Part 24 (1/2)
”Full Leitmann Orchestra can engage for Springtown, evening of 19th. Terms, five thousand dollars, expenses included. Answer before 13th. Buffalo, N. Y.
(Signed) ”H. LEITMANN.”
And now Lewis Peckham came out a full-fledged speculator. He sold out of four mines and bought into six; he changed his ventures three times in twenty-four hours, each time on a slight rise. He haunted the stockbroker's offices, watching out for ”pointers”; he b.u.t.ton-holed every third man on the street; he drank in every hint that was dropped in his hearing. On Tuesday afternoon he ”cleaned up” his capital and found himself in possession of three thousand five hundred dollars.
”Peckham's going it hard,” men said at the club. ”He must be awfully bitten.”
All day Wednesday he could not muster courage to put his money into anything, though stocks were booming on every hand. And yet on Wednesday, as on Monday and on Tuesday, he did his office work and superintended that of his subordinates methodically and exactly. The substratum of character which the long-headed Hillerton had built upon, held firm.
On Wednesday evening Peckham stood, wild-eyed and haggard, in the light of Estabrook's drug-store and scanned the faces of the foot-pa.s.sengers.
Early in the evening Elliot Chittenden came along with a grip-sack in his hand, just down from Lame Gulch. Peckham fell upon him like a footpad, whispering hoa.r.s.ely:
”For G.o.d's sake give me a pointer.”
”Jove!” said Chittenden, afterward, ”I thought it was a hold-up, sure as trumps.”
At the moment, however, he maintained his composure and only said:
”The smelter returns from the Boa Constrictor are down to-day. Two hundred and seventeen dollars to the ton. I've got all the stuff I can carry, so I don't mind letting you in. The papers will have it to-morrow, though they're doing their best to keep it back.”
Into the Boa Constrictor Peckham plunged the next morning, for all he was worth. His money brought him ten thousand shares. The morning papers did not have it, and all that day the Boa Constrictor lay as torpid as any other snake in cold weather. Peckham's face had taken on the tense, wild look of the gambler. He left the office half a dozen times during the day to look at the stock-boards. He had a hundred minds about taking his money out and putting it into something else. But nothing else promised anything definite, and he held on.
The evening papers gave the smelter returns, precisely as Chittenden had stated them. Now would the public ”catch on” quick enough, or would they take ten days to do what they might as well come to on the spot?
At nine o'clock the next morning, Peckham was on the street lying in wait for an early broker. It was not until half-past nine that they began to arrive.
”Any bids for Boa Constrictor?” Peckham inquired of Macdugal, the first-comer.
”They were bidding forty cents at the club last night, with no takers.”
”Let me know if you get fifty cents bid.”
”How much do you offer?”
”Ten thousand shares.”
”Oh! see here, Peckham! I wouldn't sell out at such a price. The thing's sure to go to a dollar inside of thirty days.”
”I don't care a _hang_ where it goes in thirty days. I want the money to-day.”
”Whew! Do you know anything better to put it into?”
”I know something _a million times better_!” cried Peckham, in a voice sharp with excitement.
”The fellow's clean daft,” Macdugal remarked to his partner, a few minutes later.
”I should say so!” was the reply. ”Queer, too, how suddenly it takes 'em. A week ago I should have said that was the coolest head of the lot.
He didn't seem to care a chuck for the whole business. Wonder if he's gone off his base since Hillerton was laid up. Hope he isn't in for a swindle. He'd be just game for a sharper to-day.”