Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“You are surprised--a little shocked--and I don't blame you,” he
returned, humbly. “As for me, I am simply astounded. But I am not a
gossip.”
She stole a look at his pale, impassive face, and some of her father's
instinct in judging men seemed to reassure her.
“One must play a bit,” she sighed. “And it's so stupid most of the time,
among folks whom one knows very well. There are no more surprises.”
As he shut the door softly behind them Bradish heard Marston, once more
immersed in his affairs of business, directing over the telephone that
one Fletcher Fogg be located and sent to him.
“I apologize,” said Bradish, in the corridor. They were waiting for the
elevator.
“For what?” She lifted her eyebrows, and there was no hint of annoyance
in her dark eyes.
“For--well--seeing how the matter stands, it almost seems as if I had
presumed--was masquerading. I am only a clerk, and--”
“But you are a clerk in Julius Marston's offices,” she said, with pride,
“and that means that you are to be trusted. I require no apology from
you, Mr.--er--”
“My name is Ralph Bradish.”
“I dodged away from dullness last evening; I was hoping to have a bit
of a frolic. And I found a young gentleman who asked no impertinent
questions, who was very gracious, and who was a delight in the dance. It
was all very innocent--rather imprudent--but altogether lovely. There!”
“I thank you.”
“And--well, after Nan Burgess's house-party, I--”
She glanced up at him, provocation in her eyes.
“But I don't dare to hope, do I, that you will condescend to come again
and dance with me?”
“Julius Marston has taught his daughter to keep her promise, sir. If I
remember, I promised.”
He did not reply, for the elevator's grille door clashed open for them
to enter.
And in the elevator, and later in the car, he was silent, as became the
clerk of Marston's offices in the company of Marston's daughter when
there were listeners near.
Her eyes gave him distinct approval and her lips gave him a charming
smile when he alighted at his destination.
Bradish stood for a moment and gazed after the car when it threaded its
way into the Broadway traffic.
“She's a flighty young dame, with a new notion for every minute,” he
told himself. “You can see that plain enough. It's probably all jolly on
her part. However, in these days, if a fellow keeps his head steady and
his feet busy, there's no telling what the tango may lead to. This may
be exactly, what I've been paying tailors' bills for.”
Indicating that in these calculating times the spirit of youth in the
ardor of love at first sight is not as the poet of romance has painted
it.
XVII ~ “EXACTLY!” SAID MR. FOGG
“O I am not a man o' war or privateer,” said he,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we!
“But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee,
Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree.”
--Shanty of the “Prince Luther.”
Mr. Fletcher Fogg privately and mentally and metaphorically slapped
himself on the back whenever he considered his many activities.
He was perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general
operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure
when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit
instructions as to the details of procedure.
The look of grief and regret that the fat face of Mr. Fogg could assume
when said gentleman--after the job was done--blamed the methods as
unsanctioned, even though the result had been achieved--that expression
was a study in humility--humility with its tongue in its cheek.
If Mr. Fogg could have advertised his business to suit himself--being
not a whit ashamed of his tactics--he would have issued a card inscribed
about as follows:
“Mr. FLETCHER FOGG: Promoting and demoting. Building and
busting. The whole inside of any financial or industrial
cheese cleaned out without disturbing the outside rind. All
still work done noiselessly. Plenty of brass bands for loud
work. Broad shoulders supplied to take on all the blame.”
Mr. Fogg, in the presence of Julius Marston, was properly obsequious,
but not a bit fawning. He wiped away the moisture patches beside his
nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast
pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his
legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On
account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in
the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple tie with the other
hand.
“I'm glad I was in reach when you wanted me,” he assured Mr. Marston.
“I'm just in on the _Triton_. And I want to tell you that you're running
that steamboat line in the way an American business man wants to have
it run. If I had been on any other line, sir, I wouldn't have been
here to-day when you were looking for me. Everything else on the coast
prowling along half-speed, but down slammed the old _Triton_, scattering
'em out from underfoot like an auto going through a flock of chickens,
but not a jar or a scrape or a jolt, and into her dock, through two days
of thick fog, exactly on the dot. That's the way an American wants to be
carried, sir.”
“I believe so, Mr. Fogg,” agreed Julius Marston. “And that's why we feel
it's going to be a good thing for all the coast lines to be under one
management--our management.”
“Exactly!”
“It's true progress--true benefit to travelers, stockholders, and all
concerned. Consolidation instead of rivalry. I believe in it.”
“Exactly!”
“As a broad-gauged business man--big enough to grasp big matters--you
have seen how consolidation effects reforms.”
“No two ways about it,” affirmed Mr. Fogg.
“That was very good missionary work you did in the matter of the Sound &
Cape line--very good indeed.”
“It's astonishing what high and lofty ideas some stockholders have
about properties they're interested in. In financial matters the poorest
conclusion a man can draw is that a stock will always continue to pay
dividends simply because it always has done so. I had to set off a
pretty loud firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to
show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination
would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates.
Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value
notions.” Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the
intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly
into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. “I don't want to praise my own
humble efforts too much,” he went on, “but I truly believe that inside
another thirty days the Sound crowd would have been ready to cash in at
fifty, in spite of that minority bunch that was hollering for par. That
was only a big yawp from a few folks.”
“Fifty was a fair price in view of what's ahead in the way of
competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to
clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our boys around with the
check.”
Mr. Fogg beamed. He used his purple handkerchief on his cheeks once
more. He allowed to himself a few words of praise: “They'll understand
some day that I saved 'em from a bigger bump. But it's hard to show some
people.”
“Now, Mr. Fogg, we come to the matter of the Vose line. What's the
outlook?”
Mr. Fogg looked sad. “After weeks of chasing 'em, I can only say that
they're ugly and stubborn, simply blind to their best interests.”
“Insist on par, do they?”
“Worse than that. Old Vose and his sons and those old hornbeam
directors--retired sea-captains, you know, as hard as old turtles--they
have taken a stand against consolidation. They belong in the dark ages
of business. Old Vose had the impudence to tell me that forming this
steamboat combine was a crime, and that he wouldn't be a party to a
betrayal of the public. He won't come in; he won't sell; he's going to
compete.”
Mr. Marston stroked his strip of beard. “In order for our stock to be
what we intend it to be, the Paramount Coast Transportation has got
to operate as a complete monopoly, as you understand, Mr. Fogg. A
beneficent monopoly--consolidation benefiting all--but nevertheless
a monopoly. With one line holding out on us, we've got only a limping
proposition.”
“Exactly!”
“What are we going to do about the Vose line?”
“Let it compete, sir. We can kill it in the end.”
“Possibly--probably. But that plan will not serve, Mr. Fogg.”
“It's business.”
“But it is not finance. I'm looking at this proposition solely as a
financier, Mr. Fogg. I hardly know one end of a steamboat from the
other. I'm not interested in rate-cutting problems. I don't know how
long it would take to put the Vose line under. But I do know this, as a
financier, handling a big deal, that the Paramount stock will not appeal
to investors or the bonds to banks unless we can launch our project as
a clean, perfect combination, every transportation charter locked up.
I handle money, and I know all of money's timidity and all of
money's courage. You think the Vose directors are able to hold their
stockholders in line, do you?”
Mr. Fogg uncrossed his legs, put both feet on the floor, hooked
his hands across his paunch, and gazed up at the ceiling, evidently
pondering profoundly.
“I repeat, I'm not viewing this thing as a steamboating proposition,
not figuring what kind of tariffs will kill competition,” stated Mr.
Marston. “I'm not estimating what kind of tariffs will make a profit for
the Paramount. I'd as soon sell sugar over the counter. My associates
expect me to make money for them in another way--make it in big lumps
and on a quick turn. The Vose line, competing, kills us from the
financial viewpoint.”
“Exactly.”
There was silence in the room for some time.
“There's never any telling what stockholders will do,” remarked Mr.
Fogg, his eyes still studying the panels of the ceiling.
Mr. Marston did not dispute that dictum.
His field-marshal slowly tipped down his head and gave his superior
another of those bland stares.
“So I'll go right ahead and see what they'll do, sir.”
He rose and kicked the legs of his trousers into place.
“You understand that in this affair, as in all matters where you have
been employed, there must be absolutely clean work. There must be no
come-back. Of course, I have instructed you to this effect regularly,
but I wish to have you remember that I have repeated the instructions,
sir.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg's eyes did not blink.
“You will be prepared to testify to that effect in case the need ever
arises.”
“Exactly!”
Mr. Fogg delivered that word like a countersign. Into it, in his
interviews with Julius Marston, he put understanding, humility, promise.
“May we expect quick action?” asked the financier. “The thing mustn't
hang fire. We have a lot of our nimble money tied up as it is.”
“Exactly!” returned Mr. Fogg, on his way to the door. “Quick action it
is!”
“This is probably the craziest idea that ever popped into a man's head
when that man was sitting in Julius Marston's office,” reflected Mr.
Fogg, marching through the anteroom of this temple of finance. “There's
one thing about it that's comforting--it's so wild-eyed it will never
be blamed on to Julius Marston as any of his getting up. And that's his
principal lookout when a deal is on. It seems to be up to me to deliver
the goods.”
He sat down on a bench in the waiting-room and rubbed his knuckles over
his forehead.
“Just let me get this thing right end to,” he told himself. “How did
the idea happen to hit me, anyway? Oh, yes! Old Vose bragging to me that
every stockholder in the Vose line was behind him, and that the annual