me, there's just one other thing I want to say, d.i.c.k, before I get through. And that's on the point you spoke of about the number of things you were doing; if you were a single man, I think it might make a difference, but you're not.

You've married a girl who seems to me to be one of the most charming young women I've ever met. Are you treating her quite right, d.i.c.k?

You're very seldom seen with her in public; she's young, and exceedingly attractive; she's bound to receive a lot of attention, and it's common gossip the way this young Ogden's seen around with her.

You know what he is, d.i.c.k, and I ask you again, fully aware of the liberty I'm taking, 'Is it fair to her?'"

Gordon turned to him with a little mocking smile. "While you're on the subject," he said, with irony, "is there anything else? My character, my religion, what I eat for breakfast? Don't stop with my family affairs, I beg. Is there anything else?"

Vanulm flushed scarlet. "I ask your pardon, d.i.c.k," he said stiffly, and, after a moment's hesitation, he added quietly: "No, there's nothing else."

With the gentlest shake of the reins he signaled the little black that they were ready for the journey home; for five, ten, twenty minutes they sped along in silence; then Gordon turned to his friend.

"Herman, old man," he cried, "forgive me. You're the best fellow in the world, and I had no business to lose my temper. Only--it _is_ true--every man has got to lead his own life, and use his own judgment, such as it is. That's really what makes life, I suppose. And a man's family affairs, pleasant or unpleasant, are his own property.

But I had no business to speak as I did. Forgive me, Herman."

In silence Vanulm extended his hand. "Nothing to forgive, d.i.c.k," he said half sadly; "I'm a meddling old fool, and I'll never bring up the subject again. It's a queer world, anyway, and which one of us has the right to judge the other?"

Gordon sat silent and thoughtful. Once, twice, he made as if to speak; then, with a smile that had no mirth in it, he shrugged his shoulders, as though dismissing something from his mind. "Yes," he said, "you're right, Herman. It's a queer old world."

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE TRACK OF THE STORM

It was on a Wednesday morning that the famous "Gordon Panic" began.

According to the later comment of the financial critics--those writers whose opinions are always interesting, rather, perhaps, than valuable--diagnosis, and not prognosis, being their forte--according to the critics, then, the members of the Combine, patiently biding their time, chanced to hit upon a morning when a well-defined war rumor joined company with a sudden and utterly unexplained drop of five pounds in copper in London. The result was immediate and disastrous. Overstrained and feverish for a fortnight past, the market broke sharply at the very opening, and Konaha.s.sett common, which had closed the night before at twenty-three and a half, by eleven o'clock, had run off, in sympathy with the other coppers, to nineteen. Then, and not until then, came the attack, evidently planned and executed by a master hand. Huge blocks of Konaha.s.sett were thrown upon the market with such rapidity that, for a time, Gordon himself seemed utterly helpless. Indeed, before he was fairly able to come to its defense, the stock had touched fourteen and a half. And then ensued a battle royal, waged with unabated fury until the ringing of the closing bell.

Not only Gordon's office, but the offices of half the brokers in town, were overrun with crowds of frightened speculators; white-faced, anxious, terror-stricken. To all, by word of mouth, by tissue, by published statement, Gordon gave out the watchword, "Hold on; don't sell; it's only a drive; the mine's all right; above all, don't sell!"

and Konaha.s.sett, on huge transactions, closed at sixteen.

On Thursday morning, indeed, everything looked better. The war rumor was denied, the decline in London copper was attributed to speculation, pure and simple, in nowise affecting the stability of the market, a remarkable report from the British Atlantic Railroad was rumored for the morrow, and, Gordon's followers taking heart of grace, Konaha.s.sett worked steadily upwards in sympathy with the rest of the market, and closed strong at twenty bid.

Thus things stood on Thursday evening, but Friday, day of ill-omen, disproved all the promise of the preceding day. Crop damage and heavy rain in the cotton belt both served their turn; the war scare was duly aired again; the report of the British Atlantic, so far from being what was expected, on the contrary not only showed a very considerable decrease in net earnings, but stated moreover that the complete electrification of the system would be for the present indefinitely postponed; rumor bred rumor, and the whole market, under the lead of the railroad stocks and the coppers, plunged heavily downward.

Amid all the excitement and confusion, once again it was an easy matter to distinguish the hand of the man or men who had led the attack on the Konaha.s.sett on the preceding Wednesday. The stock again from the very first acted badly; half an hour after the opening it had dropped to seventeen, and then a sudden flood of selling orders carried it down, and still farther down, until at eleven o'clock it was quoted at thirteen and a half.

Gordon, for the first time anxious and plainly doubtful of the result, fought his fight with all the cool daring and stubborn courage which had won him his place in the market world. One barrier after another was interposed in the effort to stem the tide, and one after another was ruthlessly swept away. About noon, for the first time in years, Gordon in person took the floor of the Exchange, and, knowing full well that he was destined to defeat, none the less bravely fought out his battle to the bitter end. Just once, indeed, early in the afternoon, it seemed for the moment that he might, after all, have a chance to win, and then came still another drive; stop orders were at last uncovered, and the battle, in a short half hour, became first a retreat, then a slaughter, and finally a hopeless, panic-stricken rout.

Gordon himself, pale as death, authorized the giving forth of the news that the fight was lost; that it was every man for himself; in the jargon of the street, made to do service to worried brokers in time of hopeless panic, that "one man's guess was as good as another's."

In the ensuing wild scramble to unload, Konaha.s.sett common was buffeted about the room, kicked and beaten and dragged in the dust, with none so poor to do it reverence. Once even it broke par for the first time in its history, a lot of a thousand shares selling at four and seven-eighths, and at the close it had only staggered weakly back to seven and a half. A great day for the Combine, if all the rumors were true; a great day for the reporters and their news columns; a day that had crushed and crumbled Gordon's little army into oblivion, spreading ruin and disaster in its wake.

Ruin and disaster--and worse, for not alone money losses and huge flaring head-lines followed closely on the heels of the Gordon Panic.

In Sat.u.r.day's paper one read of a woman, crazed by her losses, found dead beneath the window of her third-story room, and in the early calm of the Sabbath morning little Mott-Smith, at last tired of following the advice of others, for once acted on his own initiative, and the attendants at the Federal, bursting in the door, found him lying across the bed, the smoke still curling faintly upward from the pistol in his hand, a little round hole drilled neatly between his eyes.

And then, at last, after all the damage had been done, Monday morning saw the clearing of the storm. The newspapers which had talked hopelessly of panic, acting on "information from the very highest sources," suddenly changed their tone. "A bear drive," "A carefully planned raid," "Gunning for Gordon," were some of the phrases used.

Stocks rallied, went blithely up, held their gain and then increased it, and closed actually buoyant. It was over. "They" had "gone" for Gordon, and had "got" him. That was all. The incident was closed.

During Sat.u.r.day and Sunday Gordon received three visitors at his home.

The first was a man whose eyesight evidently troubled him very considerably, for he came to Gordon's door in a closed carriage, with the shades drawn; did not emerge until such time as there chanced to be no pa.s.sers-by in sight; and hastened up the steps with his hand held close to his face, as if further to aid the disfiguring blue goggles that protected him from the sun. It was two o'clock when he arrived, and he remained until shortly before six, when the same carriage again drew up at the door.