Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic

you'd have seen him scared into a numbness. But, now that the question has been brought up, let's talk it over. What's your notion about it, anyhow, Al?" "I'm seeking light," said I. "The people are rushing in, and the town's doing splendidly. But prices, there's no denying it, are beginning to sort of strangle things. They prevent doing, any more, what we did at first. Kreuger Brothers' failure yesterday was small; but it's a clear case of a retailer's being eaten up with fixed charges--or so Macdonald told me this morning; and I know that frontage on Main Street is demanding fully as much as the traffic will bear. And then our fright over Trescott's gambling gave me some bad dreams over our securities. It has bothered me to see how to adjust our affairs to a stationary condition of things; that's all." "Of course," said Cornish, "we must keep boosting. Fortunately society here is now thoroughly organized on the principle of whooping it up for Lattimore. I could get up a successful lynching-party any time to attend to the case of any miscreant who should suggest that property is too high, or rents unreasonable, or anything but a steady up-grade before us. But I think we ought to stop buying--except among ourselves, and keep the transfers from falling off--and begin salting down." "If you can suggest any way to do that, and still take care of our paper," said Jim, "I shall be with you." "I've never anticipated," said Cornish, "that such a mass of business could be carried through without some losses. Investors can't expect it." "The first loss in the East through our paper," said Jim, "means a taking up of the Grain Belt securities everywhere, and no market for more. And you know what that spells." "It mustn't be allowed to happen--yet awhile," answered Cornish. "As I just now said, we must keep on boosting." "You know where the Grain Belt debentures and other obligations are mostly held, of course?" asked Mr. Elkins. "When a bond or mortgage is sold," was the answer, "my interest in it ceases. I conclusively presume that the purchaser himself personally looked to the security, or accepted the guaranty of the negotiating trust company. _Caveat emptor_ is my rule." Mr. Elkins looked out of the window, as if he had forgotten us. "We should push the sale of the Lattimore & Great Western," said he, "and the Belt Line System." "I concur," said Cornish. "Our interest in those properties is a two-million-dollar cash item." "It wouldn't be two million cents," said Jim, "if our friends on Wall Street could hear this talk. They'd wait to buy at receiver's sale after some Black Friday. Of course, that's what Pendleton and Wade have been counting on from the first." "You ought to see Halliday and Pendleton at once," said I. "Yes, I think so, too," he rejoined. "Pendleton'll pay us more than our price, rather than see the Halliday system get the properties. They're deep ones; but we ought to be able to play them off against each other, so long as we can keep strong at home. I'll begin the flirtation at once." Cornish, assuming that Jim had fully concurred in his views, bade us a pleasant good-day, and went out. "My boy," said Jim, "cheer up. If gloom takes hold of you like this while we're still running before a favoring wind, it'll bother you to keep feeling worse and worse, as you ought, as we approach the real thing. Cheer up!" "Oh, I'm all right!" said I. "I was just trying to make out Cornish's position." "Let's make out our own," he replied, "that's the first thing. Bear in mind that this is a buccaneering proposition, and you're first mate: remember? Well, Al, we've had the merriest cruise in the books. If any crew ever had doubloons to throw to the birds, we've had 'em. But, you know, we always draw the line somewhere, and I'm about to ask you to join me in drawing the line, and see just what moral level piracy has risen or sunk to." He still walked back and forth, and, as he spoke of drawing the line, he drew an imaginary one with his fingers on the green baize of the flat-topped desk. "You remember what those fellows, Dorr and Wickersham, said the other night, about having invested the funds of estates, and savings accounts in our obligations?" he went on. "But I never told you what Wickersham said privately to me. The infernal fool has more of our paper than his bank's whole capital stock, with the surplus added, amounts to! And he calls himself a 'conservative New England banker'! It wouldn't be so bad if the states back East weren't infested with the same sort of idiots--I've had Hinckley make me a report on it since that night. It means that women and children and sweaty breadwinners have furnished the money for all these things we're so proud of having built, including the Mt. Desert cottages and the Wyoming hunting-lodge. It means that we've got to be able to read our book of the Black Art backwards as well as forwards, or the Powers we've conjured up will tear piecemeal both them and us. God! it makes me crawl to think of what would happen!" He sat down on the flat-topped desk, and I saw the beaded pallor of a fixed and digested anxiety on his brow. He went on, in a lighter way: "These poor people, scattered from the Missouri to the Atlantic, are our prisoners, Al. I think Cornish is ready to make them walk the plank. But, Al, you know, in our bloodiest days, down on the Spanish Main, we used to spare the women and children! What do you say now, Al?" The way in which he repeated the old nickname had an irresistible appeal in it; but I hope no appeal was needed. I said, and said truly, that I should never consent to any policy which was not mindful of the interests of which he spoke; and that I knew Hinckley would be with us. So, if Cornish took any other view, there would be three to one against him. "I knew you'd be with me," he continued. "It would have been a sure-enough case of _et tu, Brute_, if you hadn't been. But don't let yourself think for a minute that we can't fight this thing to a finish and come off more than conquerors. We'll look back at this talk some time, and laugh at our fears. The troublous times that come every so often are nearer than they were five years ago, but they're some ways off yet, and forewarned is insured." "But the hard times always catch people unawares," said I. "They do," he admitted, "but they never tried to stalk a covey of boom specialists before.... You remember all that rot I used to talk about the mind-force method, and psychological booms? We've been false to that theory, by coming to believe so implicitly in our own preaching. Why, Al, this work we've begun here has got to go on! It must go on! There mustn't be any collapse or failure. When the hard times come, we must be prepared to go right on through, cutting a little narrower swath, but cutting all the same. Stand by the guns with me, and, in spite of all, we'll win, and save Lattimore--and spare the captives, too!" There was the fire of unconquerable resolution in his eye, and a resonance in his voice that thrilled me. After all he had done, after the victories we had won under his leadership, the admiration and love I felt for him rose to the idolatry of a soldier for his general, as I saw him stiffening his limbs, knotting his muscles, and, with teeth set and nostrils dilated, rising to the load which seemed falling on him alone. "I'll make the turn with these railroad properties," he went on. "We must make Pendleton and Halliday bid each other up to our figure. And there'll be no 'salting down' done, either--yet awhile. I hope things won't shrink too much in the washing; but the real-estate hot air of the past few years must cause some trouble when the payments deferred begin to make the heart sick. The Trust Company will be called on to make good some of its guaranties--and must do it. The banks must be kept strong; and with two millions to sweeten the pot we shall be with 'em to the finish. Why, they can't beat us! And don't forget that right now is the most prosperous time Lattimore ever saw; and put on a look that will corroborate the statement when you go out of here!" "Bravo, bravo!" said a voice from near the door. "I don't understand any of it, but the speech sounded awfully telling! Where's papa?" It was Antonia, who had come in unobserved. She wore a felt hat with one little feather on it, driving-gloves, and a dark cloth dress. She stood, rosy with driving, her blonde curls clustering in airy confusion about her forehead, a tailor-gowned Brunhilde. "Why, hello, Antonia!" said Jim. "He went away some time ago. Wasn't that a corking good speech? Ah! You never know the value of an old friend until you use him as audience at the dress rehearsal of a speech! Pacers or trotters?" "Pacers," said she, "Storm and The Friar." "If you'll let me drive," he stipulated, "I'd like to go home with you." "Nobody but myself," said she, "ever drives this team. You'd spoil The Friar's temper with that unyielding wrist of yours; but if you are good, you may hold the ends of the lines, and say 'Dap!' occasionally." And down to the street we went together, our cares dismissed. Jim handed Antonia into the trap, and they spun away toward Lynhurst, apparently the happiest people in Lattimore. CHAPTER XVIII. The Going Away of Laura and Clifford, and the Departure of Mr. Trescott. "Thet little quirly thing there," said Mr. Trescott, spreading a map out on my library table and pointing with his trembling and knobby forefinger, "is Wolf Nose Crick. It runs into the Cheyenne, down about there, an' 's got worlds o' water fer any sized herds, an' carries yeh back from the river fer twenty-five miles. There's a big spring at the head of it, where the ranch buildin's is; an' there's a clump o' timber there--box elders an' cottonwoods, y' know. Now see the advantage I'll have. Other herds'll hev to traipse back an' forth from grass to water an' from water to grass, a-runnin' theirselves poor; an' all the time I'll hev livin' water right in the middle o' my range." His wife and daughter had carefully nursed him through the fever, as Dr. Aylesbury called it, and for two weeks Mr. Trescott was seen by no one else. Then from our windows Alice and I could see him about his grounds, at work amongst his shrubbery, or busying himself with his horses and carriages. Josie had transformed herself into a woman of business, and every day she went to her father's office, opened his mail, and held business consultations. Whenever it was necessary for papers to be executed, Josie went with the lawyer and notary to the Trescott home for the signing. The Trescott and Tolliver business brought her into daily contact with the Captain. He used to open the doors between their offices, and have the mail sorted for Josie when she came in. There was something of homage in the manner in which he received her into the office, and laid matters of business before her. It was something larger and more expansive than can be denoted by the word courtesy or politeness. "Captain," she would say, with the half-amused smile with which she always rewarded him, "here is this notice from the Grain Belt Trust Company about the interest on twenty-five thousand dollars of bonds which they have advanced to us. Will you please explain it?" "Sutt'nly, Madam, sutt'nly," replied he, using a form of address which he adopted the first time she appeared as Bill's representative in the business, and which he never cheapened by use elsewhere. "Those bonds ah debentures, which--" "But what _are_ debentures, Captain?" she inquired. "Pahdon me, my deah lady," said he, "fo' not explaining that at fuhst!