It must surprise those simple folk, Messieurs Washington, Jefferson, and their like, were they to return to life at this advanced day and gaze upon the admirable republic which they fancied to be founded on immutable1 principles. As in politics to-day those principles would seem proved to have been not quite immutable, so, in commerce, men and methods would appear wholly different from those known in that earlier day. For instance, in commercial matters, the men of that day would now find in daily application a fourth dimension of affairs once wholly unknown; the sixth sense of the modern business man, a delicately differentiated2 faculty3 evolved in the holy of holies where events cast their financial shadows far in advance of themselves. John Jay, or any financier of Revolutionary time, very likely lacked in that regard, and had but his five senses.
This keen sense of prophecy, property of modern leaders in finance, was not lacking in the case of the directors of the International Power Company, all and several; and more especially several. Capitalists hunt in packs—but only up to a certain point. The sauve qui peut has small chivalry5 about it even in the holy of holies.
Within a few days after the turbulent scenes which took place in the quiet surroundings of Graystone Hall, there was held, quite informally, indeed on a wholly impromptu6 basis, a meeting of the greater portion of the directors of the International Power Company. It was a meeting not called by the president, and the president knew nothing of it. It was not set for the usual headquarters in the East; on the contrary, by merest chance, these keen-witted men met by accident in the western city where were located the works and central operating offices of the International Power Company. They made their stopping place, as usual, at the National union Club, where they were less certain to become the prey8 of prying9 reporters—a breed detested10 above all things by these and their like.
II
There was, this afternoon, casually11 present, a certain gray-haired, full-bodied man, of full beard and rather portly body. He was speaking with President Standley, of St. Louis, who also by merest chance happened to be in town. To them presently came the former general traffic manager of Mr. Standley's road, Ackerman, also present by merest accident. Two or three others, moreover, by mere7 accident, joined them, figures which were familiar at the long table in the New York headquarters. They looked at one another frankly12, and laughed without much reservation.
"Well," said Ackerman, after a time, "let's sit down and have a little powwow—informally, you know."
The gray-haired man grinned pleasantly again and said nothing, but drew up a chair.
"Of course, you know," said Standley, as he seated himself, "that our dissatisfied friend, Van, is here in town to-day?"
The full-bearded man nodded, and an instant later jerked his head toward the door. "He's here in the club, too," said he, and smiled. "Just happened in, I suppose." Indeed, as they turned to look they saw advancing, talking animatedly13, a rather slender, youngish man of brown eyes and pointed14 beard; none less than the disgruntled director who had long ago been so summarily handled by John Rawn, president of the International Power Company.
"Hasn't he got the nose for news, though?" commented Standley admiringly. "Now, who told him there was anything doing!"
"He didn't need to have anybody tell him," growled15 Ackerman. "He can take care of himself. And by Jove! I'm half inclined to think that he was the lucky one—to get out the way he did, and when he did."
"Yes, he's lucky," said Standley gravely. He turned to see the vast round belly16 of the gray-bearded man heaving in silent mirth. The railway magnate obviously was amused.
"I don't know!" remarked Ackerman suddenly. "Others, eh?"
III
"Well, boys, why not admit it?" rejoined the older man. "We all know the facts. We all know why we're here. As you said, Ack, let's hold a little informal meeting, and talk over what we had better do!"
"How much did you sell!" demanded Standley casually.
"Twenty thousand last week. You sold about double that."
"Yes, it's leaking out, no use denying that! You don't need to list this thing—it leaks!"
"Of course, Van's buying it," said Standley, nodding toward the slender figure of the ex-director. "First time I ever knew him to go out for revenge. It doesn't very often pay."
"Well, I can't figure it out," ventured Ackerman. "The stock won't do him any more good than it does us. He can't get the control over that old bonehead Rawn—I mean our respected president—anyhow, any more than we can. He's sitting tight, with the papers in his box. I admit that I let go a little, because I figured it was time we were doing something better than six per cent. with that stock, and all Rawn has done is to make one explanation on top of another. He can't keep on putting that across with me, anyhow. But he can sit there, as I say, with the control in his hands, looking at those nice pictures of the Lady of the Lightnings, which he had engraved17 as our trademark18."
"He's awfully19 gone on her," spoke20 up one. "Not that I blame him, either. I hate to sell my stock, because I like the looks of our engraved goddess so much!"
"There's most always a lady standing21 around somewhere, with the lightning in her hands," ventured the gray-bearded man solemnly. They looked at one another again suggestively, but no one spoke more definite words than that.
IV
"Well, we've had high-sounding talk put up to us about long enough," commented Ackerman, at length. "I was one of the first to go in for this, and I believe in it yet, but I don't want this thing with Rawn in control. Why, look at him,—he was just a clerk when he came to us, and here he's putting on more side than any other man in the town. He's taken advantage of his situation to play the market in and out, all the time, which he couldn't have done if it hadn't been for friends like us. He squeezed us into backing him—after we gave him that first little flyer in Rubber, and some Oil—that hadn't cost us anything and didn't look worth anything. In return he's handed us promises and explanations and hot air, and nothing else. I've just got an idea that there's a man-sized nigger somewhere around this woodpile. For me, I prefer being hung as a little lamb rather than as a full-sized goat. Yes, I let go a little International—to Van—I'll admit. Time enough to get back into the game when we've put Rawn out!"
Standley nodded slowly. "That's a good deal the way I felt about it," he said. "It riles me to see the airs that fellow puts on. I remember him when he didn't have two suits of hand-me-down clothes to his name, and now he seems to have a hundred, all done by the best tailors in New York. He used to tie his drawers with white tape strings22, and now he wears specially4 shaped silks. Where'd he get it? You talk about the Keeley motor—this thing has got it beat a mile for mystery. And we fellows have been standing for that! That is, unless we can stand from under, somehow."
"Yes, seemingly," ventured the last speaker. "But how is that somehow? There isn't any market for International."
The gray-bearded man laughed jubilantly at this. "Have you found that out?"
"Yes, I certainly have found it out. Of course, the market has been Van yonder. But he won't take on over a certain amount. He wants to break the control, of course. But he's going to wait until he gets up to the point and then do something quick. He's not going to hold our bag for us—oh, no! Not him!"
"Well, I've a suspicion," said the older man finally, "that that secret we've been after has been in the hands of our superintendent23 for a long time."
"Why didn't Rawn tell us, then?" demanded one of his companions. "Has he sold us out?"
"No, Rawn hasn't sold us out. At least I don't think so."
"Who has, then?"
"I don't know. The young man who made the wheels go for us whenever Rawn wanted him to—he's the real key to this situation, if I'm a good guesser. There's your contraband24, and you can locate him somewhere in this particular woodpile, or I'm no judge."
"Rawn's pretty well spread out in the general market," quite irrelevantly25 suggested Standley.
"I should say he was!" growled Ackerman. "He's been in on all the good things in the last two or three years. He must have made millions—I don't know how much."
"In the general market—not International, of course. He's got all his holdings in that. He has been spending money, though!" Standley wagged his head.
"Yes, on his young wife, and his new house, and his boats, and his automobiles27, and all the regular things. He can't have done it out of International dividends29, that's sure!"
"All the better that he hasn't," ventured Standley. The old man nodded.
"Go over there and call Van," he said simply.
V
The slender man with pointed beard came up pleasantly, his eyes twinkling. "Well, my fellow sports and department heads!" he said. "What's the good word this morning?"
"Sit down," said the gray-bearded man. "We know why you're here, and why you've been hanging around here for the last six months. It's foolish of you, son, to be out for revenge—nothing in that!"
"I'm not after revenge," smiled the other, his eyes still twinkling. "I've made my peace!"
"Yes," commented Ackerman. "The friendship of some of you gladiators is surely a wonderful thing! Rawn hates you, and you hate Rawn. Don't your ears burn?"
"No, my heart!" He laid a hand on that organ with mock gravity.
"What could you do with the Lady of the Lightnings, Van?" asked Standley discreetly30.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing."
"Hasn't she any social instincts?"
"Plenty, but all gratified; that's the trouble. There isn't anything those people want that they haven't got. No, I must say his position is pretty strong."
"But it's not impregnable, Standley," cut in the gray-bearded man, stopping the twiddling of his fingers above his round-paunched body. "Now, look here, we're all friends together, when it comes to that. You belong with us a lot more than you do with that Jasper from the country. Of course, you split with us, got mad, took your dolls and all that sort of thing—we're all used to that—and we all sat tight because it looked good. It looked better than it does now. So, we're friends again."
"Of course," nodded the slight man. "I understand that."
"Sure you do! Now, it's plain that when it comes to being on the inside, you're there as an ex-director just as much as we are as real directors—maybe more so, for all I know."
"Maybe more, yes, that's so," smiled the slender man, his brown eyes twinkling yet more.
"How much more, then?"
"Why, a whole lot more!"
"What do you know?"
"I know what I've learned for myself and by myself. Gentlemen, it's on the table! Play the game! I did. I've had some of those college professors at work for me—they're the people that first got us locoed, anyhow. Rawn, or rather his son-in-law, got his first notion from his own professor in his college."
VI
"The real trouble with business to-day," interrupted the gray-bearded man, reverting31 to his universal and invariable grievance32, "is that things are all going wrong with the American people. These Progressives down there at Washington have set this whole country by the ears—not even the Supreme33 Court can square things any more. The suspiciousness of the average man is getting to be almost criminal, that's what it is. The public thinks every man with money is a rascal34. The public is damnably ungrateful. Look what we have done for this country, this little set of men sitting right here—what we've built for them, what we've paid out to them for wages! What are we getting in return? They envy us our daily bread, and by the Eternal! they'll come near putting us where we can't get that much longer! Look at the railway rate cases—it's robbery of the railways. Capital hasn't any chance any more! The public seems to be getting ready for anarchy35; that's all."
"Isn't it the truth?" remarked the slender man sympathetically. "Still, we have to handle men as we find them, my friends. In my own case, I've been fighting the devil with a little of his own fire."
"How's that?"
"Well, for instance, I went out to see if I couldn't land that little secret of the receiving motor myself, as I just told you. If International doesn't want to take me in, or if I can't break in, maybe there can be another company formed—there's considerable corporation room left in New Jersey36. You folks on the International have been having your own troubles with labor37, haven't you?"
"Well, rather!" growled Ackerman. "We put that up to old Colonel J. R. Bonehead, our president! He seems to have got in about as nearly wrong as any one could with our esteemed38 friends of the labor unions!"
"Naturally; well, I'll make a confession39, since we're all friends together—I've had men conferring with your horny-handed citizens and suggesting that the International Power Company was 'unfair,' and a bad outfit40 to work for!"
"That was nice of you!" growled Ackerman, getting red in the face. "Fine business, for you to come snooping around our works."
The slender man smiled at him pleasantly. "How else could I get information?" he inquired. "You must remember that I'm no longer on the board! But you must remember, also, that of late I have picked up an occasional dollar's worth of International. I wanted to know how about certain things!"
"Well, how about them, then?" demanded Standley fiercely. "Where do we stand?"
"You want me to incriminate myself!"
"Oh, fiddlesticks about incrimination! Cut out that part of it!"
"All right, I will," said the other grimly. "Well, then, I've tried my best to bribe41 your people, and I've got little out of it. I've tried the foreman, the night watchman, and everybody else. I've had a dozen of your workmen slugged for scabbing, and four or five of them shot, one or two at least, for a good, permanent funeral. And I paid the funeral expenses! You didn't know that? Well, that's the truth of it!"
"I know a good deal about it, my Christian43 friend," said the slender man relentlessly44. "I can tell you what you already know, that your motors are dismantled45 to-day. I can tell you also that there's a very good chance that the secret we've been after is in the hands of one man, and he's holding it up for some reason best known to himself. We've got nothing on him! I can also tell you that if he won't give up—though why he won't, I can't imagine—it's possible we can work out a receiver of our own elsewhere, without him."
VII
"Well, what does he want?" This from the old man.
"That's the everlasting46 mystery and puzzle of it. He doesn't want anything, so far as I can learn. There's some factor in him that I can't get my hands on, try the best that I can. Not that I don't expect to break you wide open eventually, my friends."
"Now why do you want to do that?" asked the older financier. "Why not join in with us and break the bonehead?"
"Fine! But how can we do that? He's sitting pretty tight. The man's played in fine luck. I admit I rather admire him."
"Bah, that's the way with all the new ones; they all play in luck for a time. Each Napoleon has his boom, but after a time boom values shrink—they always do. This chap'll find his level when we get ready to tell him."
"For instance?"
"Well, for instance, then! He's sitting there with a small margin47 of control in the International. That gave him his start, and he's wise enough to hang on to that. But it didn't give him his money—he's only made dividend28 money out of that; and who cares for dividend money? He doesn't own control in the Guatemala Oil Company, does he? He's made a lot out of Arizona and Utah coppers49, but he doesn't own control in a single company there, does he? He's in with the L.P., but he borrowed to get in. He's made a big killing50 in Rubber, but he doesn't own any Rubber control of his own, does he? Now, you follow him out in every deal he's made—-iron, copper48, steel, oil, rails, timber, irrigation, utilities, industrials—and you'll find he's simply been banking51 on his inside information and his outside credit. Who gave him both of those things?—Why, we did, didn't we? All right! Suppose we withdraw our credit. What happens?"
VIII
They went silent now, and grouped a little closer about the tabouret which stood between them. The old man's voice went on evenly, with no excitement. Their conversation attracted the attention of none in the wide lounging room, where large affairs more than once had been discussed—even the making of Senators to order.
"I'll tell you what happens," the old man resumed. "He quits using us for a stalking horse, and he comes down to his own system. He's spread out. Banks are all polite, but—well, he has to put up collateral52; and then some more. If he doesn't want to put up International, he's apt to find that a bunch of automobiles is poor property when sold at twenty per cent. their cost. He turns off two or three butlers, but still that doesn't serve for margins53. The market doesn't suit his book any more.
"He's discovering now the great truth of something any old friend Emory Storrs used to say—Emory always was in debt, or wanted to be, and says he: 'There's no trouble about prosperity in this country; there's plenty of money—the only trouble is in the confounded scarcity54 in collateral.' Well, he goes over to this young man, who is standing out for some reason best known to himself, and he tries to get him to come through, and he doesn't come through. What's left? Why, the diamond lightnings of the Lady of the Lightnings—and his International Power stock.
"Meantime, all this thing can't be kept entirely55 secret; that is to say, the market part of it can't be. But we sit tight, all of us. We hold our regular directors' meetings of the International board, and we smile, and look pleasant. We don't know a thing about his hot water experiences in the open market. He explains to us why this and that happens, or doesn't happen, in International; and we smile and look pleasant, and we don't know a thing. After a time it's up to him and the Lady of the Lightnings. Something pops! He's up against it, all except his International Power. Then Van, and you, Standley, and you, Ack, and you, and you and I, and all of us—why we're still pleasant as pie to him and we say, 'Well, Mr. John Rawn, if you'd only sell us two or three shares of International, we'd pay you twenty times what it's worth—but it's very much cheaper now—by reason of Van's competing company!'
"That's about all, I think!"
The others nodded silently. The game was not new to them, and even in its most complicated features might have been called simple, with resources such as theirs. If these resources had made Rawn, they could unmake him. It was all in the day's work for them.
"So I'll tell you what we'll do," concluded the old financier after a time. "We'll just let you and Van look around here a little bit and see what more you can learn. You're one of the real directors of International Power to-day, Van. Mr. Rawn is on the minority and the toboggan list, or is going to be there. We'll take the first steps when we see the boys down East. The country's getting right now for a little speculation—things have been dead long enough. There'll be a market. When the market starts, I think you know which way it will go for a certain person I needn't name."
IX
They rose, stood about loungingly for a time, and at length slowly separated, the older man and the ex-director with the pointed beard falling back of the others for just an instant.
"What's the truth about the row, Van?" demanded the old man, laying a large, pudgy hand on the other's shoulder.
"I don't know, honestly, what it is. I can tell you this much—your factory is closed. Your superintendent, Halsey, has quit his work and left his old residence. Didn't Rawn tell you that?"
"No! What's up now—some trouble with a woman? Wasn't he married to Rawn's daughter?"
"Yes, and she went to live with Papa. Papa had the coin."
"And the superintendent is going the chorus girl route here or in New York?"
"No, sir, not in the least,—nothing of the sort. You can't guess where he's gone."
The other shook his head.
"Well, I'll tell you then, since you are one of the directors of the International and I'm not! He's gone and taken his other pair of pants and his celluloid collar, and moved over to the North Shore! He's living in the same house with Papa J. Rawn right now;—that is to say, he has been for two or three weeks."
"Well, what do you know about that, too!" commented his friend.
"I don't know much about it. As I told you, there's something in here I don't understand. I can't for the life of me figure out that chap Halsey's motives56 or his moves. But I don't care about him. It's Rawn I'm after—and I'm going to get him!"
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immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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impromptu
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mere
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prey
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prying
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detested
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casually
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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animatedly
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pointed
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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belly
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engraved
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trademark
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awfully
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spoke
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standing
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strings
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superintendent
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contraband
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irrelevantly
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amiably
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automobiles
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dividend
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dividends
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discreetly
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reverting
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grievance
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supreme
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rascal
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anarchy
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jersey
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labor
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esteemed
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confession
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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bribe
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gasped
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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44
relentlessly
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| adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断 | |
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45
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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46
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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47
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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48
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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49
coppers
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| 铜( copper的名词复数 )； 铜币 | |
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50
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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51
banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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52
collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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53
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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54
scarcity
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| n.缺乏，不足，萧条 | |
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55
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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