Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
his report. He estimates the time necessary to a full understanding of
the extent and condition of his trust at weeks and even months.
"The petition states that the deceased died intestate, leaving surviving
him the petitioner and an only child, a daughter, Josephine. As Miss
Trescott has attained her majority, she will at once come into the
possession of the greater part of this estate, becoming thereby the
richest heiress in this part of the West. This fact of itself would
render her an interesting person, an interest to which her charming
personality adds zest. She is a very beautiful girl, petite in figure,
with splendid brown hair and eyes. She is possessed of a strong
individuality, has had the advantages of the best American and
Continental schools, and is said to be an artist of much ability. Mrs.
Trescott comes of the Dana family, prominent in central Illinois from
the earliest settlement of the state.
"President Elkins, of the L. & G. W., who, perhaps, knows more than any
other person as to the situation and value of the various Trescott
properties, could not be seen last night. He went to Chicago on
Wednesday, and yesterday wired his partner, Mr. Barslow, that business
had called him on to New York, where he would remain for some time."
In another column of the same issue was a double-leaded news-story,
based on certain rumors that Jim's trip to New York was taken for the
purpose of financing extensions of the L. & G. W. which would develop it
into a system of more than a thousand miles of line.
"Their past successes have shown," said the _Herald_ in editorial
comment on this, "that Mr. Elkins and his associates are resourceful
enough to bring such an undertaking, gigantic as it is, quite within
their abilities. The world has not seen the best that is in the power of
this most remarkable group of men to accomplish. Lattimore, already a
young giantess in stature and strength, has not begun to grow, in
comparison with what is in the future for her, if she is to be made the
center of such a vast railway system as is outlined in the news item
referred to."
From which one gathers that the young men left by Mr. Giddings in charge
of his paper were entirely competent to carry forward his policy.
Jim had gone to Chicago to see Halliday, hoping to rouse in him an
interest in the Belt Line and L. & G. W. properties; but on arriving
there had telegraphed to me that he must go to New York. This message
was followed by a letter of explanation and instructions.
"Halliday spends a good deal of his time in New York now," the letter
read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on
East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater
likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as
long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition of
the estate worked out for a month, and until we know about that, there
won't anything come up of the first magnitude, and even if there should,
you can handle it. I don't really expect to come back with the two
million dollars for the L. & G. W., but I do hope to have it in sight!
"In all your prayers let me be remembered; 'if it don't do no good, it
won't do no harm,' and I'll need all the help I can get. I'm going where
the lobster a la Newburg and the Welsh rabbit hunt in couples in the
interest of the Sure-Thing game; where the bird-and-bottle combine is
the stalking-horse for the Frame-up; and where the Flim-flam (I use the
word on the authority of Beaumont, Fletcher & Giddings) has its natural
habitat. I go to foster the entente cordiale between our friends
Pendleton and Halliday into what I may term a mutual cross-lift, of
which we shall be the beneficiaries--in trust, however, for the use and
behoof of the captives below decks.
"Giddings and Laura are here. I had them out to a box party last night.
They are most insufferably happy. Clifford is not sane yet, but is
rallying. He is rallying considerably; for he spoke of plans for pushing
the _Herald_ Addition harder than ever when he gets home. And you know
such a thing as business has never entered his mind for six
months--unless it was business to write that 'Apostrophe to the Heart,'
which he called a poem, and which, I don't mind admitting now, I hired
his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.
"Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or
they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by
wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the _Times_, although
there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend
as much time at the Trescotts' as you can spare. You'll hear from me
almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W.
extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in
the East, but it's sure to do good in the local fake market. Don't miss
a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend--say
4%--on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move
passing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of
building new factories--anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that
money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out,
unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can't be at these meetings. Will be back
for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.
"Yours,
"Jim.
"P. S.--Coming in, I saw a group of children dancing on a bridge, close
to a schoolhouse, down near the Mississippi. I guess no one but myself
knew what they were doing; but I recognized our old 'Weevilly Wheat'
dance. I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the
train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing,
dancing on the Elk Creek bridge:
"'We want no more of your weevilly wheat,
We want no more your barley;
But we want some of your good old wheat,
To make a cake for Charley!'
"You remember it all! How we used to swing the little girls around, and
when we remembered it afterwards, how we would float off into realms of
blissful companionship with freckled, short-skirted, bare-legged angels!
Things were simpler then, Al, weren't they? And to emphasize that fact,
my mind ran along the trail of the 'Weevilly Wheat' into the domain of
tickers, margins, puts and calls, and all the cussedness of the Board of
Trade, and came bump against poor Bill's bucket-shop deals, and settled
down to the chronic wonder as to just how badly crippled he was when he
died. If Will gets it figured out soon, at all accurately, wire me.
"J."
The wedding tour came to an end, and the bride and groom returned long
before Mr. Elkins did. Giddings dropped into my office the day after
their return, and, quite in his old way, began to discuss affairs in
general.
"I'm going to close out the _Herald_ Addition," said he. "Real estate
and newspaper work don't mix, and I shall unload the real estate. What
do you say to an auction?"
"How can you be sure of anything like an adequate scale of prices?" said
I; "and won't you demoralize things?"
"It'll strengthen prices," he replied, "the way I'll manage it. This is
the age of the sensational--the yellow--and you people haven't been
yellow enough in your methods of selling dirt. If you say sensationalism
is immoral, I won't dispute it, but just simply ask how the fact happens
to be material?"
I saw that he was going out of his way to say this, and avoided
discussion by asking him to particularize as to his methods.
"We shall pursue a progressively startling course of advertising, to the
end that the interest shall just miss acute mania. I'll have the best
auctioneer in the world. On the day of the auction we'll have a series
of doings which will leave the people absolutely no way out of buying.
We'll have a scale of upset prices which will prevent loss. Why, I'll
make such a killing as never was known outside of the Fifteen Decisive
Battles. I sha'n't seem to do all this personally. I shall turn the work
over to Tolliver; but I'll be the power behind the movement. The
gestures and stage business will be those of Esau, but the word-painting
will be that of Jacob."
"Well," said I, "I see nothing wrong about your plan; and it may be
practicable."
"There being nothing wrong about it is no objection from my standpoint,"
said he. "In fact, I think I prefer to have it morally right rather than
otherwise, other things being equal, you know. As for its
practicability, you watch the Captain, and you'll see!"
This talk with Giddings convinced me that he was entirely himself again;
and also that the boom was going on apace. It had now long reached the
stage where the efforts of our syndicate were reinforced by those of
hundreds of men, who, following the lines of their own interests, were
powerfully and effectively striving to accomplish the same ends. I
pointed this out in a letter to Mr. Elkins in New York.
"I am glad to note," said he in reply, "that affairs are going on so
cheerfully at home. Don't imagine, however, that because a horde of
volunteers (most of them nine-spots) have taken hold, our old guard is
of any less importance. Do you remember what a Prince Rupert's drop is?
I absolutely know you don't, and to save you the trouble of looking it
up, I'll explain that it is a glass pollywog which holds together all
right until you snap off the tip of its tail. Then a job lot of
molecular stresses are thrown out of balance, and the thing develops the
surprising faculty of flying into innumerable fragments, with a very
pleasing explosion. Whether the name is a tribute of Prince Rupert's
propensity to fly off the handle, or whether he discovered the drop, or
first noted its peculiarities, I leave for the historian of the
Cromwellian epoch to decide. The point I make is this. Our syndicate is
the tail of the Lattimore Rupert's drop; and the Grain Belt Trust Co. is
the very slenderest and thinnest tip of the pollywog's propeller. Hence
the writer's tendency to count the strokes of the clock these nights."
Dating from the night of Trescott's death, and therefore covering the
period of Jim's absence, I could not fail to notice the renewed ardor
with which Cornish devoted himself to the Trescott family. Alice and I,
on our frequent visits, found him at their home so much that I was
forced to the conclusion that he must have had some encouragement.
During this period of their mourning his treatment of both mother and
daughter was at once so solicitously friendly, and so delicate, that no
one in their place could have failed to feel a sense of obligation. He
sent flowers to Mrs. Trescott, and found interesting things in books and
magazines for Josie. Having known him as a somewhat cold and formal man,
Mrs. Trescott was greatly pleased with this new view of his character.
He diverted her mind, and relieved the monotony of her grief. Cornish
was a diplomat (otherwise Jim would have had no use for him in the first
place), and he skilfully chose this sad and tender moment to bring about
a closer intimacy than had existed between him and the afflicted family.
It was clearly no affair of mine. Nevertheless, after several
experiences in finding Cornish talking with Josie by the Trescott grate,
I considered Jim's interests menaced.
"Well," said Alice, when I mentioned this feeling, "Mr. Cornish is
certainly a desirable match, and it can scarcely be expected that Josie
will remain permanently unattached."
There was a little resentment in her voice, for which I could see no