Part 18 (1/2)

”Stick to that rule,” Steele advises Hubbs. ”Ask 'em ten points more than outside quotations.”

What really got things goin', though, was when some of the stock clerks and bookkeepers, who'd heard and talked nothin' but Gopher these last two days, begun buyin' lots outright and turnin' 'em in for deeds.

Whether or not they believed all Hubbs had fed 'em about Gopher don't matter. They was takin' a chance. So they slips out at noon and gives real orders. Course, they wa'n't plungin'; but the combined effect was the same.

And it don't take the curb long to get wise. ”The suckers are buying Gopher,” was the word pa.s.sed round. Then maybe the quotations didn't jump! There wa'n't any quarter matchin' down in Broad street after that. They was too busy yellin' Gopher at each other. Up she went,--75, then 85, then 110, and when closin' hour come the third day it was the liveliest scene inside the ropes that the margin district had known in years.

I expect the newspapers helped a lot too. They had a heap of fun with Hubbs and his Gopher proposition,--Hubbs of Gopher, U.S.A. They printed pictures of him playin' the accordion, and interviews reproducin' his descriptive gems about ”the banks of the pellucid Pinto,” and such.

But you never can tell how a comedy stab is goin' to turn out. This game of buyin' real estate shares for a dollar or so, with the prospects that before night it might be worth twice as much, was one that hit 'em hard.

By Friday Gopher stock was being advertised like Steel preferred, and the brokers was flooded with buyin' orders. Some of the big firms got into the game too. A fat German butcher came all the way down from the Bronx, counted out a thousand dollars in bills to Nelson Hubbs, and was satisfied to walk away with a deed for a hundred front feet of Gopher realty. He wasn't such a b.o.o.b, either. Two hours later he could have closed out five hundred to the good.

It wa'n't like a stock flurry, where there's an inside gang manipulatin'

the wires. All the guidin' hand there was in this deal was that of J.

Bayard Steele, and he contents himself with eggin' Hubbs on to stand firm on that ten-cent raise.

”Not a penny more, not a penny less,” says he, beamin'. ”It'll get 'em.”

And I don't know when I've seen him look more contented. As for Nelson Hubbs, he seems a little dazed at it all; but he keeps his head and smiles good-natured on everybody. Not until Gopher Development hits twenty-five dollars a share does he show any signs of gettin' restless.

”Boys,” says he, bangin' his fist down on the desk, ”it's great! I've turned that thousand-dollar fund into fifty, and as near as I can figure it property values along our Main street have been jumped about eight hundred per cent. They've heard of it out home, and they're just wild. I expect I ought to stay right here and push things; but--well, McCabe, maybe you can guess.”

”No word from a certain party, eh?” says I.

Hubbs shakes his head and starts pacin' up and down in front of the window. He hadn't done more'n three laps, though, before in blows a messenger boy and hands him a telegram.

”We-e-e-yow!” yells Hubbs. ”Hey, Shorty, it's come--doggoned if it ain't come! Look at that!”

It was a brief bulletin, but full of meat. It runs like this:

Good work, Nelson. You've done it. Gopher's on the map.

And the last we saw of him, after he'd turned the stock business over to Mendell & Co., he was pikin' for a west-bound train with his grip in one fist and that old accordion in the other.

J. Bayard smiles after him friendly and indulgent. ”A woman in the case, I suppose?” says he.

”Uh-huh,” says I. ”The plumpest, cheeriest, winnin'est little body ever left unclaimed,--his description. She's the lady Mayor out there. And if I'm any judge, with them two holdin' it down, Gopher's on the map to stay.”

CHAPTER IX

WHAT LINDY HAD UP HER SLEEVE

”But think of it, Shorty!” says Sadie. ”What an existence!”

”There's plenty worse off than her,” says I; ”so what's the use?”

”I can't help it,” says she. ”Twenty years! No holidays, no home, no relatives: nothing but sew and mend, sew and mend--and for strangers, at that! Talk about dull gray lives--ugh!”

”Well, she's satisfied, ain't she?” says I.

”That's the worst of it,” says Sadie. ”She seems to live for her work.

Goodness knows how early she's up and at it in the morning, and at night I have to drive her out of the sewing room!”

”And you kick at that?” says I. ”Huh! Why, on lower Fifth-ave. they capitalize such habits and make 'em pay for fifteen-story buildin's.