Part 5 (1/2)

A little impatiently, Farrington raised his head. ”We'll see you through,” he said. ”Good night.” And Jack, not disposed to quarrel further with fortune, closed the door behind him.

It was a quarter of ten on the morning following when he entered Turner and Driver's office, advancing to meet the senior partner with the little strip of paper in his outstretched hand. Turner took it eagerly enough, and as he scanned the amount, he nodded, while a wrinkle or two seemed to vanish from his puckered and frowning brow. Then he looked up. ”Well, you got it,” he said, and Carleton hastened to a.s.sent. ”Oh, yes,” he returned lightly, ”I got it all right. Why, didn't you think I would?”

The broker shrugged his shoulders. ”Hard telling anything these days,”

he answered, ”but I'll tell you one thing, though; you're mighty lucky to be able to put your hands on it so easy. There'll be more than one poor devil this morning who would pretty near give his soul for a tenth part of what you've got here. It's a bad time for customers, Jack, and I don't mind telling you--” he lowered his voice confidentially--”that it's a bad time for brokers, too. A little piece of paper like this--”

he waved the check gently to and fro--”is a nice comforting sight for a man; between you and me, I wouldn't mind seeing three or four mates to it. Yes, I'm glad to get it all right, on my account, and on yours, too.”

Jack nodded. Somehow, entirely without justification, as he well knew, the check had given him a feeling of great stability; at once, on receiving it, he had felt that he had risen in his own self-esteem.

”Yes,” he a.s.sented, ”I'm glad myself; and you needn't worry about my account, Jim. We'll just leave it this way. Don't treat mine as an ordinary account; don't sell me out, whatever happens. I've friends that'll see me through anything. If things should go lower, and you should need more margin, just let me know, and I'll get it over to you right away. Will that be satisfactory?”

The broker nodded. ”Why, yes, Jack,” he answered, ”knowing the way you're fixed, I guess that'll be all right, though with nine men out of ten, of course I wouldn't consider such a way of doing things. Business is business, and when it comes right down to the fine point, why, it's the cold hard cash that counts, and nothing else; not friends.h.i.+p, or honor, or grat.i.tude, or common decency, even--” both face and voice had hardened as he spoke; it was not his first panic--and then his look met Carleton's fairly and squarely. ”But with you, Jack,” he continued, ”it's different, as I say. Only let's be perfectly sure that we understand each other. I don't believe myself, you know, that things can go much lower; I think the chances are they've steadied for good; but for argument, let's suppose they do. Then, as I understand it, you don't want to have me sell you out at any price, no matter how far they break.

You'll make good any time I ask you to. You give me your word on that?”

Carleton readily enough a.s.sented. ”Why, sure,” he answered lightly, ”of course I do; you needn't worry; I'll make good,” and the broker nodded, well pleased.

”One thing less to bother over, then,” he said. ”You'll excuse me now, Jack, won't you? This is going to be a horrible busy day, anyway, and the Lord send it's nothing worse than that; it wouldn't take much now to raise the very deuce.”

As he spoke the _News Despatch_ boy entered, tossing down on the table a half dozen sheets fresh from the press. Turner glanced at them, and handed them over to Carleton, shaking his head as he did so. ”London's not feeling gay,” he observed, ”I call that a pretty ragged opening myself. I don't know what you think of it.”

Carleton read and nodded. It seemed as if everything in the half dozen pages made for discouragement. London had opened weak--lamentably weak.

There were rumors of this--rumors of that--sickly, unhealthy mushroom growths of the night. There was talk of failures--suspensions--financial troubles of every kind--even the good name of a great bank was bandied carelessly to and fro. Silently Turner crossed the room, and took his seat at his desk; silently Carleton walked out into the customers' room, and joined the other unfortunates who had come slowly straggling in, and who now stood around the ticker, waiting gloomily and apprehensively for the opening bell to ring.

The tension of the moment was plainly enough to be read in the att.i.tudes and expressions of the members of the little group, not one of whom failed in some manner or other to betray the fact that he was far from possessing his usual poise and calm. Most of them, either consciously or unconsciously, showed their nervousness so plainly and even painfully that it was impossible to misinterpret the anxious glances cast first at the clock, then at the tape, as the moment of the opening drew near.

One or two, indeed, essayed a nonchalance so obviously a.s.sumed as to render even more apparent the emotion it sought to conceal. One young fellow, with hat shoved far back on his head, hair in disorder, and a restless, frightened look in his eyes, glanced at Carleton as he approached.

”How _you_ standing it, Jack?” he queried, with a faint attempt at jocularity. ”Bad night to sleep last night, _I_ called it; guess most likely 'twas something in the air.”

Another man, he of the toothpick, stout and coa.r.s.e, held forth at some length for the benefit of the rest. ”Oh, it was perfectly clear, the whole thing,” he was saying, with the air of one to whom all the mysteries and marvels of stock fluctuations are but as matters writ large in print the most plain. ”You see Rockman and Sharp and Haverfeller got together on this thing, and then they had a conference with Horgan, and got him to say that he'd keep his hands off, and let things alone; then they had a clear chance, and you can see what they've done with it; oh, they're clever all right; when those fellows get together, it's time to look out; you can't beat 'em.”

He spoke with a certain condescending finality, as if he had somehow once and for all fixed the status of the panic. After a moment or two a gray, scholarly looking little man, with gentle, puzzled eyes, addressed him, speaking with an air of timid respect for the stout man's evident knowledge.

”Do you imagine, sir,” he asked, ”that securities will decline still further in value? If they should, I am afraid that I might find myself seriously involved. I can't seem to understand this whole affair; I was led to believe--”

The big man, charmed with the novelty of having a genuine, voluntary listener, interrupted him at once.

”Oh, you don't have to worry,” he said largely, ”they might open 'em off a little lower, perhaps, but they'll go back again. Don't you fret; the country's all right; they'll come back; they always do.”

The little man seemed vastly comforted. ”I'm very glad to hear you say so,” he answered. ”It would come very hard--I had no idea the risk was so great--I was led to believe--”

The young man with the rumpled hair turned a trifle disgustedly to Carleton. ”Heard from London?” he asked abruptly. His brief, and not wholly unintelligent connection with the game had led him to believe firmly in facts and figures, not in the dangerous pastime of theorizing over values, or speculating as to what the next move of the ”big fellows” might be.

Carleton nodded. ”Weak,” he answered, his tone pitched low and meant for his neighbor's ear only, ”horribly weak; and all sorts of stories starting, too; it looks as bad as it could.”

The young man nodded. ”I supposed so,” he said, with resignation, and then added whimsically, ”Well, there's no use crying about it, I guess, but it certainly looks as if this was the time when little Willie gets it good and plenty, right in the neck.”

Just in front of them, a pale, slender man, with blinking eyes, and a mumbling, trembling mouth that was never still, talked steadily in an undertone, apparently partly to himself, partly to the man who stood at his shoulder, a red-faced farmer with a hundred shares of Akme at stake.

”Now'd be the time,” he muttered, ”now'd be the time to jump right in; jump right in and buy four or five thousand shares; a man could make a fortune, and get out for good; it's the chance of a man's life; to jump right in and buy four or five thousand shares.”

The countryman gazed at him in silence, sizing him up at first curiously, and then with a certain amused and not unkindly contempt.