Boston a novel
that he would need three million dollars to carry him until the fall.
They were going to make him pay twenty-seven per cent for the use of
that money. He didn’t mind that so much--his profits could stand it;
but he didn’t believe he was really going to get the three million.
When the time came, there would be more excuses and delays, and he
would be compelled to turn the stock of his companies over to the
bankers. He had twenty big plants of one sort or another, all working
day and night, employing more than eight thousand men; he was doing
what was supposed to be patriotic war-work--but the government wouldn’t
help him with a dollar, and wouldn’t protect him against these banking
conspiracies.
Betty took that story to Cornelia. “Can it possibly be true, Grannie?
Can Uncle Henry be doing such a thing?”
“I’m sorry to say, dear, he has that reputation.”
“But Grannie, he doesn’t seem that kind of man!”
“Men have different standards for their friends, and for outsiders.
Uncle Henry has grown rich, and he has never produced anything that I
know of.”
“But Grannie, that would be a wicked thing to do to Mr. Walker!”
“It’s the way of the business world. I watched it, and held my
peace--for forty years. I used to hear things that Henry and James
and your father would talk over with your grandfather. Josiah did it
to others--and then at last somebody did it to him. He trusted the
big bankers in New York--the Morgan crowd, because they had such a
respectable name. He put everything he had into the securities of the
New Haven Railroad, and those New York bankers simply gutted it, they
stole every dollar, and the stock fell from two hundred and forty-six
to sixteen, if I remember. I’ve heard your grandfather say, he had
enough New Haven paper to fill up the music-room, but it wasn’t enough
to pay his debts.”
“Is that why Uncle James has the mills and ‘Hillview’?”
“That’s the reason. There were tens of thousands of people left in
worse plight, widows and children and old people. All this decline of
New England industry that you hear about really dates from that time
when we trusted the Morgan crowd; for they took something like five
hundred million dollars away from this part of the country.”
“But Grannie, if Uncle Henry is doing that to Mr. Walker, it is really
the same thing as banditry!”
“Yes, of course; but you mustn’t say it to your father or your uncles;
they wouldn’t take it kindly from a twenty-year-old girl.”
“I’ll be older some day,” said Miss Betty.
III
The first thing when Cornelia got back to town, she went to call at her
son-in-law’s office. “Henry, what is this I hear about you and Jerry
Walker?”
“What do you hear, Mother?”
“That you are taking his plants away from him.”
“Has Jerry told you that?”
“No; but Betty has been visiting Lucile, and naturally hears about
their troubles.”
“Jerry tells his wife, and she tells Lucile, and Lucile tells Betty,
and Betty tells you, and you tell me!” Henry laughed.
“Is it true, Henry? Are you after him?”
“It is absolutely untrue, Mother.”
“You’re not interested in his affairs?”
“I didn’t say that. Jerry comes to certain bankers--including Rupert
and John Quincy--and tries to borrow money. The bankers are my clients,
and ask me to investigate, and draw up papers, and perform other legal
services, which I do. Because the decisions of the bankers don’t please
Jerry, he takes up the notion that I’m an arch-conspirator, plotting
his ruin. But that’s all rubbish.”
“Henry, you have the reputation of not being a very gentle enemy.”
The other laughed again. “Well, Mother, have you come to convert me to
pacifism? But seriously, I got through with Jerry Walker years ago. I
was a stockholder in two of his felt-companies, and a director. I found
that his way of doing business didn’t agree with mine, so I let him
buy me out at a fair price, and washed my hands of him. But he’s been
afraid of me ever since--because he knows I know too much about him.”
“Henry, I’ve always had an interest in Jerry, ever since he was an
errand-boy at the hospital, a bright little fellow that I saw had a
future. Josiah helped him to get a start, you know.”
“Yes, of course. But he’s grown up now, and learned many tricks, and he
plays the business game pretty roughly.”
“I can’t pretend to know all about his affairs--”
“Naturally not, Mother; only an expert accountant could do that--and
he’d have trouble, because Jerry has hidden some things cleverly. It’s
a complicated matter, I assure you, and you make a mistake if you let
the Walkers use you, or even worry you. Nobody can believe a word Jerry
says.”
“I just want to ask you to give him a square deal, Henry. Give him what
you give other business men.”
“Well, Mother, it’s up to the bankers, and you are talking to a lawyer.
There are many bankers interested in the Jerry Walker problem, and they
all agree that he wants much more than any other business man--he wants
everything in sight. There’s only so much credit to go round--only
about two per cent of what people holler for--and Jerry is getting
more than his share, and using it without any sort of scruple.”
“He’s paying a high price for it, I understand.”
“He thinks so, naturally. It seems a simple matter to him, for the
banks to check all the paper he can sign. He never figures on the risks
the banks may be running.”
“Is it true he’s paying twenty-seven per cent, Henry?”
“That is a question you’ll have to ask the bankers, Mother. I
can’t discuss my clients’ affairs. But I’ll say this as a general
principle--two men seldom agree about the value of a horse, when one of
them is selling and the other is buying.”
“Henry, I want to ask it straight. You’re not planning to take over
Jerry’s business?”
“Absolutely not, Mother!”
“You’re telling me the truth?”
“When have I told you anything else?” And the telephone rang. Henry
took down the receiver, listened, and said, “Yes, Rupert, I’ll be right
over. I’m having a consultation on the matter with Mrs. Thornwell, and
I’m telling her you are the banker, and the real villain in the case.”
So later in the day Cornelia went to call on this “real villain,” and
found him, a large island completely surrounded by statistics and
charts relating to the felt business. He was polite, but reluctant to
give her his precious time. If she had come to ask about investing
a thousand dollars of her own, he would have taken an hour off to
advise her--he would do that any day for any member of the family,
even the poorest fifth cousin. But when she came about Jerry Walker he
told her frankly that she was letting herself be used by a family of
adventurers. She was deceived if she thought that Rupert had anything
more to do with the matter than a score of other bankers; it was a
council of the financial leaders of Boston who were deciding the
future of the felt industry, and even if Rupert were to go before them
and say, “Gentlemen, I have promised my mother-in-law that out of my
affection for her we will agree to let her former errand-boy have all
the money he wants”--still the other bankers might refuse to assent.
“And I don’t carry three million in my own wallet, Mother.”
IV
Both Henry and Rupert had told Cornelia what was not true; and only
two or three weeks later she found it out. Mrs. Jerry Walker came to
Cornelia’s apartment, and broke down and wept, and told the terrible
story of what was happening. Jerry Walker was being stripped of
every dollar he owned in the world; and it was Rupert Alvin and
Henry Cabot Winters who were driving the other bankers to the job,
sometimes against their will, and even without their knowledge. The
loan for three millions had been agreed upon, and Mr. Winters had been
instructed to prepare the papers; but instead of doing so, he had got
one of the big banks in New York to call a loan suddenly, and Mr. Alvin
had brought up demands that the other bankers had not known about--in
short, everything had been tied up for a month.
Finally, in order to get half a million dollars in a hurry, poor Jerry
had had to turn over to the bankers all the stock of all his companies.
It was supposed to be a trusteeship--he had the right to get the
properties back any time within two years by paying a million and a
quarter; but the very day they got the securities, the bankers, with
Mr. Winters at their head, had set to work to plunder the properties.
They put in their own directors, and barred Jerry Walker from access to
the books, and even barred him physically from the plants. They were
disposing of all the assets of the subsidiary companies, and loading
them up with debts and claims--everywhere Jerry turned he found that
some unknown lawyer had mysteriously appeared with liens and suits.
Everything was tied up, so that the real owner of the properties could
not get a dollar, and was going to have to sell his home to get money
to live.
So that was that. The caribou was down, and his blood was being drunk.
Cornelia might wring her hands, and be very sorry; she might shout at
the wolves and scold them--whereat they would lift their bloody jaws
for a moment and grin at her. “Of course, Mother,” said Henry, quite
blandly and good-naturedly, when next she met him--“of course, I told
you an untruth. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to have a sense of family loyalty.”
“You have too good a mind to fool yourself with such an argument,
Mother. I have plenty of Thornwell family loyalty, but not the least
particle of Walker family loyalty. If you had come to me for the truth
about affairs of your own, you would have had it; in case of need you
might have had the last dollar I own in the world. But when you let
yourself be used by Jerry Walker, to try to pull wires for him in the
midst of a business crisis--then you haven’t the least reason in the
world to expect me to give you any information to be carried back to
him!--Yes, of course, you didn’t mean to carry it back, but I assure
you Lucile expected to get it out of Betty, and Mrs. Walker expected to
get it out of Lucile. They have been cultivating an intimacy with Betty
for several years for exactly that purpose, and I didn’t intend to let
them succeed. When I told Rupert and James about it, they agreed that I
had done exactly right to stall you.”
“So you’re going to put Jerry Walker out of the felt business!”
“Not at all, Mother. He knows felt well, and if he wants a job as
manager of one of the plants, we’ll pay him a good salary. What he
doesn’t know is finance, and we’re going to fix him so he can’t lead
the Boston banks into a smash.”
“He was making a lot of money, Henry.”
“A chimpanzee could make money right now, with the government buying
everything at any price you ask. But the war will be over soon, and
then will come the storm, and we’re going to have a safer man than
Jerry Walker at the helm of the ship.”
So Cornelia went away, and watched the events of the next few months,
and decided no longer to think of her son-in-law as a wolf. From now on
she would see him as a large, black, witty, urbane and charming spider.
He lurked in a hole and watched the business flies, and once in a while
he made a pounce, and sunk his fangs into a victim, and wove him round
and round with a ton or two of legal nets, until he could not move a
finger; after which he would be sucked dry of his financial juices.
In the case of the too enthusiastic manufacturer of felt, what happened
was that he struggled in the nets until his health broke down; his
hands trembled so that he could not hold a cup of coffee, and he had
to go to North Carolina for the winter and play golf. While he was
gone, the bankers sat down with his lawyers, and convinced them that