Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic
don't have to look out for men-of-war. Do I hold my job as Grand
Vizier?"
"You hold any job you'll take: I'll make out the appointment with the
position and salary blank, and you can fill it up. And if you get
dissatisfied with that, the old grand hailing-sign of distress will
catch the speaker's eye, any old time. But, I tell you, Al, in all
seriousness, I'm right about this boom business. They're all alike, and
they all have the same history. With the conditions right, one can be
started anywhere in a growing country. I've had my ear to the ground for
a while back, and I've heard things. I'm sure I detect some of the
premonitory symptoms: money piling up in the financial centers; property
away down, but strengthening, in the newer regions; and, lately, a
little tendency to take chances in investments, forgetting the scorching
of ten or twelve years ago. A new generation of suckers is gettin' ready
to bite. Look into this thing, Al, and don't be a chump."
"The same old Jim," said I; "you were manipulating a corner in
tobacco-tags while I was learning my letters."
"Do you ever forget anything?" he inquired. "I have about forgotten that
myself. How was that tobacco-tag business, Al?"
Then with the painstaking circumstantiality of two old schoolmates
luxuriating in memories, we talked over the tobacco-tag craze which
swept through our school one winter. Everything in life takes place in
school, and the "tobacco-tag craze" has quite often recurred to me as
showing boys acting just as men act, and Jimmie Elkins as the born
stormy petrel of financial seas.
It all came back to our minds, and we reconstructed this story. The
manufacturers of "Tomahawk Plug" had offered a dozen photographs of
actresses and dancers to any one sending in a certain number of the tin
hatchets concealed in their tobacco. The makers of "Broad-axe Navy"
offered something equally cheap and alluring for consignments of their
brass broad-axes. The older boys began collecting photographs, and a
market for tobacco-tags of certain kinds was established. We little
fellows, though without knowledge of the mysterious forces which had
given value to these bits of metal, began to pick up stray tags from
sidewalk, foot-path, and floor. A marked upward tendency soon manifested
itself. Boys found their "Broad-axe" or "Door-key" tags, picked up at
night, doubled in value by morning. The primary object in collecting
tags was forgotten in the speculative mania which set in. Who would
exchange "Tomahawk" tags for the counterfeit presentment of decollete
dancers, when by holding them he could make cent-per-cent on his
investment of hazel-nuts and slate-pencils?
The playground became a Board of Trade. We learned nothing but mental
arithmetic applied to deals in "Door-keys," "Arrow-heads," and other tag
properties. We went about with pockets full of tags.
Jim, not yet old enough to admire the beauties of the photographs, came
forward in a week as the Napoleon of tobacco-tag finance. He acquired
tags in the slumps, and sold them in the bulges. He raided particular
brands with rumors of the vast supply with which the village boys were
preparing to flood us. He converted his holdings into marbles and tops.
Finally, he planned his master-stroke. He dropped mysterious hints
regarding some tag considered worthless. He asked us in whispers if we
had any. Others followed his example, and "Door-key" tags went above all
others and were scarce at any price. Then Jimmie Elkins brought out the
supply which he had "cornered," threw it on the market, and before it
had time to drop took in a large part of the playground currency. I lost
to him a good drawing-slate and a figure-4 trap.
Jimmie pocketed his winnings, but the trouble attracted the attention of
the teacher, and under adverse legislation a period of liquidation set
in. The distress was great. Many found themselves with property which
was not convertible into photographs or anything else. To make matters
worse, the discovery was made that the big boys had left school to begin
the spring's work, and no one wanted the photographs. Bankrupt and
disillusioned, we returned to the realities of kites, marbles, and
knives, most of which we had to obtain from Jimmie Elkins.
"Yes," said he, "it's a good deal the same with booms. But if you
understand 'em ... eh, Al?"
"Well," said I, really impressed now, "I'll look into it. And when you
get ready to sow your boom-seed, let me know. I change cars in a few
minutes, and you go on. Come down and see me sometimes, can't you? We
haven't had our talk half out yet. Doesn't your business ever bring you
down our way?"
"It hasn't yet, but I'm coming down into that neck of the woods within
six weeks, and I guess I can fix it so's to stop off,--mingling pleasure
and business. It's the only way the hustling philanthropist of my style
ever gets any recreation."
"Do it," said I; "I'll have plenty of time at my disposal; for I go out
of office before that time; and I may want to go into your
boom-hatchery."
"On the theory that the great adversary of mankind runs an employment
agency for ex's? There's the whistle for your junction. By George, Al, I
can't tell you how glad I am to have ketched up with you again! I've
wondered about you a million times. Don't let's lose track of each other
again."
"No, no, Jim, we won't!" The train was coming to a stop. "Don't allow
anything to side-track you and prevent that visit."
"Well, I should say not," he answered, following me out upon the
platform of the station. "We'll have a regular piratical reunion--a sort
of buccaneers' camp-fire. I've a curiosity to see some of the fellows
who acted the part of rob-or to your rob-ee. I want to hear their side
of the story. Good-by, Al. Confound it, I wish you were going on with
me!"
He wrung my hand at parting, reminding me of the old Jim who studied
from the same geography with me, more than at any time since we met. He
stayed with me until after his train had started, caught hold of the
hand-rail as the rear car went by, and passed out of view, waving his
hand to me.
I sat down on a baggage-truck waiting for my train, thinking of my
encounter with Jim. All the way home I was busy pondering over a
thousand things thus suddenly recalled to me. I could see every
fence-corner and barn, every hill and stream of our old haunts; and
after I got home I told Alice all about it.
"He seems quite a remarkable fellow," said I, "and a perfect specimen of
the pusher and hustler--a quick-witted man of affairs. If he is ever
put down, he can't be kept down."
"I think I prefer a more refined type of man," said Alice.
"In the sixteenth century," I went on with that excessive perspicacity
which our wives have to put up with, "he'd have been a Drake or a
Dampier; in the seventeenth, the commander of a privateer or slaver; in
this age, I shall not be at all surprised if he turns out a great
railway or financial magnate. It's like a whiff of boyhood to talk with
him; though he's a greatly different sort of man from what I should have
expected to find him. I think you'll like him."
She seemed dubious about this. Our wives instinctively disapprove of
people we used to know prior to that happy meeting which led to
marriage. This prejudice, for some reason, is stronger against our
feminine acquaintances than the others. I am not analytical enough to do
more than point out this feeling, which will, I think, be admitted by
all husbands to exist.
"That sort of man," said she, "lacks the qualities of bravery and
intrepidity which make up a Drake or a Dampier. They are so a-scheming
and calculating!"
"The last time I saw Jim until to-day," said I, "he did something which
seems to show that he had those more admirable qualities."
Then I told her that story of Jim and the mad dog, which is remembered
in Pleasant Valley to this day. Some say the dog was not mad; but I, who
saw his terrible, insane look as he came snapping and frothing down the
road, believe that he was. Jim had left the school for a year or so, and
I was a "big boy" ready to leave it. It was at four one afternoon, and
as the children filed into the road, there met them the shouts of men
and cries of "Run! Run! Mad dog!"
The children scattered like a covey of quail; but a pair of little
five-year-olds, forgotten by the others, walked on hand in hand, looking
into each other's faces, right toward the poor crazed, hunted brute,
which trotted slowly toward the children, gnashing its frothing jaws at
sticks and weeds, at everything it met, ready to bury its teeth in the
first baby to come within reach.
A young man with a canvasser's portfolio stood behind a fence over which
he had jumped to avoid the dog. Suddenly he saw the children, knew their
danger, and leaped back into the road. It was like a bull-fighter
vaulting the barriers into the perils of the arena,--only it was to
save, not to destroy. The dog had passed him and was nearer the children
than he was. I wondered what he expected to do as I saw him running
lightly, swiftly, and yet quietly behind the terrible beast. As he
neared the animal, he stooped, and my blood froze as I saw him seize the
dog with both hands by the hinder legs. The head curled sidewise and
under, and the teeth almost grazed the young man's hands with a vicious,
metallic snap. Then we saw what the contest was. The young man, with a
powerful circling sweep of his arms, whirled the dog so swiftly about
his head that the lank frame swung out in a straight line, and the snap
could not be repeated. But what of the end? No muscles could long stand
such a strain, and when they yielded, then what?
Then we saw that as he swung his loathsome foe, the young man was
gradually approaching the schoolhouse. We saw the horrible snapping head
whirl nearer and nearer at every turn to the corner of the building.
Then we saw the young man strike a terrible blow at the stone wall,
using the dog as a club; and in a moment I saw the stones splashed with
red, and the young man lying on the ground, where the violence of his
effort had thrown him, and by him lay the quivering form of what we had
fled from. And the young man was James Elkins.
Alice breathed hard as I finished, and stood straight with her chin held
high.
"That was fine!" said she. "I want to see that man!"
CHAPTER IV.
Jim discovers his Coral Island.
There has long been abroad in the world a belief that events which bear
some controlling relation to one's destiny are announced by premonition,
some spiritual trepidation, some movement of that curtain which cuts off
our view of the future. I believe this notion to be false, but feel that
it is true; and the manner in which that adventure of mine in the old
art gallery and at Auriccio's impressed my mind, and the way in which my
memory clung to it, seem to justify my feeling rather than my belief.
Whenever I visited Chicago, I went to the gallery, more in the hope of
seeing the girl whose only name to me was "the Empress" than to gratify
my cravings for art. I felt a boundless pity for her--and laughed at
myself for taking so seriously an incident which, in all likelihood, she
herself dismissed with a few tears, a few retrospective burnings of
heart and cheek. But I never saw her. Once I loitered for an hour about
the boarding-house with the vine-clad porch, while the boarders (mostly
students, I judged) came and went; but though I saw many young girls,
the Empress was not among them. And all this time the years were rolling
on, and I was permitting my once bright political career to blight and
wither by my own neglect, as a growth not worth caring for.
I became a private citizen in due time, but found no comfort in leisure.