Chapter VI (1)

It seemed as though the regeneration of Gilmartin had been achieved when he changed his shabby raiment for expensive clothes. He paid his tradesmen’s bills and moved into better quarters. He spent his money as though he had made millions. One week after he had closed out the deal his friends would have sworn Gilmartin had always been prosperous. That was his exterior. His inner self remained the same—a gambler. He began to speculate again, in the office of Freeman’s brokers.

At the end of the second month he had lost not only the $1,200 he had deposited with the firm, but an additional $250 he had given his wife and had been obliged to “borrow” back from her, despite her assurances that he would lose it. This time, the slump was really unexpected by all, even by the magnates—the mysterious and all powerful “they” of Freeman’s—so that the loss of the second fortune did not reflect on Gilmartin’s ability as a speculator but on his luck. As a matter of fact, he had been too careful and had sinned from over-timidity at first, only to plunge later and lose all.

As the result of much thought about his losses Gilmartin became a professional tipster. To let others speculate for him seemed the only sure way of winning. He began by advising ten victims—he learned in time to call them clients—to sell Steel Rod preferred, each man 100 shares; and to a second ten he urged the purchase of the same quantity of the same stock. To all he advised taking four points’ profit. Not all followed his advice, but the seven clients who sold it made between them nearly $3,000 over night. His percentage amounted to $287.50. Six bought and when they lost he told them confidentially how the treachery of a leading member of the pool had obliged the pool managers to withdraw their support from the stock temporarily; whence the decline. They grumbled; but he assured them that he himself had lost nearly $1,600 of his own on account of the traitor.

For some months Gilmartin made a fair living but business became very dull. People learned to fight shy of his tips. The persuasiveness was gone from his inside news and from his confidential advice from Sharpe and from his beholding with his own eyes the signing of epoch-making documents. Had he been able to make his customers alternate their winnings and losses he might have kept his trade. But for example, “Dave” Rossiter, in Stuart & Stern’s office, stupidly received the wrong tip six times in succession. It wasn’t Gilmartin’s fault but Rossiter’s bad luck.

At length failing to get enough clients in the ticker-district itself Gilmartin was forced to advertise in an afternoon paper, six times a week, and in the Sunday edition of one of the leading morning dailies. They ran like this:

WE MAKE MONEY

for our investors by the best system ever devised. Deal with
genuine experts. Two methods of operating; one speculative, the
other insures absolute safety.

NOW

is the time to invest in a certain stock for ten points sure
profit. Three points margin will carry it. Remember how correct we
have been on other stocks. Take advantage of this move.

IOWA MIDLAND.

Big movement coming in this stock. It’s very near at hand. Am
waiting daily for word. Will get it in time. Splendid opportunity
to make big money. It costs only a 2–cent stamp to write to me.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION.

Private secretary of banker and stock operator of world-wide
reputation, has valuable information. I don’t wish your money. Use
your own broker. All I want is a share of what you will surely
make if you follow my advice.

WILL ADVANCE $40 PER SHARE.

A fortune to be made in a railroad stock. Deal pending which will
advance same $40 per share within three months. Am in position to
keep informed as to developments and the operations of a pool.
Parties who will carry for me 100 shares with a New York Stock
Exchange house will receive the full benefit of information.
Investment safe and sure. Highest references given.

He prospered amazingly. Answers came to him from furniture dealers on Fourth Avenue and dairymen up the State and fruit growers in Delaware and factory workers in Massachusetts and electricians in New Jersey and coal miners in Pennsylvania and shop keepers and physicians and plumbers and undertakers in towns and cities near and far. Every morning Gilmartin telegraphed to scores of people—at their expense—to sell, and to scores of others to buy the same stocks. And he claimed his commissions from the winners.

Little by little his savings grew; and with them grew his desire to speculate on his own account. It made him irritable, not to gamble.

He met Freeman one day in one of his dissatisfied moods. Out of politeness he asked the young cynic the universal query of the Street:

“What do you think of ‘em?” He meant stocks.

“What difference does it make what _I_ think?” sneered Freeman, with proud humility. “I’m nobody.” But he looked as if he did not agree with himself.

“What do you _know_?” pursued Gilmartin, mollifyingly.

“I know enough to be long of Gotham Gas. I just bought a thousand shares at 180.” He really had bought a hundred only.

“What on?”

“On information. I got it straight from a director of the company. Look here, Gilmartin, I’m pledged to secrecy. But, for your own benefit, I’ll just tell you to buy all the Gas you possibly can carry. The deal is on. I know that certain papers were signed last night, and they are almost ready to spring it on the public. They haven’t got all the stock they want. When they get it, look out for fireworks.”

Gilmartin did not perceive any resemblance between Freeman’s tips and his own. He said, hesitatingly, as though ashamed of his timidity:

“The stock seems pretty high at 180.”

“You won’t think so when it sells at 250. Gilmartin, I don’t _hear_ this; I don’t _think_ it; I _know_ it!”

“All right; I’m in,” quoth Gilmartin, jovially. He felt a sense of emancipation now that he had made up his mind to resume his speculating. He took every cent of the nine hundred dollars he had made from telling people the same things that Freeman told him now, and bought a hundred Gotham Gas at $185 a share. Also he telegraphed to all his clients to plunge in the stock.

It fluctuated between 184 and 186 for a fortnight. Freeman daily asseverated that “they” were accumulating the stock. But, one fine day, the directors met, agreed that business was bad and having sold out most of their own holdings, decided to reduce the dividend rate from 8 to 6 per cent. Gotham Gas broke seventeen points in ten short minutes. Gilmartin lost all he had. He found it impossible to pay for his advertisements. The telegraph companies refused to accept any more “collect” messages. This deprived Gilmartin of his income as a tipster. Griggs had kept on speculating and had lost all his money and his wife’s in a little deal in Iowa Midland. All that Gilmartin could hope to get from him was an occasional invitation to dinner. Mrs. Gilmartin, after they were dispossessed for non-payment of rent, left her husband and went to live with a sister in Newark who did not like Gilmartin.

His clothes became shabby and his meals irregular. But always in his heart, as abiding as an inventor’s faith in himself, there dwelt the hope that some day, somehow, he would “strike it rich” in the stock market.

One day he borrowed five dollars from a man who had made five thousand in Cosmopolitan Traction. The stock, the man said, had only begun to go up, and Gilmartin believed it and bought five shares in “Percy’s,” his favorite bucket-shop. The stock began to rise slowly but steadily. The next afternoon “Percy’s” was raided, the proprietor having disagreed with the police as to price.

Gilmartin lingered about New Street, talking with other customers of the raided bucket shop, discussing whether or not it was a “put up job” of old Percy himself who, it was known, had been losing money to the crowd for weeks past. One by one the victims went away and at length Gilmartin left the ticker district. He walked slowly down Wall Street, then turned up William Street, thinking of his luck. Cosmopolitan Traction had certainly looked like higher prices. Indeed, it seemed to him that he could almost hear the stock shouting, articulately: “_I’m going up, right away, right away!_” If somebody would buy a thousand shares and agree to give him the profits on a hundred, on ten, on one!

But he had not even his carfare. Then he remembered that he had not eaten since breakfast. It did him no good to remember it now. He would have to get his dinner from Griggs in Brooklyn.

“Why,” Gilmartin told himself with a burst of curious self-contempt, “I can’t even buy a cup of coffee!”

He raised his head and looked about him to find how insignificant a restaurant it was in which he could not buy even a cup of coffee. He had reached Maiden Lane. As his glance ran up and down the north side of that street, it was arrested by the sign:

MAXWELL & KIP.

At first he felt but vaguely what it meant. It had grown unfamiliar with absence. The clerks were coming out. Jameson, looking crustier than ever, as though he were forever thinking how much better than Jenkins he could run the business; Danny, some inches taller, no longer an office boy but spick and span in a blue serge suit and a necktie of the latest style, exhaling health and correctness; Williamson, grown very gray and showing on his face thirty years of routine; Baldwin, happy as of yore at the ending of the day’s work, and smiling at the words of Jenkins—Gilmartin’s successor who wore an air of authority, of the habit of command which he had not known in the old days.

Of a sudden Gilmartin was in the midst of his old life. He saw all that he had been, all that he might still be. And he was overwhelmed. He longed to rush to his old associates, to speak to them, to shake hands with them, to be the old Gilmartin. He was about to step toward Jenkins; but stopped abruptly. His clothes were shabby and he felt ashamed. But, he apologized to himself, he could tell them how he had made a hundred thousand and had lost it. And he even might borrow a few dollars from Jenkins.

Gilmartin turned on his heel with a sudden impulse and walked away from Maiden Lane quickly. All that he thought now was that he would not have them see him in his plight. He felt the shabbiness of his clothes without looking at them. As he walked, a great sense of loneliness came over him.

He was back in Wall Street. At the head of the Street was old Trinity; to the right the sub-Treasury; to the left the Stock Exchange.

From Maiden Lane to the Lane of the Ticker—such had been his life.

“If I could only buy some Cosmopolitan Traction!” he said. Then he walked forlornly northward, to the great Bridge, on his way to Brooklyn to eat with Griggs, the ruined grocery-man.

A PHILANTHROPIC WHISPER

There have been all manner of big stock operators and “leaders” in Wall Street—gentlemanly, well-educated leaders with a gift of epigram and foul-spoken leaders who knew as little of grammar as of manners; leaders to whom the stock market was only the Monte Carlo of the Tape and leaders to whom it was a means to an end; cool, calculating, steel-nerved leaders and fidgety, impulsive, excitable leaders; leaders who were church pillars and total abstainers and leaders whose only God was the ticker and whose most brilliant operations were carried on during the course of a drunken debauch. But never before, in the breathless history of Wall Street, had there been a leader whose following was numbered by the thousands and included not only the “shoe-string” speculators but the very richest of the rich! Never before a leader whose word took the place of statistical information, whose mere “I am buying it” created more purchasers for a stock than all the glowing prospectuses and all the accountants’ affidavits and all the bankers’ estimates.

At first Wall Street said the public was suffering from an epidemic of speculative insanity; that Colonel Treadwell was merely a bold operator “backed” by a clique of the greatest fortunes in America; that he was not a skilful “manipulator” of values, but by sheer brute force of tremendous buying he made those stocks advance with which he was identified and that, of course, the public always follows the stocks that are made active; and many other explanations. But in the end Wall Street came to realize exactly to what it was that the blind devotion of the speculative public for the colonel was due. Defying all traditions, upsetting all precedents, violating all rules, driving all the “veterans” to the verge of hysterics and bankruptcy by his daily defiance of accepted views as to the art of operating in stocks, Colonel Josiah T. Treadwell founded a new school: He told the truth.

The colonel sat in his office alone with his thoughts. The door was open—it was always open—and the clerks and customers of Treadwell & Co. as they passed to and fro caught glimpses of the great leader’s broad, kindly face and shrewd, little, twinkling eyes that seemed to smile at them. They wondered what new “deal” the colonel was planning. And then they wished with all their souls and purses they knew the name of the stock—merely the name of it—so that they might “get in on the ground floor.”

The famous operator sat on a revolving chair by his desk. He had turned his back on an accumulation of correspondence and he now rotated from right to left and from left to right. The tips of his shoes—he was a short man—missed the floor by an inch or two and he swung his feet contentedly. A ticker whirred away blithely and from time to time Treadwell ceased his rocking and his foot-swinging, and glanced jovially at the ticker “tape.” From his window he could see a Mississippi of people or a bit of New York summer sky, but his restless eyes were roaming and skipping from place to place. And the clerks and the customers wondered whether the market was going the way the colonel had planned. The ticker was whirring and clicking, impassively, and the colonel wore a meditative look. What was the “old man” scheming? The bears had better be on their guard! As a matter of fact, Josiah T. Treadwell was thinking that his brother Wilson, who had left him a few minutes before, was certainly growing bald. He also wondered whether people who advertised “restorers” and “invigorators” were veracious or merely “Wall Streety” as he put it to himself.

A young man, an utter stranger to Colonel Treadwell, halted at the door, and looked at the leader of the stock market, hesitatingly.

“Come in, come in,” called out the colonel, cheerily. “Won’t you walk into my parlor?”

“Good-morning, Colonel Treadwell,” said the lad, diffidently.

“Who are you, and what are you, and what can I do for you?” said the colonel, extending his hand.

The youth did not heed the chubby, outstretched hand. “My name,” he said, very formally and introductorily, “is Carey. My father used to know you when he was editor of the _Blankburg Herald_.”

“Well,” said the colonel, encouragingly, “shake hands anyhow.”

Carey shook hands; his diffidence vanished. He was a pleasant-faced, pleasant-voiced young fellow, Treadwell thought. He was a good-hearted, jocular old fellow, unlike what he had imagined the leader of the stock market would be, Carey thought.

“Yes,” went on the colonel, “I remember your father very well. I never forget my up-the-State friends, and I am always glad to see their sons. When I ran for Congress, Bill Carey wrote red-hot editorials in my favor, and I was beaten by a large and enthusiastic majority. I haven’t seen your father in twenty-odd years—not since he went wrong and took to politics.”

“Well, Colonel Treadwell,” laughed Carey, “I guess Dad did his best for you. And if you didn’t go to Congress you’re better off, from all I have read in the papers about you.”

You would have thought they had known each other for years.

“That’s what I say; I have to,” chuckling.

“Colonel,” said the young man, boldly, “I’ve come to ask your advice.”

“Most people don’t ask it twice. Be careful now.”

“Do you mean that they get so rich following it that they don’t have to come again?”

“You are a politician, young man. You’ll wake up and find yourself in Congress, some fine day, unless your father goes back to newspaper work and writes some editorials in _your_ favor.”

The boy had a pleasant smile, the colonel thought.

“I have saved up some money, Colonel.”

“Keep it. That’s the best advice I can give you. Go away instantly. Great Scott, youngster, you are in Wall Street now.”

“Oh, I—I’m safe enough in this office, I guess,” retorted Carey.

The famous leader of the stock market looked at him solemnly. The boy returned the look, imperturbably. Then Colonel Treadwell laughed, and Carey laughed back at him.

“What are you doing to keep out of State’s prison?” asked Treadwell.

“I’m a clerk in the office of the Federal Pump Company, third floor, upstairs. I have saved some money and I want to know what to do with it. I read an article in the _Sun_ the other day. It said you had advised people to put their savings into Suburban Trolley and how well they had fared.”

“That was a year ago. Trolley has gone up 50 points since then.”

“That shows how good the advice was. And you also said a young man should do something with his savings and not let them lie idle.” The young man looked straight into the little, twinkling, kindly eyes of the leader of the stock market.

“How much money have you?”

“I have two hundred and ten dollars,” replied the lad with an uncertain smile. He had felt proud of the magnitude of his savings in his own room; in this office he felt a bit ashamed of their insignificance.

“Dear me,” said the millionaire speculator, very seriously, “that is a good deal of money. It’s a blame sight more’n I had, when I started in business. Got it with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’ll introduce you to my brother Wilson, who has charge of our customers. Come in, John.”

“John” came in. His other name was Mellen. He was a slim, quiet-looking man of about five-and-fifty. His enemies said that he had made $1,000,000 for every year he had lived and had kept it.

“Sit down, John,” said Colonel Treadwell, shaking hands with Mr. Mellen, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

At the door he shook hands with two more visitors—a tall, ruddy-faced, white-haired, and white-whiskered man, Mr. Milton Steers, after-dinner speaker and self-confessed wit; and, incidentally, president of a railroad system; also Mr. D. M. Ogden, who looked like an English clergyman and was the owner of the huge Ogden Buildings in Wall Street. They had come to discuss the advisability of a new deal in “Trolley.” They represented, they and their associates, more than $500,000,000. But Colonel Treadwell made them wait while he escorted his new acquaintance to his brother’s room.

“Wilse,” he said, “I’ve brought you a new customer, Mr. Carey.”

Wilson P. Treadwell smiled pleasantly. He was a tall, slender man with a serious look. The firm did not desire new accounts, for there was already more business than could be handled. They were the busiest and the best-known stock brokers in the United States. But the colonel’s friends were welcome, always.

“I’m very glad to meet Mr. Carey,” said Wilson Treadwell. The firm had some very youthful customers; but their means were in inverse ratio to their years.

“I think,” said the colonel, “that we had better buy some Easton & Allentown for him.” He was smiling; he generally did. Moreover, he was thinking of his brother’s mistaken impression of the new customer.

“That is a good idea,” assented Wilson. “You ought to put in your order at once. The stock is going up very fast, Mr. Carey.”

“Well, young man, give him your margin and let him buy you as much as he thinks best,” said the colonel.

“Five thousand shares?” suggested Wilson Treadwell.

Colonel Treadwell chuckled. “Five thousand? A paltry five?”

“Well, fifty thousand if he wants them, and you guarantee his account,” said his brother with a smile.

“I guess,” said the leader of the stock market, slowly, “that you had better begin with one hundred shares.”

Then Wilson, who knew his brother thoroughly, said “Oh!” and smiled and gave an order to a clerk to buy one hundred shares of Easton & Allentown Railroad stock at the “market” or prevailing price, for Mr. Carey, and took the boy’s two hundred and ten dollars with the utmost gravity. The smallest Stock Exchange house would not accept such a pitiful account. Treadwell & Co. being the largest, would and did.

The colonel shook hands with young Carey, whose father had once edited a country newspaper, but who had never been an intimate friend, told him to “Come again, any time,” and went back to his accomplices.

Easton & Allentown stock was the “feature” of the market that week and the next. Ten days after Carey had bought his hundred shares at 94 the stock sold at 106.

The young man went into the office of Treadwell & Co., on the eleventh day. He knew he had made a great deal of money—more than he had ever thought of having at his age—but he did not know what to do now. He heard one man say to another: “Take profits? Not at this price. E. & A. is sure to go to 115.”

Carey figured that if he waited for the stock to sell at 115, he would make nearly a thousand dollars more.

“There is no use of being a blamed hog,” the man continued, with picturesque emphasis, “but where in blazes is the sense of throwing away that much money by selling out too soon? Limit your losses and let your profits run.”

They stood in the corridor of the partitioned office, the crowd of men, all of them customers of Treadwell & Co., excepting the newspaper reporters who had called for their usual daily interview with the famous leader of the stock market. There were two United States Senators; an ex-Congressman; a score of men who had inherited fortunes and were doubling them in the stock market; three or four gray-haired shrewd-faced capitalists whose names appeared many times in the financial pages of newspapers; a baker’s dozen of prominent municipal politicians, a well-known Western railroad president with a ruddy face and a snow-white beard; two famous physicians; the vice-president of a life insurance company; a half score of wholesale merchants and a low-voiced, insignificant little man, with a quiet, almost apologetic look, who seldom spoke and never smiled, but who, next to the colonel himself, was beyond question the heaviest “plunger” in the office.

The colonel came out of his office to go to his brother’s room, where, seated about a long polished table were several directors of the Suburban Trolley Company—men to whom the newspapers always referred not by name but as “prominent insiders.” It was a very important gathering. It involved no less than a final understanding in regards to the great “Trolley pool” whose operations, later on, were to become historical in Wall Street. It was, as one of the speculators outside put it, “a case of show down”—the cash resources available for pool purposes were to be ascertained, each man announcing the proportion of the 100,000 shares for which he was willing to “put up.”

Carey was standing by the door of Wilson Treadwell’s office. He did not feel altogether comfortable, among so many elderly and obviously very rich men. His diffidence was the saving of him for as the colonel passed he paused and said, in a low voice: “Got your stock yet?”

The customers in the corridor, men who, by the colonel’s advice, were “carrying” from 500 to 10,000 shares each of Easton & Allentown, leaned forward eagerly. All were men who north of Wall Street would not have stooped to listen to others’ conversations if their lives depended on it. In a broker’s office, when the leader of the stock market was speaking, such notions were absurd, almost wicked. Certainly, at that moment, twenty pairs of eyes were looking fixedly at the great leader of the stock market and the young clerk.

The colonel felt this intuitively. He confirmed it with a quick glance of his sharp little eyes. He had not sold all his Easton & Allentown, but was disposing of it just as fast as the market would take it. It was not likely that the stock would go much higher. Wall Street, ever loath to believe well of any stock operator, used to comment sneeringly on the fact that the world heard much about the “Treadwell buying” but never a word about the Treadwell selling.

If the colonel gave a hint to the customers there would be an avalanche of selling orders that would make the price of the stock break sharply, and this would not benefit anyone. He had advised them to buy the stock at 90 and at 95–-it was 105 now. He had more than done his duty. If they did not sell out, in the hope of making more, it was their own lookout.

But there was the boy with the one hundred shares, the pleasant little clerk from up-the-State, who had brought in his entire fortune, his accumulated savings of two hundred and ten dollars. He was a stranger to Wall Street. But supposing he should tell that he had been advised to sell? There would be the deuce to pay!

The colonel took chances. Out of one corner of his mouth, so that he did not even turn his head toward the boy and so that the watching customers could not suspect what he was doing, he shot a quick whisper—a lob-sided but philanthropic affair—at him: “Look at the color of your money, boy! Take your profits and say nothing!” And he walked into the room where the Suburban Trolley magnates awaited him impatiently.

Carey, thrilled but taciturn, gave his order to sell his Easton & Allentown, unsuspected by the mob. They sold it for him at 105⅛. Deducting commissions and interest charges the colonel’s whisper had put $1,050 in the young clerk’s pocket.

And the stock went a little higher and then declined slowly to about 99. The customers all made a great deal of money as it was, but not as much as they would have “taken out” of the Easton & Allentown “deal” if they had overheard that one of Colonel Treadwell’s many whispers—lob-sided but philanthropic affairs!

THE MAN WHO WON

“Brown,” said Mr. John P. Greener, as he turned away from the ticker in the corner, “I wish you would go over to the Board and see how the market is for Iowa Midland. Find out how much stock there is for sale and who has it. It ought to be pretty well distributed about the Street.”

“What’s up in it?” asked his partner, curiously.

“Nothing—yet,” answered Greener, quietly.

He sat down at his desk and took up a letter, headed “President’s Office, Keokuk & Northern Railway Company, Keokuk, Iowa.” When he had finished the entire sixteen closely written pages, he arose and paced slowly up and down his office.

He was a sallow-faced, black-bearded little man, slender—almost frail looking—with a high but rather narrow forehead. His eyes were furtive, shifty bits of brown light. He was thinking, and thinking to some purpose. Any one, even a stranger, seeing him, would have known that he was thinking of something big—the forehead was responsible for the impression; and also of something tricky, unscrupulous, cold-blooded—his eyes were to blame there. At length his brow cleared. He muttered: “I must have that road. Then, a consolidation with my Keokuk & Northern; and a new system that will endure as long as the country!”

Brown returned in a half hour and reported. There was very little stock for sale below $42 a share—a few small lots held by unimportant commission houses. The vendible supply increased at 44, and at 46 “inside stock would come out,” which, translated into plain English, meant that whenever the price of Iowa Midland Railway Company stock rose to $46 per share, directors of the company or close friends of theirs would be found willing to part with their holdings. It was thus evident that the greater part of such stock of the Iowa Midland as the Street was “carrying” speculatively was not for sale at such a price as would be regarded in the light of a great bargain by Mr. John F. Greener, president _de facto_ of the rival Keokuk & Northern Railway, but better known to countless “lambs” and widows and orphans and brother financiers as the Napoleon of the Street.

“Any supporting orders?” piped Greener. Stocks are “supported,” or bought on declines, so that the price shall not go down too much, and above all not too quickly.

“Bagley has orders to buy 300 shares every quarter of a point down until 37 is reached, and then to take 5,000 shares at that figure. He got them direct from Willetts himself.” Bagley was a broker who made a specialty of dealing in Iowa Midland. Willetts was the president of the company.

“Willetts,” squeaked Greener, “was in Council Bluffs this morning. He is to take part in the ceremonies of unveiling the Soldiers’ Monument, which begin at one o’clock—that is, within twenty minutes, allowing for difference in time. He will be out of the reach of the telegraph for the afternoon.”

Brown laughed. “No wonder they are afraid of you.”

“Brown,” said Greener, “start the movement by selling 10,000 shares of Iowa Midland. Divide it up among the boys on the floor. It would be well if the room were frightened by the selling. It is more important for us to get the price down than to put out shorts at high figures. I want that stock down.” If he had merely desired to sell the stock “short” he would have gone about it carefully, to disturb the price as little as possible.

“If you want that I think you’ll get it,” said Brown. As he was going out Mr. Greener squeaked after him: “Keep them guessing, Brown; keep them guessing.”

“That,” mused Mr. John F. Greener, “ought to mean a three-or four-point break in Iowa Midland at the very least, and perhaps we can work through the peg at 37. We’ll see.” By the “peg” he meant the figure at which the supporting orders to buy were heaviest.

A few minutes later the Iowa Midland “post” on the floor of the Stock Exchange was surrounded by a dozen puzzled and apprehensive but gentlemanly brokers. And still a few minutes later the same spot was a seething whirlpool of maniacal humanity. It was appalling, the sight of these gesticulating, yelling, fighting, coat-tearing, fisticuffing brokers—appalling and vulgar, selfish, unpleasant, ungentlemanly but eminently typical. And all that caused the transformation was the fact that Mr. Brown had been seen whispering to Harry Wilson, and Harry Wilson had left him, gone to the Iowa Midland crowd, and sold 1,000 shares at 42⅛ and 42. Then Mr. Brown had been seen speaking with W. G. Carleton in what struck witnesses as being a more or less agitated manner, and later Carleton had sauntered carelessly over to the Iowa Midland precinct, and, after displaying very great indifference about the world in general, but most particularly about the market for Iowa Midland, had sold 1,500 shares to Bagley, the specialist, at 41¾, 41⅝, and 41½. Mr. Brown was now watched by two or three scores of sharp eyes, all having the same expression. And he was observed to look about him apprehensively and then begin to converse with Frank J. Pratt; whereupon Pratt, as fast as his fat legs would carry him, hastened to “Iowa Midland” and sold 2,000 shares at an average price of 41. The observant eyes had by this taken on a new expression—of indecision; but when they beheld Mr. Brown anxiously beckon to his “particular” friend, Dan Simpson, and saw shrill-voiced Dan rush like mad into the increasing crowd and sell 5,000 shares of Iowa Midland, apparently regardless of price, the observant eyes ceased to observe Brown. Activity was transferred to their owners’ throats as they thought to emulate Simpson and the rest of the Brown “whisperees.” Everybody scented danger, especially as the same “whisperees” had not “given up” the name of Brown & Greener as the real sellers, but had sold as though each Brown-talked man was acting for himself—which every other man in the room knew was out of the question, and which, in turn, increased the general uneasiness. It was a confident and yet a mystifying movement. It became more maddeningly perplexing when certain brokers, believed to be “close to the inside,” also began to sell the stock. Everybody started to do likewise. And everybody asked the same question—“What’s the matter?”—and received an avalanche of answers, all different but all unfavorable. One man said it was crop failures, another mentioned divers kinds of bugs, a third asserted it was extensive wash-outs and ruinous landslides, and bankrupting attacks by a socialistic legislature, and receivership probabilities.

Each of these was a good and sufficient reason why Iowa Midland stock should be sold. The comparison is odiously trite, but the growth of an adverse rumor in Wall Street really resembles nothing so much as the traditional snowball rolling down a hillside and becoming larger and larger as it rolls, until it is huge, terrific, with appalling possibilities for evil.

The Board Room became Iowa-Midland-mad. Speculators often stampede—just like other animals. No stock can withstand their rush to sell, even though it be “protected” or “supported” by its manipulators, much less a stock like Iowa Midland, whose market sponsor was out of town, and out of reach of the telegraph.

From all over the room men rushed to Brown, who was sitting calmly at the Erie “post,” chatting pleasantly with a friend.

“Brown, what’s up in Iowa Midland?” one of them asked, feverishly. The others listened eagerly.

Brown might have said, “I don’t know,” rudely, and turned his back on them. But he did not. He responded jocularly: “It seems to me that something is down in Iowa Midland, that something being about three points, I should say. Ha! ha!”

By this time nearly all the listeners had concluded that, since Brown refused to tell, there must be something serious—something very serious. Brown obviously was still selling the stock through other brokers, and would keep the bad news to himself until he had marketed his “line.” After that, probably he would become interestingly garrulous. They therefore advised their respective offices to get rid of their Iowa Midland stock. It might be all right; but it might be all wrong. And it was going down fast.

Mr. Greener in his office was looking at the “tape” as it came out of the little electrical printing machine that records the transactions and prices.

The sallow-faced little man permitted himself a slight—a very slight—smile. The tape showed: “IA. MID., 1000. 39; 300. 38¾; 500. ⅝; 300. ½; 200. ⅜; ¼; 300. 38.”

He turned away to summon a clerk, to whom he said: “Mr. Rock, please send for Mr. Coolidge. Make haste.”

“Very well, sir.”

A portly, white-waistcoated, white-haired man, with snow-white, short-cropped side whiskers, burst unceremoniously into the room.

“How do you do, Mr. Ormiston?” squeaked Greener, cordially.

“Greener,” panted the portly man, “what’s the matter with Iowa Midland?”

“How should I know?” in a half-complaining, half-petulant squeak.

“Brown started the selling. I saw it myself. Greener, I did you a good turn once in Central District Telegraph. I’m long 6,000 shares of this Iowa Midland. For God’s sake, man, if you know anything——”

“Mr. Ormiston, all I know is what I learn from my confidential reports of the Iowa crop. Along the line of the Keokuk & Northern the crop is not what I hoped for.” And he shook his head dolefully.

“_Ticky-ticky-ticky tick!_” said the ticker, calmly.

The portly man approached the little machine. “Thirty-seven-and-an-eighth. Thirty-seven!” he shouted. “Great Scott! she’s going down like a——” He did not finish the comparison, but rushed out of the office without pausing to say good-by. At one o’clock his 6,000 shares at $42½ represented $255,000. Now, at two o’clock, at $37, the same stock would fetch about $222,000. A depreciation of $33,000 in an hour is apt to make one neglectful of the little niceties. An additional un-nicety was the obvious fact that an attempt to sell 6,000 shares on a declining market would inevitably cause a still further drop. Mr. Ormiston was excusable.

Again Mr. Greener summoned a confidential clerk.

“Mr. Rock,” he squeaked, placidly, “telephone Mr. Brown that Ormiston, Monkhouse & Co. are about to sell 6,000 shares of Iowa Midland, and that Mr. Coolidge must not pay more than 35 for it.”

“Mr. Coolidge is in your private room, sir,” announced an office-boy.

The little financier, with an expressionless, sallow face, confronted his chief confidential broker. Their relations were unsuspected by the Street. Everybody thought Coolidge was a pleasant and honorable man.

“Coolidge, go to the Board at once. Ormiston is going to sell 6,000 shares of Iowa Midland. Get it as cheap as you can. Don’t be in a hurry, though.”

“How much shall I buy?” asked the broker, jotting down a few figures in his order book.

“As much as you can; all that is offered below 37,” squeaked the Napoleon of the Street. It was a Napoleonic order. “And, Coolidge, I don’t want this known by any one. Clear the stock yourself.” It meant that Mr. Coolidge was to put the stock through the Clearing House in his own name. As there is a charge for this service, in addition to the usual buying or selling commission, such steps are not resorted to unless it is desired to conceal the identity of the broker’s principal, should the latter be a fellow-member of the Exchange.

“Very well, Mr. Greener. Good-morning.” And the broker went out on a run. “Whew!” he whistled when he was in the Street on his way to the Stock Exchange, a few doors below. “Brown & Greener must be short at least 50,000 or 60,000 shares.” This was five times too much. But it showed that Mr. Greener was impartial in his distribution of erroneous impressions. He wanted to accumulate the stock rather than “cover” a short line; but there was no reason why even his most trusted broker should know it.

Ormiston’s 6,000 shares found their way to Mr. Coolidge’s office at from 34⅞ to 35¾. Mr. Brown in the meantime had succeeded in forcing down the prices by the usual tricks. The man who once had done Greener a good turn now did him another—the gift of $40,000!

In addition, Coolidge, employing several brokers, purchased 23,000 shares in all, which meant that Mr. Greener, after “covering” Brown’s early “short sales,” was in possession of fully 14,000 shares of the common stock of the Iowa Midland Railway Company, at a price averaging nearly 6 points lower than they could have been bought on the preceding day, which is to say $75,000 cheaper.

But Brown & Greener had made as much on their short sales, which was actually equivalent to having the lambs pay a man for the privilege of being shorn by him!

Such was the first of a series of skirmishes by means of which the diminutive Napoleon of the Street captured the floating supply of Iowa Midland stock, until he had no less than 65,000 shares safe in his clutches.

All the old tricks that he knew and new devices he invented were used to hide from the Street the fact that Mr. Greener was buying the stock on every opportunity. But beyond a certain limit extensive purchases of a particular stock cannot be concealed from the thousand shrewd men who make their living—a very good living, indeed—by not being blind. First one thing, then another, told these men that some powerful financier or group of financiers had bought enormously of Iowa Midland, “absorbing” unostentatiously all the stock shaken out by the violent fluctuations of the past few months. This fact and the remarkable improvement of business along the line of the road caused a “substantial rise” in the price of the company’s securities. But no one suspected the little Napoleon with the shifty eyes and the squeak and the genius, who had bought in the open market, through unsuspected brokers, and in Iowa from the local holders, by means of secret agents, until he had accumulated 78,600 shares.

Brown said to his partner one day, a little uneasily: “Supposing we can’t get any more stock, what are we going to do with what we have?” To try to sell it, however carefully, would be sure to break the market.

“Brown,” squeaked the little man, plaintively, “I have concluded that in case I can’t get enough stock to bring Willetts and his crowd”—the president of the Iowa Midland and his fellow-directors—“to my way of thinking, we had better sell the block we now hold to the Keokuk & Northern Railway Company at the market price of $68 a share. Perhaps we could even run it up a little higher. Our stock cost us on an average $51 a share. We could take our payment one half in cash and half in first mortgage bonds at a fair discount. The deal would be highly beneficial to the Keokuk & Northern Company, since, having such a large block of her rival’s stock, there would be no more fighting and rate-cutting. Our company would be a powerful factor in the Iowa Midland’s affairs, for we ought to have two or possibly three directors in their board.”

“Greener,” said Brown, “shake!”

“Oh, no; not yet,” squeaked the little man, deprecatingly.

Shortly afterward began a campaign of hostility against the management of the Iowa Midland Railway Company and President Willetts in particular. It was a bitter campaign of defamation, of ingenious accusations, and of alarming prognostications. All the newspapers, important or obscure, subsidized or honest, began to print articles of the kind technically known as “roasts.” The road, it was declared, had escaped a receivership by a sheer miracle. President Willetts’s incompetence was stupendous and incurable. There was, in sooth, some basis for the complaints, and many stockholders were undoubtedly dissatisfied with the Willetts “dynasty.” But not even the newspapers themselves knew that they were merely moving in response to wires artistically pulled by a financial genius of the first water. The stock once more declined. Not knowing who was fighting him, President Willetts was unable to defend himself effectively. Many timid or disgusted holders sold out. Mr. Greener gave no sign of life; but his brokers bought the stock offered for sale.

At length a well-known and talkative broker confided to an intimate friend, who told his intimate friend in confidence, who whispered to his chum, who told, etc., etc., that Mr. John F. Greener had been responsible for the fall and rise of Iowa Midland stock; that for months he had been buying it on the Stock Exchange; that he had quietly picked up some large blocks in Iowa. All of which was very sad, and, worse still, true. Also, that Mr. Greener now held 182,300 shares of the stock, which was even sadder, but untrue.

It really was very well done. The annual meeting of the company was only six weeks away.

The reporters rushed to Mr. Greener’s office. The little financier would not be seen. At length he reluctantly consented to be interviewed. He admitted, after a skilful display of unwillingness, that he had bought Iowa Midland stock. As to the amount, he said that was not of interest to the general public. The reporters finally cornered him and succeeded in making the little financier say, with a fleeting and very peculiar smile: “Yes; it _is_ over 100,000 shares.” And not another word could the newspaper men get out of him.

Being an intelligent man, he never lied for publication. Each reporter who saw that smile and the furtive look that accompanied it went away convinced to the life-wagering point that Mr. John F. Greener was in control of the Iowa Midland. And they wrote accordingly.

President Willetts all but had an apoplectic stroke. The Street disgustedly said: “Another successful, villainous plot of Greener’s!” And such was his reputation as an “absorber” of roads and roads’ profits that the stock declined ten points in two days. Investors and speculators alike displayed a frantic desire not to be identified in any way or manner with one of Mr. Greener’s properties.

The little financier had not been mistaken. His last card was his own evil reputation! He had reserved it for the end. On the wide-spread fear that followed his broker’s artistic “indiscretion” he was able to “scoop” 32,000 shares more at low figures. Such is the value of fame!

He now held 110,600 shares, or one third of the Iowa Midland Railroad Company’s entire capital stock—enough to coerce Willetts into making very profitable arrangements with Mr. Greener’s Keokuk & Northern Railway Company. Of course the absolute control of the Iowa Midland was best of all, if it only could be secured. But of this the sallow-faced little man with the high forehead and the shifty eyes was doubtful. He confessed as much to Brown, ending with: “It’s a shame, too. I could make so much out of that property!”

He estimated—it had cost him $11,000 to secure the necessary data—that Willetts and his clique held 105,000 shares, so that there were still 122,000 shares unaccounted for—probably scattered among small investors throughout the country, who did not care who managed the road so long as they received pleasant promises of dividends, and also among banking houses and anti-Greener men, who, though they did not approve of Willetts, disapproved even more emphatically and vehemently of Greener and his methods.

If he could not buy the stock itself he must try to secure proxies.

He knew that some of the trust companies held a fair amount of the longed-for stock. He laid siege to them. He bombarded them with promises and poured an enfilading fire of pledges so honorable, so eminently sound and business-like, as to pierce the armor of their distrust. In the end they actually grew to believe that they were acting wisely when they pledged their support to Mr. Greener. The guarantee he gave them seemed ironclad, and they agreed to give him their proxies whenever he should send for them.

He called his clerk Rock and told him: “Go to the Rural Trust Company and to the Commercial Loan & Trust Company. See Mr. Roberts and Mr. Morgan. They will give you some Iowa Midland proxies made out to Frederick Rock or John F. Greener.”

Rock was a good-looking, quiet chap, with a very well-shaped head and a resolute chin. His manners were pleasing. He had a habit of looking one straight in the eyes, but did not always succeed thereby in conveying an impression of straightforwardness. But he certainly impressed one as being bold and keen. His fellow-clerks used to say that Rock spent his spare time in studying the financial operations of the Napoleon of the Street with the same care and minuteness that military students go over the campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte—which was the truth.

“Mr. Greener,” said Rock, “you are carrying 110,000 shares of stock, are you not?”

“Eh?” squeaked Greener, innocently.

“I figure that, unless you are doing something outside this office, you will need proxies for 50,000 shares more to give you absolute control and elect your own board of directors and carry out your plans in connection with Keokuk & Northern.”

Not by so much as the twinkling of an eye did the little man betray that he was interested in Rock’s words, or that the clerk’s meddling with the firm’s affairs was at all out of the ordinary.

“Mr. Greener,” said the clerk, very earnestly, “I should like to try to get them for you.”

“Yes?” he squeaked, absent-mindedly.

“Yes, sir,” answered Rock.

“Go ahead, then,” said Mr. Greener, carelessly. “Let me know next week how you are getting on.”

An expression of disappointment came into Rock’s face, whereupon Greener added: “Of course if you succeed I’ll do well by you.”

“What will you do, Mr. Greener?” asked the clerk, looking straight at him.

“I’ll give you,” he squeaked, encouragingly, “ten thousand dollars.”

“Is that a good price for the work, Mr. Greener? I may have to pay out a great deal,” added the young clerk with a faint touch of bitterness.

“It is all that it is worth to me, Mr. Rock, and I think it is worth more to me than to anybody else. I’ll raise your salary from sixteen hundred to two thousand a year. That’s a great deal more money than I had at your age, Mr. Rock.”

“Very well,” said Rock, quietly. “I’ll do the best I can.” But once away from Greener, his face flushed with anger and indignation. “Ten thousand for what might be worth ten millions to the financier!” The clerk had studied Greener’s Napoleonic methods for two years. He had learned patience for one thing, and he had waited for his chance. It had come at last, and he knew it.

Events make the man. Rock had thought carefully, intelligently, and, best of all, coolly. He had planned logically. It was a good plan; it was the only feasible plan, and it could not be upset by meddlesome courts. How Mr. John F. Greener had failed to think of the same plan was a bit strange. The unscrupulousness of it did not frighten the clerk. He had the instincts of a financier of the Greener school.

The clerk all that week did nothing but collect the Iowa Midland proxies promised by the complaisant trust companies. They amounted to 21,200 shares. From prominent brokerage houses, by means of alluring and unauthorized promises, he secured 7,100 shares; in all he had 28,300 shares. This meant that at the approaching annual meeting Mr. Greener could vote 138,900 shares out of a possible total of 320,000. Unless the opposition could unite, the election was already sure to “go Mr. Greener’s way.”

From time to time, when the little financier would ask Rock how he was progressing, the clerk would tell him he was doing as well as could be expected. He also told Mr. Greener that the trust companies had given only 14,000 shares, and he said nothing whatever of the 7,100 shares he had secured from the friendly brokers. It was a desperate risk, this concealing from Mr. Greener how well he had done; but the clerk was bold.

The moment Rock became convinced that there were no more pro-Greener proxies to be had by hook or crook, he began his attack on the enemy. His problem was to capture the anti-Greener votes—or stock. He proceeded to put his plan into effect. And the plan of this healthy clerk with the unflinching eyes and the resolute chin was worthy of the sallow-faced little man with the furtive look and the great forehead.

“It is a case of _heads I win; tails you lose_,” Rock muttered to himself, exultingly.

The young man presented himself forthwith at the office of Weddell, Hopkins & Co., prominent bankers and bitter enemies of Mr. John F. Greener and his methods. They knew Rock as one of the confidential clerks of Brown & Greener, and he had no difficulty in securing an audience from Mr. Weddell.

“Good-morning, Mr. Weddell.”

“Good-morning, sir,” said the banker, coldly. “I must say I’m somewhat surprised at the presumption of your people in sending you to me.”

“Mr. Weddell,” said Rock, a trifle too eagerly to be artistic, “I’ve left the firm of Brown & Greener. They were,” he added, youthfully, “too rascally for me.”

Mr. Weddell’s face froze solid. He feared an application for a position.

“Ye-es?” he said. His voice matched his face in frigidity.

“Mr. Weddell,” said the young clerk, looking straight into the old banker’s eyes, “you in common with other honest men have been wishing you could prevent Mr. Greener from wrecking the Iowa Midland. Now, Mr. Weddell,” he went on, eagerly, as the enthusiasm of the plan grew upon him, “I know all about Mr. Greener’s plans and resources and I want you to help me fight him. If you do we will win, sure.”

“How will you go about it?” asked the old banker, evasively. He was not certain this was not some trick of the versatile Mr. John F. Greener.