Chapter X

INTRODUCING A NOVEL MEANS OF EATING CAKE AND HAVING IT TOO

Doc Turner and Ebenezer Squinch and Tom Fester, all doing business on the second floor of the old Turner building, were thrown into a fever of curiosity by the tall, healthy, jovial young man with the great breadth of white-waistcoated chest, who had rented the front suite of offices on their floor. His rooms he fitted up regardless of expense, and he immediately hired an office-boy, a secretary and two stenographers, all of whom were conspicuously idle. Doc Turner, who had a long, thin nose with a bluish tip, as if it had been case-tempered for boring purposes, was the first to scrape acquaintance with the jovial young gentleman, but was chagrined to find that though Mr. Wallingford was most democratic and easily approachable, still he was most evasive about his business. Nor could any of his office force be "pumped."

"The People's Mutual Bond and Loan Company" was the name which a sign painter, after a few days, blocked out upon the glass doors, but the mere name was only a whet to the aggravated appetites of the other tenants. Turner and Fester and Squinch were in the latter's office, discussing the mystery with some trace of irritation, when the source of it walked in upon them.

"I'm glad to find you all together," said young Wallingford breezily, coming at once to the point of his visit. "I understand that you gentlemen were once a part of the directorate of a national building and loan company which suspended business."

Ebenezer Squinch, taking the chair by virtue of his being already seated with his long legs elevated upon his own desk, craned forward his head upon an absurdly slender neck, which much resembled that of a warty squash, placed the tips of his wrinkled fingers together and gazed across them at Wallingford quite judicially.

"Suppose we were to admit that fact?" he queried, in non-committal habit.

"I am informed that you had a membership of some nine hundred when you suspended business," Wallingford went on, "and among your effects you have doubtless retained a list of that membership."

"Doubtless," assented Lawyer Squinch after a thoughtful pause, deciding that he might, at least partially, admit that much.

"What will you take for that list, or a copy of it?" went on Mr. Wallingford.

Mr. Turner, Mr. Squinch and Mr. Fester looked at one another in turn. In the mind of each gentleman there instantly sprang a conjecture, not as to the actual value of that list, but as to how much money young Wallingford had at his command. Both Mr. Fester and Mr. Turner sealing their mouths tightly, Mr. Fester straightly and Mr. Turner pursily, looked to Mr. Squinch for an adequate reply, knowing quite well that their former partner would do nothing ill-considered.

"M-m-m-m-m-m-m-m," nasally hesitated Mr. Squinch after long cogitation; "this list, Mr. Wallingford, is very valuable indeed, and I am quite sure that none of us here would think of setting a price on it until we had called into consultation our other former directors, Mr. Grout and Mr. Christmas."

"Let me know as soon as you can, gentlemen," said Mr. Wallingford. "I would like a price by to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock, at least."

Another long pause.

"I think," stated Mr. Squinch, as deliberately and as carefully as if he were announcing a supreme court decision--"I think that we may promise an answer by to-morrow."

They were all silent, very silent, as Mr. Wallingford walked out, but the moment they heard his own door close behind him conjecture began.

"I wonder how much money he's got," speculated fish-white Doc Turner, rubbing his claw-like hands softly together.

"He's stopping at the Telford Hotel and occupies two of the best rooms in the house," said blocky Mr. Fester, he of the bone-hard countenance and the straight gash where his lips ought to be.

"He handed me a hundred-dollar bill to take the change out of for the first month's rent in advance," supplemented Doc Turner, who was manager of the Turner block.

"He wears very large diamonds, I notice," observed Squinch. "I imagine, gentlemen, that he might be willing to pay quite two thousand dollars."

"He's young," assented Mr. Turner, warming his hands over the thought.

"And reckless," added Mr. Fester, with a wooden appreciation that was his nearest approach to a smile.

Their estimate of the youth and recklessness of the lamb-like Mr. Wallingford was such that they mutually paused to muse upon it, though not at all unpleasantly.

"Suppose that we say twenty-five hundred," resumed Mr. Squinch. "That will give each of the five of us five hundred dollars apiece. At that rate I'd venture to speak for both Grout and Christmas."

"We three have a majority vote," suggested Doc Turner. "However, it's easy enough to see them."

"Need we do so?" inquired Mr. Squinch, in slow thought. "We might--" and then he paused, struck by a sudden idea, and added hastily: "Oh, of course, we'll have to give them a voice in the matter. I'll see them to-night."

"All right," assented Doc Turner, rising with alacrity and looking at his watch. "By the way, I have to see a man. I pretty near overlooked it."

"That reminds me," said Mr. Fester, heaving himself up ponderously and putting on the hat which should have been square, "I have to foreclose a mortgage this afternoon."

Mr. Squinch also rose. It had occurred to all three of them simultaneously to go privately to the two remaining members and buy out their interest in the list for the least possible money.

J. Rufus found the full board in session, however, when he walked into Mr. Squinch's office on the following afternoon. Mr. Grout was a loose-skinned man of endless down-drooping lines, the corners of his eyelids running down past his cheek-bones, the corners of his nose running down past his mouth, the corners of his mouth running down past his chin. Mr. Christmas had over-long, rusty-gray hair, bulbous red ears, and an appalling outburst of scarlet veins netted upon his copper-red countenance. Notwithstanding their vast physical differences, however, Wallingford reflected that he had never seen five men who, after all, looked more alike. And why not, since they were all of one mind?

By way of illustrating the point, Mr. Grout and Mr. Christmas, finding that the list in question had some value, and knowing well their former partners, had steadfastly refused to sell, and the five of them, meeting upon the common ground of self-interest, had agreed to one thing--that they would ask five thousand dollars for the list, and take what they could get.

When the price was named to him, Mr. Wallingford merely chuckled, and observed, as he turned toward the door:

"You are mistaken, gentlemen. I did not want to buy out your individual businesses. I am willing to give you one thousand dollars in stock of my company, which will be two shares each."

The gentlemen could not think of that. It was preposterous. They would not consider any other than a cash offer to begin with, nor less than twenty-five hundred to end with.

"Very well, then," said J. Rufus; "I can do without your list," which was no matter for wonder, since he had a duplicate of it in his desk at that very moment.

* * * * *

Henry Smalzer was the first man on that defunct building and loan company list, and him Wallingford went to see. He found Mr. Smalzer in a little shoe repair shop, with a shoe upturned on his knee and held firmly in place by a strap passing under his foot. Mr. Smalzer had centrifugal whiskers, and long habit of looking up without rising from his work had given his eyes a coldly suspicious look. Moreover, socialistic argument, in red type, was hung violently upon the walls, and Mr. Wallingford, being a close student of the psychological moment and man, merely had a loose shoe-button tightened.

The next man on the list was a barber with his hair parted in the middle and hand-curled in front. In the shop was no literature but the Police Gazette, and in the showcase were six brands of stogies and one brand of five-cent cigars. Here Mr. Wallingford merely purchased a shave, reflecting that he could put a good germicide on his face when he returned to the hotel.

He began to grow impatient when he found that his third man kept a haberdashery, but, nevertheless, he went in. A clerk of the pale-eyed, lavender-tie type was gracing the front counter, but in the rear, at a little standing desk behind a neat railing, stood one who was unmistakably the proprietor, though he wore a derby hat cocked on his head and a big cigar cocked in the opposite corner of his mouth. Tossed on the back part of the desk was a race-track badge, and the man was studying a form sheet!

"Mr. Merrill, I believe," said Wallingford confidently approaching that gentleman and carelessly laying his left hand--the one with the three-carat diamond upon the third finger--negligently upon the rail.

Mr. Merrill's keen, dark-gray eyes rested first upon that three-carat ring, then upon the three-carat stone in Mr. Wallingford's carmine cravat, then upon Mr. Wallingford's jovial countenance with the multiplicity of smile wrinkles about the eyes, and Mr. Merrill himself smiled involuntarily.

"The same," he admitted.

"Mr. Merrill," propounded Wallingford, "how would you like to borrow from ten dollars to five thousand, for four years, without interest and without security?"

Mr. Merrill's eyes narrowed, and the flesh upon his face became quite firm.

"Not if I have to pay money for it," he announced, and the conversation would have ended right there had it not been for Wallingford's engaging personality, a personality so large and comprehensive that it made Mr. Merrill reflect that, though this jovial stranger was undoubtedly engineering a "skin game," he was quite evidently "no piker," and was, therefore, entitled to courteous consideration.

"What you have to pay won't break you," said Wallingford, laughing, and presented a neatly engraved card conveying merely the name of The People's Mutual Bond and Loan Company, the fact that it was incorporated for a hundred thousand dollars, and that the capital was all paid in. "A loan bond," added Mr. Wallingford, "costs you one dollar, and the payments thereafter are a dollar and a quarter a week."

Mr. Merrill nodded as he looked at the card.

"I see," said he. "It's one of those pleasant little games, I suppose, where the first man in gets the money of the next dozen, and the last five thousand hold the bag."

"I knew you'd guess wrong," said Wallingford cheerfully. "The plan's entirely different. Everybody gets a chance. With every payment you sign a loan application and your receipt is numbered, giving you four numbered receipts in the month. Every month one-fourth of the loan fund is taken out for a grand annual distribution, and the balance is distributed in monthly loans."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill, the firmness of his facial muscles relaxing and the cold look in his eyes softening. "A lottery? Now I'm listening."

"Well," replied Wallingford, smiling, "we can't call it that, you know."

"I'll take a chance," said Mr. Merrill.

Mr. Wallingford, with rare wisdom, promptly stopped argument and produced a beautifully printed "bond" from his pocket, which he made out in Mr. Merrill's name.

"I might add," said J. Rufus, after having taken another careful inspection of Mr. Merrill, "that you win the first prize, payable in the shape of food and drink. I'd like to have you take dinner with me at the hotel this evening."

Mr. Merrill, from force of habit, looked at his watch, then looked at Mr. Wallingford speculatively.

"Don't mind if I do," said he, quite well satisfied that the dinner would be pleasant.

In his own carpenter-shop Wallingford found Mr. Albert Wright at a foot-power circular-saw, with his hair and his eyebrows and his mustache full of the same fine, white wood dust that covered his overalls and jumper; and up over the saw, against the wall, was tacked the time-yellowed placard of a long-since-eaten strawberry festival. With his eyes and his mind upon this placard, Mr. Wallingford explained his new boon to humanity: the great opportunity for a four-year loan, without interest or security, of from ten dollars to five thousand.

"But this is nothing more nor less than a lottery, under another name," objected Mr. Wright, poising an accusing finger, his eyes, too, unconsciously straying to the strawberry festival placard.

"Not a bit of it," denied Wallingford, shocked beyond measure. "It is merely a mutual benefit association, where a large number of people pool their small sums of money to make successive large ones. For instance, suppose that a hundred of you should band together to put in one dollar a week, the entire hundred dollars to go to a different member each week? Each one would be merely saving up a hundred dollars, but, in place of every one of the entire hundred of you having to wait a hundred weeks to save his hundred dollars, one of you would be saving it in one week, while the longest man in would only have to pay the hundred weeks. It is merely a device, Mr. Wright, for concentrating the savings of a large number of people."

Mr. Wright was forcibly impressed with Wallingford's illustration, but, being a very bright man, he put that waving, argumentative finger immediately upon a flaw.

"Half of that hundred people would not stay through to the end, and somebody would get left," he objected, well pleased with himself.

"Precisely," agreed Mr. Wallingford. "That is just what our company obviates. Every man who drops out helps the man who stays in, by not having any claim upon the redemption fund. The redemption fund saves us from being a lottery. When you have paid in two hundred and fifty dollars your bond matures and you get your money back."

"Out of--" hesitated Mr. Wright, greatly perplexed.

"The redemption fund. It is supplied from returned loans."

Again the bright Mr. Wright saw a radical objection.

"Half of those people would not pay back their loans," said he.

"We figure that a certain number would not pay," admitted Wallingford, "but there would be a larger proportion than you think who would. For instance, you would pay back your loan at the end of four years, wouldn't you, Mr. Wright?"

Mr. Wright was hastily sure of it, though he became thoughtful immediately thereafter.

"So would a large majority of the others," Wallingford went on. "Honesty is more prevalent than you would imagine, sir. However, all our losses from this source will be made up by lapsation. _Lapsation!_"

Mr. Wallingford laid emphatic stress upon this vital principle and fixed Mr. Wright's mild blue eyes with his own glittering ones.

"A man who drops a payment on his bond gets nothing back--that is a part of his contract--and the steady investor reaps the benefit, as he should. Suppose you hold bond number ten; suppose at the time of maturity, bonds number three, five, six, eight and nine have lapsed, after having paid in from one-fourth to three-fourths of their money; that leaves only bonds one, two, four, seven and ten to be paid from the redemption fund. I don't suppose you understand how large a percentage of lapsation there is. Let me show you."

From his pocket Mr. Wallingford produced a little red book, showing how in industrial and fraternal insurance the percentage of lapsation amounts to a staggering percentage, thus reducing by forfeited capital the cost of insurance in those organizations.

"So you see, Mr. Wright," concluded Wallingford, snapping shut the book and putting it in his pocket, "this, in the end, is only a splendid device for saving money and for using it while you are saving it."

On this ground, after much persuasion, he sold a bond to the careful Mr. Wright, and quit work for the day, well satisfied with his two dollars' commission. At a fifteen-dollar dinner that evening Mr. Merrill found him a good fellow, and, being interested not only in Wallingford's "lottery" but in Wallingford himself, gave him the names of a dozen likely members. Later he even went so far as to see some of them himself on behalf of the company.

Two days after that Mr. Wallingford called again on his careful carpenter, and from that gentleman secured a personal recommendation to a few friends of Mr. Wright's particular kind.