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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Flood, by Edwin Lefevre
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: The Golden Flood
-
-Author: Edwin Lefevre
-
-Illustrator: W. R. Leigh
-
-Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51943]
-Last Updated: November 10, 2016
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN FLOOD ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by Google Books
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-THE GOLDEN FLOOD
-
-By Edwin Lefevre
-
-Illustrated By W. R. Leigh
-
-New York
-
-McClure, Phillips & Co.
-
-1905
-
-
-TO
-
-DANIEL GRAY REID
-
-
-
-
-
-PART ONE: THE FLOOD
-
-The president looked up from the underwriters’ plan of the latest
-“Industrial” consolidation capital stock, $100,000,000; assets, for
-publication, $100,000,000 which the syndicate’s lawyers had pronounced
-perfectly legal. Judiciously advertised, the stock probably would be
-oversubscribed. The profits ought to be enormous. He was one of the
-underwriters.
-
-“What is it?” he asked. He did not frown, but his voice was as though
-hung with icicles. The assistant cashier, an imaginative man in the
-wrong place, shivered.
-
-“This gentleman,” he said, giving a card to the president, “wishes to
-make a deposit of one hundred thousand dollars.”
-
-The president looked at the card. He read on it:
-
-_MR. GEORGE KITCHELL GRINELL_
-
-“Who sent him to us?” he asked.
-
-“I don’t know, sir. He said he had a letter of introduction to you,”
- answered the assistant cashier, disclaiming all responsibility in the
-matter.
-
-The president read the card a second time. The name was unfamiliar.
-
-“Grinnell?” he muttered. “Grinnell? Never heard of him.” Perhaps he felt
-it was poor policy to show ignorance on any matter whatever. When he
-spoke again, it was in a voice overflowing with a dignity that was a
-subtle rebuke to all assistant cashiers:
-
-“I will see him.”
-
-He busied himself once more with the typewritten documents before him,
-lost in its alluring possibilities, until he became conscious of a
-presence near him. He still waited, purposely, before looking up. He was
-a very busy man, and all the world must know it. At length he raised his
-head majestically, and turned--an animated fragment of a glacier--until
-his eyes rested on the stranger’s.
-
-“Good-morning, sir,” he said politely.
-
-“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” said the stranger. He was a young man,
-conceivably under thirty, of medium height, square of shoulders,
-clean-shaven, and clear-skinned. He had brown hair and brown eyes.
-His dress hinted at careful habits rather than at fashionable tailors.
-Gold-rimmed spectacles gave him a studious air, which disappeared
-whenever he spoke. As if at the sound of his own voice, his eyes took on
-a look of alert self-confidence which interested the bank president.
-Mr. Dawson was deeply prejudiced against the look of extreme astuteness,
-blended with the desire to create a favourable impression, so familiar
-to him as the president of the richest bank in Wall Street.
-
-“You are Mr.----” The president looked at the stranger’s card as though
-he had left it unread until he had finished far more important business.
-It really was unnecessary; but it had become a habit, which he lost only
-when speaking to his equals or his superiors in wealth.
-
-“Grinnell,” prompted the stranger, very calmly. He was so unimpressed by
-the president that the president was impressed by him.
-
-“Ah, yes. Mr. Williams tells me you wish to become one of our
-depositors?”
-
-“Yes, sir. I have here,” taking a slip of paper from his pocket-book,
-“an Assay Office check on the Sub-Treasury. It is for a trifle over a
-hundred thousand dollars.”
-
-Even the greatest bank in Wall Street must have a kindly feeling toward
-depositors of a hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Dawson permitted himself
-to smile graciously.
-
-“I am sure we shall be glad to have your account, Mr. Grinnell,” he
-said. “You are in business in----” The slight arching of his eyebrows,
-rather than the inflection of his voice, made his words a delicate
-interrogation. He was a small, slender man, greyhaired and
-grey-moustached, with an air of polite aloofness from trivialities. His
-manners were what you might expect of a man whose grandfather had been
-Minister to France, and had never forgotten it; nor had his children.
-His self-possession was so great that it was not noticeable.
-
-“I am not in any business, Mr. Dawson, unless,” said the young man
-with a smile that deprived his voice of any semblance of pertness or of
-premeditated discourtesy, “it is the business of depositing $103,648.67
-with the Metropolitan National Bank. My friend, Professor Willetts, of
-Columbia, gave me a letter of introduction. Here it is. I may say,
-Mr. Dawson, that I haven’t the slightest intention of disturbing this
-account, as far as I know now, for an indefinite period.” The president
-read the letter. It was from the professor of metallurgy at Columbia,
-who was an old acquaintance of Dawson’s. It merely said that George K.
-Grinnell was one of his old students, a graduate of the School of
-Mines, who had asked him to suggest a safe bank of deposit. This the
-Metropolitan certainly was. He had asked his young friend to attach his
-own signature at the bottom, since Grinnell had no other bank accounts,
-and no other way of having his signature verified. Mr. Grinnell had said
-he wished his money to be absolutely safe, and Professor Willetts took
-great pleasure in sending him to Mr. Dawson.
-
-Mr. Dawson bowed his head--an acquiescence meant to be encouraging.
-To the young man the necessity for such encouragement was not clear.
-Possibly it showed in his eyes, for Mr. Dawson said very politely, in
-an almost courtly way he had at times to show some people that an
-aristocrat could do business aristocratically:
-
-“It is not usual for us to accept accounts from strangers. We do not
-really know.” very gently, “that you are the man to whom this letter was
-given, nor that your signature is that of Mr. George K. Grinnell.”
-
-The young man laughed pleasantly. “I see your position, Mr. Dawson, but,
-really, I am not important enough to be impersonated by anybody. As for
-my being George K. Grinnell, I’ve laboured under that impression for
-twenty-nine years. I’ll have Professor Willetts in person introduce me,
-if you wish. I have some letters----” He made a motion toward his breast
-pocket, but Mr. Dawson held up a hand in polite dissent; he was above
-suspicions. “And as for my signature, if you will send a clerk with me
-to the Assay Office, next door they will doubtless verify it to your
-satisfaction; I can just as easily bring legal tender notes, I suppose.
-In any case, as I have no intention of touching this money for some time
-to come, I suppose the bank will be safe from----”
-
-“Oh,” interrupted Dawson, with a sort of subdued cordiality, “as I told
-you before, while we do not usually take accounts from people of whom we
-know nothing in a business way, we will make an exception in your case.”
- That the young man might not think the bank’s eagerness for deposits
-made its officers unbusinesslike, the president added, with a
-politely explanatory smile: “Professor Willetts’s letter is sufficient
-introduction. As you say you are not in business--”
-
-He paused and looked at the young man for confirmation.
-
-“No, sir; I happen to have this money, and I desire a safe place to
-keep it in. I may bring a little more. It depends upon certain family
-matters. But that is for the future to decide. In the meantime, I should
-like to leave this money here, untouched.”
-
-“Very well, sir.” The president pushed a button on his desk.
-A bright-looking, neatly dressed office-boy appeared, his face
-exaggeratedly attentive.
-
-“Ask Mr. Williams to come in, please.” The office-boy turned on his
-heels as by a military command, and hastened away. It was the bank’s
-training; the president’s admirers said it showed his genius for
-organization down to the smallest detail. Presently the assistant
-cashier entered.
-
-“Mr. Williams, Mr. Grinnell will be one of our most valued depositors.
-We must show him that we appreciate his confidence in us. Kindly attend
-to the necessary details.” Mr. Dawson paused. Perhaps his hesitancy
-was meant as an invitation to Mr. George Kitchell Grinnell to vouchsafe
-further information of a personal nature. But Mr. Grinnell said, with a
-smile: “Many thanks, Mr. Dawson,” and Mr. Dawson smiled back, politely.
-As the men turned to go, he took up the underwriting plan and forgot
-all about the incident. It was a Thursday. It might as well have been a
-Monday or a Tuesday; but it was not.
-
-Mr. Williams called up Professor Willetts on the telephone, who said he
-had given a letter of introduction to George K. Grinnell. He described
-Grinnell’s appearance, and added that Grinnell had been one of his
-students, and was quite well up on metallurgy, but was not, so far as
-the professor knew, engaged in active business. He thought Grinnell had
-some private means. The Assay Office people had identified Grinnell and
-his signature. It was not much information, but it was enough.
-
-On the following Thursday, after the close of the business day, Mr.
-Dawson, reading over some routine memoranda submitted by the cashier,
-found his gaze arrested by a line that told of the deposit of $151,008
-by “George K. Grinnell.” He sent for the cashier.
-
-“What about this $151,000 deposit by George K. Grinnell?” he asked.
-
-“He deposited an Assay Office check, the same as he did last week.”
-
-The president frowned. He was puzzled.
-
-“If he should happen to make any further deposits of this character,
-tell the receiving teller to say I should like to see him, please.”
-
-“Very well, sir.”
-
-The president turned to his desk again, and promptly forgot the
-incident--forgot it for exactly one week. On the following Thursday,
-shortly before noon, Williams, the assistant cashier--a short, stout
-man, with an oleaginous smile--approached his feared chief.
-
-“Excuse me, Mr. Dawson,”--the assistant cashier’s habitual attitude
-before the president was one uninterrupted apology for existing at
-all--“Mr. Grinnell is here.”
-
-“Grinnell? Grinnell?” mused the president, frowning.
-
-“He has just deposited $250,000--an Assay Office check, the same as last
-Thursday. You said if he should----”
-
-“Yes, yes, I know,” said Mr. Dawson sharply. “Tell him to be kind enough
-to come in.” He muttered to himself: “That makes half a million in
-gold in a fortnight. H’m!” When Mr. Dawson h’mmed to himself it meant
-business--usually, woe to the vanquished!
-
-He rose to greet the h’m-compelling depositor.
-
-“How do you do, Mr. Grinnell?” He smiled with a cordiality that was more
-than mere affability and extended his hand. The president’s grasp was
-firm. Wall Street said that his soul had been in cold storage some
-thirty thousand centuries before it came down to earth to animate
-the body of Richard Dawson. But Mr. Dawson, just as there are men who
-endeavour to seem honest by habitually looking you straight in the eyes,
-believed that strong pressure must indicate genuine friendliness in a
-hand clasp.
-
-Mr. Grinnell smiled. There was not the faintest trace of hostility in
-the young man’s smile; but it was not a fatuous smile, nevertheless.
-
-“The cashier said you----”
-
-“Yes; I told him to ask you to be good enough to see me. I hope I am not
-inconveniencing you?”
-
-“Not at all. But I fancy you are very busy.”
-
-The president smiled in self-defence.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a sort of quizzical joviality, “you have
-been a source of some--I’ll own up”--with the amused smile of men when
-they confess to an essentially feminine sin--“curiosity. I tell you
-frankly that I’d very much like to know more about you--what you are
-doing, what you have done, what you intend to do. In the past fifteen
-days you have deposited with us a half-million in gold.” He again
-smiled; this time interrogatively.
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” the young man answered, very seriously, though not in the
-slightest degree rebukingly, “really I can add nothing to what I told
-you when I first had the pleasure of seeing you. As I said then, I have
-not the slightest intention of disturbing the account, not to the extent
-of one cent, so far as I can see now. Indeed, you may safely assume that
-this money will remain untouched for an indefinite period. I’d rather
-keep the money here than in a safe-deposit vault. Still,” with a smile
-for the first time, “if you think I’d better transfer my account to the
-Eastern National, or the Marshall National, to save you further----”
-
-“Oh, my dear Mr. Grinnell!” in a tone that conveyed to a nicety his
-shock at being misunderstood, “I merely wished to learn more about you
-from a natural business curiosity. We certainly are satisfied if you
-are.”
-
-“Well,” Grinnell said, smiling again, “I am twenty-nine years old,
-single, an orphan, a graduate of the School of Mines. I live with my
-sister at 193 West 38th Street, and I believe in a republican form of
-government under a Democratic administration.”
-
-“My dear Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, with a look of regret to
-hide his annoyance, “pray do not imagine for an instant that I had any
-desire to pry into your personal affairs. You know, we like to take an
-interest in our depositors, just as we wish our depositors to take
-an interest in us. Your bank president should be your business father
-confessor. The time may come when we may be of use to you. I shall be
-glad to give you my best advice, should you ever care for it. And, Mr.
-Grinnell,” with a smile, paternal to the last eighth, “I am a month
-or two older than you. I have had some experience in many lines of
-business,” excepting that of Mr. George K. Grinnell, who did not accept
-the subtle invitation to confide. Then, with a final smile, putting his
-hand on the young man’s shoulder: “As for your account, Mr. Grinnell,
-may it continue to grow! We can stand it if you can.”
-
-“I am glad to hear that; very glad indeed, I may take you at your word.
-Being young, I am, of course, very wise, Mr. Dawson. But I have hopes
-of getting over it. When my account becomes really respectable, I,
-doubtless, shall be more than glad to avail myself of your advice. I
-shall value it highly.”
-
-“It is yours at any time, Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, shaking
-hands. He did not show any surprise at the intimation of greater
-deposits in the future. It was as well that he did not. On Thursday of
-the following week, Mr. George K. Grinnell deposited an Assay Office
-check for $500,000 lacking a few cents. It made a million of gold
-bullion which the young man had sold to the United States Assay Office,
-and of which he had deposited the proceeds in the Metropolitan National
-Bank. The president did not forget the incident when the cashier sent in
-a memorandum, but promptly summoned the official.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell has become quite a depositor, I see,” he said.
-
-“Every Thursday he comes with an Assay Office--”
-
-“Yes, I know. It seems to be a habit with, him. If he should come in
-next Thursday, or at any time, let me know at once. Don’t ask him to
-come into my office, but let me know he is here, at once. Has he drawn
-any checks on us?”
-
-“No, sir; not one.”
-
-“If he does, let me see it.”
-
-“It is--er--rather curious,” ventured the cashier.
-
-“Not at all,” said Mr. Dawson curtly. The cashier left him without
-another word.
-
-The advent of the strange depositor was curiously awaited by the tellers
-to whom the cashier had spoken. The cashier himself offered to bet his
-assistant that Grinnell would not deposit more than $500,000. The fat
-assistant decided to lose a five-dollar hat to his superior, and then to
-ask that same superior for an increase in salary. He bet that Grinnell
-would deposit a million.
-
-“You see,” he said, with a look of intense astuteness, that his device
-of intentionally losing the bet might not be too obvious, “he deposited
-first a hundred thousand, then a hundred and fifty; then two-fifty; then
-he doubled and deposited five hundred thousand. I think he will double
-again and deposit a million.”
-
-“Millions don’t grow on bushes. I’ll take the bet,” remarked the cashier
-stingingly. His subordinate covered a chuckle of success by a woeful
-smile of self-depreciation. But his exultation over the increase in
-salary to follow the artistic loss of a five-dollar hat did not endure
-long. Grover, one of the receiving tellers, on Thursday hastily sent him
-word that Mr. Grinnell had deposited $1,000,000, and was being delayed
-at the teller’s window on a pretext of attending to some clerical
-detail. The assistant cashier straightway walked into the president’s
-room.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell is outside, sir. He has just deposited one million.”
-
-“Very well, Mr. Williams.”
-
-The president walked out of his private office, through the corridor,
-into the main office of the bank. On one side there was a long, marble
-counter, surmounted by a bronze railing, having windows barred like
-those of a jail, behind which were imprisoned the tellers and the
-clerks; on the other, the plain walls, with the long panels of polished
-marble, and the high, little upright desks over the steam radiators at
-which the customers made out the deposit slips or signed checks. It
-was not unlike a church, this temple of Mammon, known in Wall Street
-as “Fort Dawson.” It had a look of austerity that impressed people.
-The clink of gold was aristocratically inaudible; the clerks habitually
-spoke in whispers, and outsiders felt this and lowered their voices
-instinctively. A bank which tolerated boisterous humour would not
-have been quite safe enough. This one repelled levity, and attracted
-deposits; it had nearly $150,000,000 of other people’s money. Great was
-Dawson and his golden fort!
-
-The president walked, hatless, through the corridor as though he were
-going to another department and met, quite accidentally, Mr. George K.
-Grinnell, who happened to be there.
-
-“How do you do, Mr. Grinnell? I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially.
-There was no pretence about his cordiality; the man had on deposit two
-millions. But it was not this particular man’s deposit which caused the
-busy clerks to make mistakes in adding their rows of figures; they were
-accustomed to the fluctuating, semi-fictitious millions of the great
-stock-gamblers. It was that Mr. Dawson should be so cordial to any man.
-
-“I am very well, thanks,” said the young man. “So are you, I can see.”
-
-“You have good eyes. Well, what have you done now?” asked the president
-playfully.
-
-“Deposited a little more.” It was said calmly, not with theatrical
-nonchalance.
-
-“How much?” The president, naturally, was asking for information he
-could not be expected to have.
-
-“A million this time.”
-
-The president put his hand chummily on his customer’s shoulder. “Young
-man,” he said, in mock seriousness, “when will this nefarious work
-cease?”
-
-“I’ll stop when you tell me you’d rather I went to some other bank,”
- answered Grinnell, smiling.
-
-The president shook his head as if in despair.
-
-“You are incorrigible. Well, come early and often. Drop in on me
-whenever you feel like it; glad to see you at any time.”
-
-“Thanks, Mr. Dawson,” he nodded, smilingly, but Mr. Dawson felt
-non-committally. Mr. Dawson thereupon became serious-He could not help
-it, try as he might. He drew the self-possessed young man aside.
-
-“My dear Mr. Grinnell, it is a great deal of money to have idle and,
-naturally, it is impossible for me to think it businesslike. If you
-contemplate employing it in the near future, of course, it alters
-matters. But, if we are to allow you interest on it, why--”
-
-“Mr. Dawson, pardon me for interrupting you. As I said to you before,
-I have not the slightest intention of disturbing this account for some
-time to come. I am not bothering about investments. They can wait. And
-I am willing to waive the interest. This may be unbusinesslike, but I am
-engaged in--ah--other matters, of greater importance.”
-
-“Yes?” with an inviting inflection.
-
-“Yes; I am in love.”
-
-Both laughed. Then the discomfited president said jovially: “I don’t
-blame you, then. Love before business, by all means.” And with a final
-warm hand-shake, he passed on. But he resented what he considered the
-jocular evasion of the young man.
-
-On the following Thursday, Mr. George K. Grinnell deposited two and a
-half millions--an Assay Office check in payment of gold bars weighing
-120,543 ounces three pennyweights.
-
-The president was disturbed. It was one thing to mystify the Street, and
-quite another to be himself mystified. He did not love such mysteries.
-They might be dangerous if left unsolved. He sent for the bank’s chief
-detective, a man of much experience and ingenuity; really a confidential
-agent.
-
-“Costello, on Thursday there will probably come to deposit some money
-with us a young man by the name of George K. Grinnell. He lives uptown
-somewhere. Ask Mr. Williams for his address. Learn all you can about
-him. Stay here all day Thursday. I’ll come out and talk to him. Report
-at once whatever you may learn.”
-
-“Yes, sir. For the preliminary work I’ll put John Croll on the case.
-Then I’ll take it up myself. Have you any reason to suspect anything
-wrong, sir?”
-
-“I have no reason to suspect anything. I wish to know who and what he
-is, what he does, and, especially, you must watch the Assay Office. He
-deposits large amounts of gold there. I want to know where that gold
-comes from. Find out all you can from the Assay Office people. See the
-truckman. Probably it comes from some mine. He brought me a letter from
-Professor Willetts, of the Columbia School of Mines. Say nothing to any
-one of this.”
-
-“Very well, sir.”
-
-Thursday came. A stock operator, famous for his keen reading of
-conditions, which came from his possession of a marvellous imagination
-combined with logical reasoning power, walked into the bank, and was
-impressed by the vaguely uneasy something in the air. He at once called
-on his friend, and occasional accomplice, Dawson. The president assured
-him that he had no news; wherefore, the imaginative plunger reasoned:
-“If it were good news he’d let me know, because it would help him to
-have me know it. The news, whatever it is, must be bad,” and left
-the bank hurriedly. A few minutes later the stock-market became very
-weak--the suspicious gambler was selling stocks to be on the safe
-side. But the president paid no attention to the whirring ticker in the
-corner. He was waiting for the arrival of Mr. George K. Grinnell. At one
-o’clock the president was angry. At two o’clock the clerks began to call
-the bets off; they had a pool on the amount Grinnell would deposit. At
-half after two Mr. Grinnell walked in, wrote out his deposit slip very
-deliberately, and presented it, with a check and his passbook, at the
-receiving-teller’s window.
-
-“You are late to-day, Mr. Grinnell,” incautiously said the teller.
-
-“Oh, you expected me?”
-
-Grover was made uncomfortable. “You see, Mr. Grinnell, you’ve been
-coming here on Thursdays so regularly that we’ve--” He stopped abruptly
-as he looked at the slip, and the Assay Office check for five millions
-of dollars. He credited the amount on the pass-book very slowly.
-
-Mr. Dawson came out of his private office. One of the clerks, who had
-been stationed at the door, had notified him of Mr. Grinnell’s arrival.
-
-“How do you do?” said the president cheerfully. “You are a little late
-to-day.”
-
-“So the teller was just saying.”
-
-The president was annoyed, exceedingly, that Grinnell should have
-learned that his arrival had been expected; but he explained smilingly:
-“Well, you have been so punctual on Thursdays that, I fancy, we’ve
-grown rather into the habit of looking for you. What have you done to us
-to-day?”
-
-“Five!” There was a curious suggestion of defiance in the young man’s
-tone.
-
-“Five millions?” incredulously.
-
-“Yes.” Grinnell looked at Mr. Dawson calmly.
-
-“Well, Mr. Grinnell--” The president paused.
-
-“Well, Mr. Dawson?” returned the young man.
-
-“Really, really,” said Dawson, more excited than any of the clerks
-remembered ever to have seen him, “this is most extraordinary.
-It’s--most extraordinary! Won’t you please come into my office a
-moment?”
-
-“With pleasure, Mr. Dawson.”
-
-They faced each other by the president’s desk. Dawson did not know how
-to begin. Perceiving that the silence was becoming embarrassing, he
-said: “Kindly be seated, Mr. Grinnell,” and himself sat down. In
-some curious way, no sooner was he in his chair than he felt calm,
-self-possessed. It was his throne. There, seated, he heard the speeches
-of men as from a height. Mostly he had heard suppliants for his mercy or
-for his favour. It had given him, through the sense of mastery, a great
-confidence in himself. It returned to him as he leaned back in the
-chair.
-
-“Let us speak with perfect frankness. You have now on deposit in this
-bank--”
-
-“I’ll tell you exactly,” said Grinnell, consulting his pass-book.
-He added the figures with the tip of a lead-pencil. “Exactly
-$9,537,805.69.”
-
-He looked at the president. Mr. Dawson bowed his head, as though
-thanking him for the information. There was a pause. Then the president
-went on, slowly: “That is a great deal of money, Mr. Grinnell, to have
-deposited in less than two months. It is more ready cash, with one, or
-possibly two exceptions, than any individual has on deposit in any one
-bank in the United States.”
-
-“Indeed?” There was genuine astonishment in the young man’s voice.
-Dawson felt it unmistakably.
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“But there are so many very rich men.”
-
-“Yes; but their riches are not in the shape of hard cash at the bank.
-The interest on that sum at the current rate is more than a thousand
-dollars a day. It is what makes your case so remarkable--a young man,
-unknown in the business world, the possessor of a vast fortune in gold.
-It is bound to excite extraordinary interest.”
-
-“Then I am glad,” said Grinnell, almost apologetically, “that I did not
-deposit more.”
-
-“What?” He was startled out of his bank presidentness, and stared at the
-young man with quite human amazement.
-
-“Yes, sir. I was thinking that I would bring in ten millions next
-Thursday.”
-
-[Illustration: 0053]
-
-“Good Heavens!”
-
-“You see,” explained the young man, very earnestly, “I thought that
-since this was the bank with the greatest deposits, after I had, as
-it were, accustomed you to this sort of business, it would be less
-noticeable than if I went elsewhere.”
-
-Mr. Dawson rose.
-
-“This cannot go on. I must know where this gold comes from!” He glared
-at the young man menacingly. His face had grown pale. Grinnell rose
-deliberately. He looked at the president so seriously as to produce the
-impression of a frown, though there was none on his face.
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” he said, in a voice that betrayed displeasure, “as I told
-you before, I have no intention of disturbing this account. As far as I
-can see, it will remain here indefinitely. I do not ask you to allow me
-interest. Should I change my mind, I will give you ample notice. If you
-wish me to relieve you of this burden, which you appear to regard as
-excessive, I beg that you will say so, and I shall go elsewhere. I bring
-this money here because I feel it will be safe. My private affairs, I am
-sure, can be of no interest to any one. You have but to say the word and
-we part--the best of friends.”
-
-The president drew in a deep breath.
-
-“I beg a thousand pardons,” he said with an attempt, not
-over-successful, at contrition. “You may forgive me, but I never shall
-forgive myself. But are you sure, Mr. Grin-nell, that you can tell me
-nothing of your--er--fortune? Remember, I have no desire to pry into
-your private affairs.” He had a way of being polite, as though his very
-thoughts were punctilious. Wall Street distrusted his self-possession.
-People who have others completely in their power, and are
-self-possessed, are too dangerous for comfort.
-
-“Well, Mr. Dawson, the fortune happens to be one of them,” said the
-young man.
-
-“So, you see, I can only regret that I cannot answer you.”
-
-“I will not press you, Mr. Grinnell. Ah! of course, I would hold in the
-strictest confidence anything you might see fit to tell me.” He smiled.
-His smile, often, was that of a diplomat at a reception. His attitudes,
-the absence of nervous gestures, the poise of his head, all bespoke
-self-control. But he could not always control his eyes. When he was
-not sure of his expression he half closed his eyelids, and spoke very
-gently.
-
-Grinnell shook his head. The president, at a loss for words, held out
-his hand.
-
-“You’ve forgiven me?” said Grinnell smiling, as in relief.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” with a mournful shake of the head, “that is unkind of
-you.”
-
-“Oh, but I mean it! Good-afternoon, Mr. Dawson.”
-
-The president escorted the young man to the door.
-
-“Good-afternoon, Mr. Grinnell. By the way, are we to expect you again
-soon?”
-
-“Next week, if I live,” and with a final smile that gave his serious
-face the indeterminately youthful look of people who have a keen sense
-of humour, Mr. Grinnell left the Metropolitan National Bank, faithfully
-“shadowed” by Mr. John Croll, formerly one of Pinkerton’s “star” men and
-general sleuth.
-
-Croll reported daily to his chief, Edward Costello, who in turn
-submitted a written report to Mr. Dawson. The young man had gone
-straight to his house, 193 West 38th Street, a four-story-and-basement
-brown-stone front, purchased by George K. Grinnell on March 8, 1899,
-from Mary C. Bryan, widow of Mitchell J. Bryan. He had staid indoors all
-day. In the evening went out for a walk, accompanied by a fox terrier,
-and returned at ten o’clock. On the following morning at 8:30,
-accompanied by the same dog, took a long walk in Central Park; returned
-at ten. Did not leave the house until five o’clock, when he went to the
-office of Dr. Coster, the well-known eye-specialist. Returned to his
-house and took the customary walk in the evening. He lived with his
-sister, very quietly, according to the domestics of the neighbouring
-houses. They paid no social calls and received none while under
-observation. The household supplies were purchased from shops in the
-vicinity, and paid for always in gold. On Monday, at 10 a. m., two heavy
-trucks owned by William Watson drove to the house and took each a load
-of bullion bars, painted black to disguise their nature, and weighing
-about two hundred and fifty pounds each, which the men brought out
-through the basement entrance, and carried to the Assay Office.
-Mr. Grinnell drove in a public hansom behind them, accompanied by a
-powerfully built man-servant, who lived in Mr. Grinnell’s house. A
-second trip was made. The daily movements of Mr. and Miss Grinnell, of
-the two women servants and the body-guard then were given in detail.
-They revealed absolutely nothing. On Thursdays, it had been learned, Mr.
-Grinnell went to the Assay Office, shortly after midday, and received a
-check for the gold bullion deposited on the previous Monday. The clerks
-there had been requested by Mr. Grinnell not to give any information,
-but Mr. Grinnell’s name--an undecipherable signature--appeared several
-times on the register of certificates for the payment of bullion
-deposits. By crediting him with various amounts instead of one lump sum,
-no comment was excited, nor had the interest of the newspaper reporters
-been aroused. But they said at the Assay Office it could not go on
-unnoticed very much longer, unless Mr. Grinnell took bars instead of
-checks for his gold. They thought it an unusual case; but the employees
-of the Federal Government are not supposed to have any imagination
-during business hours. It is against the rules.
-
-On Thursday Mr. Grinnell sent in his card to Mr. Dawson before calling
-on the receiving teller. He was admitted at once.
-
-“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. I have brought you--” he took two bits of
-paper from his pocket-book, fingered them uncertainly, and finally
-returned one to his pocket. He went on: “Ten millions.”
-
-“Is that all to-day?” The president not only was not nonplussed, but
-actually smiled.
-
-He was a great man. Even his enemies acknowledged it.
-
-“That’s all. You see, I’ve been depositing a little every week in the
-Eastern National Bank. But I’ve decided to increase it to a million a
-week, and I wanted to ask you if the Dry Goods National also is to be
-trusted.”
-
-“Great Heavens, man! When are you going to stop? Where is the mine?
-Can’t I buy stock in it?” The president spoke jocularly. He had, on
-hearing the young man’s words, determined to solve the mystery if it
-took fifty thousand dollars. It had ceased to be merely a mystery. It
-had become a menace. This made him calm.
-
-“I don’t own a share of mining stock. Do you think mines are good
-investments?” But the young man asked this altogether too innocently.
-
-“_Your_ mine would be.” The president gazed fixedly at the spectacled
-eyes. Grin-nell hesitated.
-
-“I’ll deposit this, then,” he said. “Good-morning.”
-
-But Mr. Dawson, thinking of disturbing possibilities, did not answer.
-The young man with his deposits of nineteen and one-half millions--and
-more to come--troubled the president. With that much cash, Grinnell
-already was a potential disturber of finance. With much more he could be
-infinitely worse--to the public and to the great moneyed interests. He
-could call suddenly upon the bank for his entire account, some day when
-money was tight, and stock pools needed it as a man’s lungs need air, as
-a man’s heart needs blood; and the stock-market would be convulsed, and
-guiltless millionaires suffer. Or, he could mistakenly lend it at such
-low rates of interest as would “break” the money-market, and help fools
-or gamblers, but grievously reduce the bank’s profits. Or, he could so
-misuse it as to foil some stock-market plan of Mr. Dawson’s, or of his
-associates. There was no limit to the possibilities of mischief from an
-unknown but even greater supply. Money is a commodity, governed, like
-all other commodities, by certain conditions. Fancy a man who suddenly
-announces--and proves it conclusively--that he has an unknown number of
-millions of bushels of excellent wheat; imagine the effect not only on
-unfortunate bull gamblers on the Board of Trade, but also on thousands
-of hard-working farmers. But the young man’s case was far worse. It
-was not alone his possession of much money; it was his having the gold
-itself! Money is only money, but gold is more: it is the measure of
-value. To disturb that was to disturb finance, commerce, and industry.
-The working-world would cease to labour, cease to breathe. In what would
-a millionaire’s affluence or a labourer’s poverty be measured; in what
-would men buy and sell, pay and be paid, if the young man’s supply of
-gold should be so great as to disturb the value-measure of civilized
-people? No world-disaster in all history could compare with this!
-
-Dawson’s mind, keen, imaginative, was made feverishly active by the
-stimulus of fear. Clearly, there was but one thing to do--important,
-urgent, vital!--to learn all about the young man, and the source and
-extent of his gold; to make him an ally; to share in that wealth; and,
-in the meantime, to reduce to a negligible minimum the possibilities
-for mischief against the bank which that young man and that wealth had
-created.
-
-The last check for ten millions would not go through the Clearing House
-but, in order to arouse no suspicions as to the unusually heavy Treasury
-operations with the New York banks, Mr. Dawson would send the check to
-the Sub-Treasury and get gold certificates. The amount would be put
-in as a special deposit. It would not appear in the regular bank
-statistics, and would be locked up in the vaults, which would keep, for
-publication, the reserve down and money rates up--a favourite practice
-of this king manipulator of the money-market--as well as strengthen
-the bank against Mr. Grinnell, should the young man suddenly decide
-to withdraw several millions at once. He attended to this and other
-business details and then sent for Costello.
-
-“I must have the full history of Mr. Grinnell. Don’t come to me without
-it. It is of the utmost importance. Go to work at once. I’ll see
-Professor Willetts myself. Drop everything else. Spare no expense and
-use any means. Understand? Report at once anything you may discover,
-however trivial.”
-
-Costello was impressed. He had worked, in his life, on cases involving
-enormous sums, ingenious swindles, thefts and defalcations which had
-never appeared in the newspapers, the unprintable side of vast financial
-deals. But never before had he been dazed, as now, by the suppressed
-excitement of the man, steel-nerved and ice-hearted, who presided over
-the destinies of the greatest bank of America, of a power so vast that
-it was scarcely second to that of the Government of the United States.
-
-The bank’s detective staff, the existence of which was unsuspected by
-the world at large, was marvellously well organized. Mr. Costello’s
-reports were lengthy. Summarized, they told the president something like
-this:
-
-George K. Grinnell was under the strictest surveillance, his daily
-movements being given in detail in the reports of John Croll and William
-F. Kearney; but they afforded not the slightest clue to the young man’s
-business. His daily walks in Central Park with his fox terrier--once
-with his sister--helped the investigation no more than the fact that he
-spent most of his time indoors. The furniture of the first floor of the
-house was described at great length by Mr. Kearney who, in the guise
-of a book agent, memorized it (Report D). Mr. Grinnell had three
-servants--one man and two maids. Every delivery wagon, and every person
-that had called at 193 West 38th Street had been shadowed--they were
-all tradespeople. One wagon was from Wilkins & Cross, the dealers in
-chemical and laboratory supplies. The driver, John C. Plummer, who was
-interviewed by Kearney and then by Costello, vouchsafed the information
-that Mr. Grinnell had a chemical laboratory, and for years had purchased
-supplies from the firm. Lately the supplies had consisted chiefly of
-crucibles, charcoal, coke, bone-ash, litharge, adds and other articles
-used by assayers and refiners. Plummer was promised $250 for a complete
-transcript of Mr. Grinnell’s purchases from Wilkins & Cross from
-the first, which he agreed to obtain, and was now at work on. The
-biographical data, obtained from divers sources, most ingeniously,
-showed that George Kitchell Grinnell was born in Middletown, New
-York, on January 1, 1873. His father was Frederick Hobart Grinnell, a
-druggist, who died in 1898. His mother died in 1889. He had one sister,
-two and one-half years younger; name Ada. The father left property
-valued at about $40,000, chiefly real estate in Middletown, New York.
-So far as friends of the family knew, it was all the property owned by
-George Kitchell Grinnell and his sister. The rents were collected and
-remitted to New York by Frederick Kitchell Carpenter, attorney-at-law, a
-first cousin of Grinnell. By Middle-town people, George K. Grinnell
-was believed to be an analytical chemist in New York, with a fairly
-lucrative practice. Grinnell entered the School of Mines, Columbia
-University, 1891; was graduated in 1895 with the degree of Bachelor
-of Metallurgy. According to his professors he was a good, but not
-exceptional student. But had improved with age, one of them said, and
-was very well up on radium--perhaps better than any one else in America
-excepting the professor himself. Was popular among his fellow-students,
-according to some of his classmates; was president of his class in his
-junior year; was an editor of the Columbia Spectator two years. After
-leaving college, spent a year in Middletown, in his father’s pharmacy.
-In October, 1896, came to New York City. Was employed as assayer in the
-laboratory of Bangs & Wilson, 35 John Street. Left there the following
-year to return to Middletown, his father being ill. Was considered a
-competent and careful assayer and analytical chemist. A fellow employee
-and he were interested in an electrical furnace. But no patent had ever
-been taken out in either of their names. Remained in Middletown until
-after his father’s death. In 1898 came back to New York. Lived at Mrs.
-Scott’s boarding-house, 169 West 48th Street. Purchased the house, 193
-West 38th Street, in March, 1899, from Mary C. Bryan. His sister came
-from Middletown in the fall of 1899. They had lived there quietly
-ever since. On Monday two trucks--the same he had employed for some
-weeks--came twice and took bars of gold bullion to the Assay Office. He
-had deposited to date gold valued at $36,807,988. He had accounts,
-also, at the Agricultural National and Eastern National Banks, but there
-nothing was known of his business. His deposits at all these banks had
-been in the shape of Assay Office checks, and also in Assay Office bars,
-which made the bank people think he was a mining man.
-
-Professor Willetts could not tell Dawson much. He knew Grinnell as he
-had known hundreds of other students. He had never heard that Grinnell
-was wealthy, certainly not wealthy enough to be a worthless student.
-He remembered having recommended Grinnell to Bangs & Wilson as a
-good as-sayer. The young man’s graduating thesis had been on
-electro-metallurgy. He was a pleasant enough chap. The president, on
-hearing Willetts’s words, felt it wise to say nothing of Grinnell’s
-enormous gold supply. The less people talked about it the better it
-might be for the bank, if things did not go right afterward.
-
-On Thursday, shortly after midday, Mr. Grinnell sent in his card to the
-president. Mr. Dawson greeted him at the door. “Come in, Mr. Grinnell.”
-
-“How do you do, Mr. Dawson?”
-
-“I am worried, Mr. Grinnell. Very much worried.” The president looked
-it. He always made it a practice of looking the way he said he felt.
-This time he did not have to act.
-
-“Indeed? I’m very sorry to hear it,” answered Grinnell--with a very good
-simulation of concern, the president thought.
-
-“You will be sorrier to hear, Mr. Grinnell, that you are the cause of my
-worry.”
-
-“I?” The astonishment was not so great as a sort of uneasiness, which
-did not escape the older man.
-
-“Yes, Mr. Grinnell, you. Have you deposited any more--”
-
-“Oh! I can withdraw it, if you don’t care to have it.”
-
-“How much?”
-
-“The same as last week.” Grinnell said it diffidently, uncomfortably, as
-if he felt guilty of taking undue advantage of the president’s kindness.
-
-“Ten millions?” Mr. Dawson gasped slightly.
-
-“Ye-es, sir,” doubtfully. He evidently would have denied it if he could.
-
-The president took a cigar and contemplated it a long time. A boy
-entered with a card. The president said sharply: “I can’t see any one.”
- He threw the unlit cigar on the desk.
-
-The office-boy hesitated; then, with a pale face, said, “It’s Mr.
-Graves.”
-
-“I’m not in, hang it!” shouted Mr. Dawson, whose voice, habitually, was
-so carefully modulated. “Go away!”
-
-He arose and walked up and down the room. From time to time he snapped
-his fingers with a sharp sound. Grinnell looked on uncomfortably. At
-length Mr. Dawson ceased his walk, picked up his cigar, inserted it,
-very deliberately, into an amber cigar-holder, and lighted it. He faced
-the young man and said with composure: “That makes thirty millions of
-gold in two months.”
-
-“Twenty-nine and a half,” corrected Grinnell, as if in self-defence.
-
-“In round numbers, thirty millions. You have, also, on deposit in other
-banks, some six or seven more.”
-
-“I--I think,” said Grinnell dubiously, “that it is less than seven. Let
-me see,” eagerly, as if anxious to show that he was not so black as Mr.
-Dawson would paint him. “It’s--it’s--”
-
-The president waited.
-
-“It _is_ about seven,” confessed Grinnell regretfully..
-
-“Mr. Grinnell, I don’t know whether you are familiar with finance.” The
-president spoke quietly, twirling his cigar-holder, and looking at the
-ashes critically.
-
-“Not very,” hastily apologized the young man.
-
-“You will pardon me for telling you that through ignorance of the
-responsibilities of your position you can inflict serious injury to
-the entire business community--injury, Mr. Grinnell, which, reduced to
-dollars and cents, might be many times thirty millions.”
-
-“I think,” said Grinnell, a trifle dubiously, “that I can see ways in
-which vast sums of money would do harm if wrongly used.”
-
-“_Unwisely_ used, Mr. Grinnell. And now, in view of this, I should be
-grateful to you from the bottom of my heart, if you could enlighten me
-as to how this gold came into your possession.” He looked at the young
-man anxiously.
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” Grinnell answered, with a determined earnestness, “that is
-something I must refuse to discuss. I am sorry.”
-
-“Not so sorry as I. But I’d be even more grateful if I could know how
-much more gold if any, you have, not on deposit with any bank.”
-
-“At this moment?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Well, I can’t tell, exactly.”
-
-“Approximately?”
-
-“Really, I don’t know, Mr. Dawson. I may as well tell you frankly that
-this subject--”
-
-“Is of great importance to me, sir, as the president of this bank.”
-
-“By withdrawing the account, then, I--”
-
-“You would not help the situation which you have created, Mr. Grinnell.
-Have you much more gold?”
-
-The young man looked straight into the president’s eyes. He said: “If it
-will relieve your mind, I can assure you that I have not much more.”
-
-“Everything is relative. What do you consider much?”
-
-“What do you?”
-
-“Say, twenty or thirty millions more.”
-
-“Oh, no! I haven’t thirty millions more.”
-
-“Have you twenty?” persisted the president.
-
-“Twenty?” The young man thought a moment. “No, I haven’t.”
-
-“Ten?”
-
-“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Dawson,” the young man said, as if
-jumping at a decision, “I’ll deposit fifteen millions more in this bank
-and then I’ll stop. It will give me forty-five millions, and I’ll never
-bother you again; unless,” he added, almost pleadingly, “you let me.”
-
-The president stared electrically.
-
-“You mean,” he said sharply, “that you can get more?”
-
-“You asked me how much more I had at present and I told you.”
-
-“I beg your pardon; you didn’t tell me exactly. I should have asked how
-much more in all you expect to have.”
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” ignoring the president’s last words, “it seems to me that
-if I scatter the deposits among other banks in the city, I can’t do much
-harm. In fact,” he added, brightly, as if at a new idea, “I could open
-accounts with banks in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, and
-other cities, where they would not be noticeable. And even in Europe.
-You could transfer some of the funds I have here to the big cities
-there, and then I could deposit an equal amount here, so that my account
-with you would never be above forty-five or fifty millions, and--”
-
-“My God, man! Don’t you know that--” Dawson checked himself abruptly.
-He went on very quietly. “Am I to understand that your supply is not
-exhausted?”
-
-“I won’t deposit any more of it here,” said Grinnell conciliatingly.
-
-“How much more is there in the mine?”
-
-“There is no mine,” answered Grinnell. The president felt he spoke the
-truth.
-
-“Do you make it, then?”
-
-Grinnell laughed. “That would be funny, if you thought I made it.” The
-condition of the president’s nerves was responsible for the wild thought
-that lodged in his mind.
-
-“You are a chemist, a metallurgist? And you have studied the phenomena
-of radium?”
-
-“Yes.” Grinnell looked surprised, but not exactly guilty, the president
-admitted to himself.
-
-“Have you discovered a method for changing other metals into gold, or
-for extracting it out of sea-water?”
-
-Grinnell laughed again. “I am glad,” he said, “that you are not worried
-now.”
-
-“Oh, but I am!”
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” said the young man, once more serious, “I am not such a
-very rich man as rich men go to-day. You, yourself, if what I read in
-the newspapers is true, have more than I.”
-
-“I wish I did.”
-
-“So do I. You probably would know how to deposit your money properly. At
-any rate, I can name a dozen men who have over fifty millions, and--”
-
-“I doubt it.”
-
-“And half a dozen who own over a hundred. The Waldorf family certainly
-do. Mr. Angus Campbell, of Pittsburg, is said to have three hundred.
-Your friend, Mr. William Mellen, of the International Distributing
-Syndicate, is supposed to have five hundred at least. Why should a
-fortune of even a billion dollars raise a rumpus these days? It was
-inconceivable a few years ago, but it does not seem out of the way now.
-I realize perfectly how the sudden increase in the gold supply of this
-country could produce an inflation that might, in the end, prove highly
-detrimental to general business. As I understand it, certain financial
-laws cannot be disturbed with impunity, however praiseworthy the
-financial law-breaker’s motives may be. But a billion dollars would not
-make such an awful lot, especially if it should be turned into
-circulation gradually.”
-
-“It would mean an increase per capita of forty per cent. It would be
-terrific,” said the president earnestly. “Your argument is utterly
-unsound unless by ‘gradually’ you mean fifty years.”
-
-“I certainly don’t mean any such thing. Supposing new and enormously
-rich goldfields were discovered, would that upset the financial
-equilibrium of the world?”
-
-“It is conceivable that it could easily do so.”
-
-“I think that the world would adjust itself to the new conditions very
-quickly. Just now, the South African mines are not producing. Suppose
-that a new source of supply should yield one to two hundred millions a
-year? Or, five hundred, if it were distributed among all the civilized
-countries? I’d be the last man to make gold as cheap as pig-iron, I can
-assure you. But--”
-
-The president’s face was livid. Dark rings had appeared, as by a stage
-trick, suddenly under his eyes. Wrinkles showed about his nostrils, like
-those seen in invalids after prolonged pain.
-
-“Mr. Dawson, are you ill?” asked Grin-nell anxiously.
-
-“No, no,” said the president, with a pale smile. “Your views are--er--I
-mean no offence, Mr. Grinnell, but they show that a little knowledge is
-a dangerous thing.”
-
-“I have been studying this matter for some weeks, Mr. Dawson,” Grinnell
-said, with a complacency that almost made the president shudder. There
-was no telling what the young man might not do in his ignorance.
-
-“Pray proceed,” said Mr. Dawson, with an effort.
-
-“As I was saying, I have been depositing gradually--”
-
-“Thirty-seven millions in two months!”
-
-“I have not yet enough money to be classed among the really rich men
-in this country. But I am young,” with a smile that set a-shivering the
-gold-enwrapped soul of Mr. Richard Dawson. “I am keenly alive, I think,
-to the obligations of really great wealth, and I trust to do as much
-good in the world as I can. I mean to be a very rich man, Mr. Dawson.
-Of course, I could live comfortably on the income of forty or fifty
-millions; but I am going to do more than live comfortably. Man owes
-certain duties to his fellow-men which are neglected too often. Why,”
- enthusiastically, “the possession of unlimited wealth in worthy hands
-would mean the realization of the beautiful dreams of those unselfish
-men whom you, doubtless, call Utopians, and Socialists, and visionaries.
-They are the men who believe that mankind, at heart, is good. They are
-the men who will revolutionize the world!”
-
-“Revolutions mean disaster,” said Mr. Dawson half angrily.
-
-“Possibly disaster to a few individuals at first, but, in the end,
-happiness to the community,” said the young man, with an inspired air.
-
-“It is a question whether the price paid would not be disproportionate
-to the good obtained.” Mr. Dawson spoke as though he would dissuade
-the young man, but not too strongly, for fear his words might intensify
-obstinacy. It was, unwittingly, a subtle admission that he thought
-the young man did not lack the power to make his dream an actual
-catastrophe.
-
-“Whatever means the greatest good to the greatest number is necessarily
-good,” retorted Grinnell, in a tone that permitted no contradiction. “A
-revolution, Mr. Dawson, is achieved by three things: By time, which is
-too slow; by blood, which is revolting; and by gold, Mr. Dawson, _BY
-GOLD!_”
-
-The young man was looking sternly at Mr. Dawson, who stared back so
-fixedly as to be painful. On the president’s brow appeared a microscopic
-dew; you would have said his brain was shedding tears of agony. He had
-visioned, not the revolution of mankind, but his own ruin!
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a curious, little indrawn gasp, “I
-can only pray you to go slow. Don’t let your enthusiasm lead you to
-precipitate an appalling crisis. You can do all the good you wish if
-you consider carefully all sides of the question. But, as you value the
-welfare of humanity, go slow, Mr. Grinnell. In God’s name, go slow.”
-
-“Oh, yes!” said Grinnell. “I’m in no hurry. We will discuss these
-matters from time to time. In the meanwhile,” he took from his
-pocket-book another check--the same as he had taken out and replaced at
-the beginning of the interview--“I’ll deposit this additional five and
-one-half millions, making thirty-five in all, and--”
-
-“Tell me, Mr. Grinnell,” interrupted Mr. Dawson, with a calmness
-unpleasantly suggestive of desperation, “is your secret known to
-others?”
-
-“Which secret?”
-
-“The source of your gold?” The intensity of Mr. Dawson’s _gaze_ had in
-it something ominous.
-
-“No one knows.”
-
-“Ah!” The president drew in his breath sharply. He paused, growing
-visibly calm, the while.
-
-“If anything happened to you?” he said. He meant his voice to show
-solicitude. It betrayed merely a strange and not kindly curiosity.
-
-“My sister would know,” answered the young man. “I’ve provided for that,
-of course. She would continue my plans, with which she is in sympathy,
-though she does not know the extent of my resources.”
-
-“H’m!”
-
-“If I died suddenly, either from natural causes or as the result of
-some accident or violence, she would devote her life to carrying out my
-plans. She is really a remarkable woman. If she too should die suddenly,
-Mr. Dawson,” looking unflinchingly at the bank president, “my secret
-and my history would be given to the world. It would make interesting
-reading; particularly to financiers, Mr. Dawson. I have written
-full instructions. The average man could not be trusted with such an
-opportunity to become enormously wealthy, but I have a friend who
-is above the temptation of sudden riches, who would be my literary
-executor”--with a faint smile, as at the hidden humour of the
-phrase--“_He_ is a real socialist. He’d give you trouble, Mr. Dawson.
-And if he dies, there are three others who would then know the means by
-which I came to be one of your depositors.”
-
-“And your deposits?”
-
-“If I died before I carried out my plans, what need to worry about this
-gold? If my sister died, she wouldn’t care what became of it either.
-I fear, Mr. Dawson,” he finished, very slowly, “that the gold we left
-behind us would do neither good nor harm to the world.” The president sat
-down.
-
-“Yours is a remarkable story, Mr. Grin-nell, which I am compelled to
-believe. I must see you again.”
-
-“Next Thursday?” with a smile.
-
-“Very well. I thank you for your confidence. I beg that you will not
-speak of your affairs to any one.”
-
-“I’m not likely to. I didn’t expect, when I came here, to tell you as
-much as I have. Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” and he walked briskly out of
-the office.
-
-The president gulped, as though swallowing a dry and obdurate morsel.
-
-“We are undone!” he muttered.
-
-He rose and stood by his desk, supporting himself as though the
-office floor were unstable and staring unseeingly at a painting on the
-wall--the portrait of his predecessor. He nodded toward the portrait and
-muttered drunkenly: “Absolutely at the mercy of one man!”
-
-He nodded again. Then he said to the portrait: “I must see Mellen!”
-
-He blinked his eyes as at a strong light. Of a sudden he pulled himself
-together, put on his hat, and hastily left the room.
-
-He walked quickly up Wall Street to Broadway, turned southward, and
-entered the huge home of the International Distributing Syndicate.
-
-“Eighth floor!” he said to the elevator man. The sound of his own voice,
-husky almost to inaudibleness, startled him.
-
-“Eighth floor,” he repeated, very distinctly.
-
-Walking straight to a door at the end of the hall, marked “Private,” he
-entered. The burly man at the gate of a railing said: “Good-morning, Mr.
-Dawson,” and obsequiously opened the gate. But Mr. Dawson made no reply;
-whereat the burly man wondered, for Mr. Dawson was a polite man.
-
-The president passed, unchallenged, through two rooms, in which clerks
-worked at desks, and finally confronted the head of the syndicate, who
-sat at a flat desk. Before him was a sheet on which he had been making
-calculations with a lead-pencil.
-
-“How do you do, Richard?” said the richest man in the world. He was a
-middle-aged man, quiet-spoken, brown-eyed; a face quietly alert rather
-than over-shrewd. His head was curiously shapen, broad above the ears
-and tapering slightly, though noticeably, at the top. Phrenologists
-spoke delightedly of the abnormal development of his bump of
-acquisitiveness, because they knew who he was; and of the absence of the
-other bumps, for the same irrefutable reason. But the very shape of it
-conveyed an impression of an unusual brain within it, though, perhaps,
-people who did not know who he was might not have been so susceptible to
-the impression. Great leaders seldom look like their imagined portraits.
-
-“William,” said the president of the Metropolitan National Bank, “we are
-confronted by the greatest crisis in the history of the world!”
-
-Consternation appeared on the face of the richest man in the world,
-as though it had been flashed upon it by a stereopticon. It was not
-pleasant to see. His photograph, taken at that moment, would have
-impressed a stranger as being that of an amateur actor, inartistically
-expressing dismay--it was so exaggeratedly frightened.
-
-“What has happened, Richard?” he asked tremulously, rising from his
-chair.
-
-“William,” answered Mr. Dawson, as though he expected unbelief: “listen
-calmly. Ruin stares us in the face--you, and me, and everybody!”
-
-[Illustration: 0095]
-
-“What have you done?” cried the richest man in the world.
-
-“Listen. Calm yourself.”
-
-“Are you--ill?”
-
-“Oh, I’m not crazy! If I were, I’d tell you that a man is manufacturing
-gold at this very minute. And yet, that is what I think.”
-
-“What is the matter, Richard?” There was merely impatience now, in Mr.
-Mellen’s voice.
-
-“There is a man who has discovered an inexhaustible supply of gold. He
-will not stop until he has a billion dollars. He is a Socialist--”
-
-“What are you saying?”
-
-“William, the man already has on deposit at the bank thirty-five
-millions, and he’s been only two months at it. He has at least seven
-millions on deposit at other banks in this city. We must do something,”
- and Mr. Richard Dawson told his friend and associate the entire story of
-Mr. George K. Grin-nell. The richest man in the world listened with his
-very soul. There was danger of his being no longer the richest man in
-the world.
-
-“And now,” finished Dawson, “we must think, William. What are we to do?”
-
-“It can’t be true!” frowned Mellen. Then into his eyes came a frightened
-look. It passed and he said: “Absurd! It can’t be true.”
-
-“It _is_ true. The gold comes from his house, his laboratory.”
-
-“It’s some trick, a plot.” The richest man in the world had imagination,
-and was partial to schemes. “We must prevent him from going too far,”
- as though that were the first thing to do before satisfying a merely
-personal curiosity.
-
-“How?” The president was growing calm. If he was ruined, so was the rest
-of the world. He did not care for the rest of the world, but the thought
-braced him.
-
-“Some legal action--”
-
-“Out of the question. There is no ground. Besides, the less publicity
-the better, William, we are in his power. But nobody knows it, not even
-he. Therein lies our safety. In the meanwhile we must--” He paused.
-
-“What?”
-
-“It is, obviously, the only step we can take.” There was no one else, in
-the room, but Mr. Dawson drew near and whispered into his friend’s ear.
-His friend nodded from time to time.
-
-“That,” said Mellen quietly, with a sort of convictionless acquiescence,
-as Dawson concluded, “we must not do until we are certain that he
-can swamp the world with gold!” He picked up the sheet full of
-lead-pencilled figures and began to tear it into small bits.
-
-“Confound him!” said the president angrily.
-
-“Yes, Richard,” agreed Mellen, with at air that had a suggestion of
-conscious guilt. He never swore. It was a sin. He was the richest man in
-the world.
-
-
-
-
-
-PART TWO: THE GOLD
-
-On Thursday--the president, a keen psychologist, to reassure the
-richest man in the world, had jocularly called it Consternation Day--Mr.
-William Mellen and Mr. Richard Dawson entered the bank. They had ridden
-from Mr. Mellen’s house in Mr. Mellen’s brougham. They had discussed
-Mr. Grinnell at great and painful length many times in that week. In
-the carriage, on the way downtown, they had talked of nothing else.
-The president was certain that the mystery no longer was a mystery.
-The burden of his argument had become that a condition, not a theory,
-confronted them. The time for idle speculation had passed. It behooved
-them to act. The lingering indecision of Mr. Mellen did not come from
-inability to change his lifetime’s plans in the twinkling of an eye,
-but from unwillingness to accept at second-hand the inevitableness of
-something unspeakably disagreeable. All great business generals are
-opportunists. But at times the greatest minds work femininely.
-
-“The question of whether he makes his gold or not, or how he gets it,
-now has merely an academic interest, William. The thing is, that he has
-the gold.” Dawson said it in a playfully exaggerated pedagogical air,
-yet ready to become deadly earnest in a twinkling.
-
-“I don’t see it,” said Mellen seriously. “We must find the explanation.
-What he can do, we can do.”
-
-“We have tried.”
-
-“We must succeed.”
-
-“Your coachman says to himself: ‘If Mr. Mellen has made five hundred
-millions of dollars in thirty years, what he can do, I can do. Do you
-see him doing it? I tell you the man has the gold. He isn’t trying to
-sell us any secret. All he asks is to be let alone. That is the alarming
-thing.
-
-“It must be a mine. Where else could so much gold come from?” Mellen’s
-thoughts were on the source of the gold.
-
-“My dear William, we can account for every ounce of gold produced in the
-world. There is no mine capable of producing such a quantity secretly.”
-
-“He may have hoarded it; accumulated it for months.”
-
-“If a mine produced a thousand ounces a month We’d know it; and Grinnell
-has deposited in our bank and others, as far as I have been able to
-trace, at the rate of a million ounces a month. He is too young to have
-hoarded it for years. He has no accomplices. That is certain. He visits
-nobody, but stays home. His father did not leave it to him. He has not
-unearthed any secret treasure, and, moreover, there never was or
-could be a hidden treasure of such magnitude. Why, his gold must weigh
-something like seventy-five tons! Nobody could have given it to him,
-for nobody had it to give except our bank or the Commercial, and we
-certainly didn’t. The Assay Office say Grinnel’s is not quite like any
-of the other bullion that goes to the Assay Office. Its only impurity
-is a little platinum, and it isn’t always present. We know, within a
-negligible quantity, where almost every ounce of gold in the world is,
-and who holds it. There is not a bank or a bullion dealer anywhere whose
-supply is not known, approximately, to us. It’s my business to know.
-There’s no mystery about that. The mystery is Grinnell’s gold supply.
-He cannot store vast quantities in his house. Our men have been in every
-room in it. Costello, disguised as a driver from the dealers from whom
-Grinnell buys his chemical supplies, says there is no place for vaults.
-The only alterations made in the house since Grinnell bought it, that he
-can see, were to transform the basement into a metallurgical laboratory.
-We can say almost certainly that the gold is melted in his electric
-furnace. But all that we know positively is this: _NOTHING GOES IN,
-AND GOLD COMES OUT!_ Grinnell is making it, I tell you.” The president
-turned to his morning mail. Mellen stopped him.
-
-“But that is impossible. You know it is.”
-
-“It is a scientific impossibility; but it is also an actual fact.
-Maybe it isn’t gold at all. But the Assay Office and chemists who have
-analysed samples I secured from the Assay Office say it is. Where can he
-get it? Not from a mine outside of New York, for we could easily trace
-it, no matter how long ago it came. Not from a mine in Thirty-eighth
-Street, or we’d know it. Not from sea-water. I even had the street torn
-up in front of Grin-nell’s house under pretence of fixing the gas-main.
-He can’t get it from the air. The whole thing is impossible. That’s why
-I’m afraid.”
-
-“If he makes it he must make it out of something,’’ said Mellen
-controversially.
-
-“Wilkins & Gross, the chemical people, say that last year Grinnell
-bought large quantities of iridium, osmium, ruthenium, and other metals
-of the platinum group. They understood that he had been experimenting
-with an electrical furnace. Costello saw a gas-engine and a dynamo in
-the laboratory, and a lot of electrical apparatus. That’s his specialty,
-it seems. And the Columbia people say he is quite an authority on
-radium. I tell you the man makes it; at least, to all intents and
-purposes he does. Perhaps it’s radium rays applied to some base metal in
-some way which he has discovered accidentally. Wait till you see him,”
- and Mr. Dawson began composedly to rip the edges of the envelopes with a
-long, sharp paper-cutter.
-
-The richest man in the world walked up and down the office. Once his
-lips moved. Dawson, who happened to look up from his work at that very
-moment, asked him: “What did you say, William?”
-
-“The government would be justified in stopping him.”
-
-“If the world knew the secret of making gold what would be gained? He
-has us in his power. No sense to blind your eyes to it.”
-
-The face of the richest man in the world flushed. He said, with an
-impressive, because calm, determination: “He must be stopped!” He
-paused. Looking at his friend steadily, he repeated, very quietly--too
-quietly: “At any cost!”
-
-“If we can stop him by fair words, all right. No use to try anything
-else. He has provided against everything!”
-
-The richest man in the world stared at his friend; his head was bent
-forward as if to listen better. At Dawson’s last words he resumed his
-pacing. The pattern of the big Oriental rug consisted of ornate squares
-surrounded by a profusion of arabesques. Mel-len, his gaze fixed on the
-rug, stepped on alternate squares as he walked up and down the room. The
-president began to read his mail. From time to time he looked up and saw
-the richest man in the world striding up and down the room, carefully
-stepping on alternate squares in the rug.
-
-An office-boy entered.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell is here, sir,” he announced.
-
-The richest man in the world halted abruptly and waited, his eyes on the
-door.
-
-“Show him in at once. Ah, good-morning, Mr. Grinnell.” The president
-rose and walked toward the young man with outstretched hand.
-
-“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” said Grinnell cheerfully. He became aware of
-Mr. Mellen, who was staring at him unblinkingly, and hesitated.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell, let me introduce my friend, Mr. William Mellen.”
-
-“How do you do, Mr. Mellen?” said Grinnell. Mr. Mellen shook hands and
-Grinnell gazed attentively at the richest man in the world. After a
-slight pause, he added deprecatingly, as if to explain his scrutiny;
-“I have read so much about you, Mr. Mellen. I hope you will pardon my
-rudeness.”
-
-“I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Grinnell. I have heard a great deal
-about you, lately.” Mellen said this almost impatiently. He was a man
-whose business soul was dark and tortuous, like his methods. His speech
-was habitually non-committal, and he had won more battles and more
-millions by patience than by aggression. But now he was eager to plunge
-into a cross-examination of the young man before him. Yet, he looked ill
-at ease. Perhaps he feared to find that Dawson was not mistaken in his
-wild surmises.
-
-“Yes,” put in the bank president, with an ingratiating smile at the
-young man, “I have taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Mellen about
-you.” A slight frown appeared on Grinnell’s face. The president hastened
-to add: “He is the only soul on earth to whom I have spoken. You see,
-Mr. Grinnell, I was very anxious to bring you two together. Yours is an
-extraordinary case; and Mr. Mellen is not only a director of this bank,
-but I consider him, as a business man and financier, one of the--”
-
-“Never mind all that, Dawson,” interrupted Mellen, with a curious
-mixture of habitual smoothness and an unwonted sharpness, as if
-deprecating flattery, and at the same time resenting the president’s
-apologetic attitude. “Mr. Grinnell, I am sure you must realize that you
-have created a condition which may become of national importance, since
-it contains a dire menace to this country’s business.” He assumed,
-toward the end of his speech, or his voice and manner did, that Mr.
-Grinnell and he were in accord on that point.
-
-Grinnell looked distinctly surprised. When he spoke, both his hearers
-felt absolutely assured that he wished to gain time, to plan a defence.
-
-“I certainly do not realize anything of the kind, Mr. Mellen.”
-
-“Then, sir, it is high time you did,” returned Mellen. His face was
-composed, but in the composure there was menace. Mr.
-
-Dawson made haste to offset the effect which he feared Mr. Mellen’s
-words might have on Mr. George K. Grinnell. He said, with flattering
-deference; “As I explained to you, Mr. Grinnell, the money-market is a
-delicate piece of mechanism. Unusual shocks produce unusual
-disturbances; and all disturbances are highly detrimental to business.”
- He smiled deprecatingly but forgivingly: the money-market was a
-pampered child; no need to be too harsh.
-
-“Yes, I know that. But what unusual shock have I given to the delicate
-mechanism of the money-market?” Grinnell’s effort to conceal his
-annoyance was apparent to the two capitalists.
-
-“You have not yet, sir; but what assurance have I, have all business
-men, that you will not?” The richest man in the world asked this with a
-frown, as if Mr. Grinnell had not met him half-way and might as well now
-throw off his mask and reveal himself frankly, as the criminal disturber
-of the world’s business peace, to be dealt with accordingly.
-
-“Assurance that I will not? Why should I disturb the money-market?
-The money-market does not disturb me.” Grinnell said it not at all
-jocularly, but very calmly, as if he meant it literally.
-
-“But you will disturb it if you keep on,” said Mellen, drumming with his
-finger-tips on the top of the president’s desk. He perceived this and
-ceased with an abruptness that betokened remorse over the absence of
-self-control. He was an introspective man.
-
-“There is nothing unusual going on, is there? No stringency anywhere;
-in fact, I gather from the newspapers that money rates are very low,”
- Grinnell went on.
-
-“Your deposits are, in some measure, responsible for it,” said Dawson,
-with a placating smile.
-
-“I am glad of it,” said the young man simply. “It is a good thing that
-people should be able to borrow money cheaply, isn’t it?”
-
-“Not too cheaply.” Mr. Dawson shook his head and smiled, as at a
-favourite son who is in error, but is young.
-
-“Oh, I know what you mean. It isn’t profitable for the banks with money
-to lend; it makes the supply greater than the demand, and you get lower
-interest rates on your loans; and then it is apt to be a sign that
-business is slack, and people have no need to borrow. But just now,
-unless all the newspapers lie, business is quite active in all lines
-and--” Grinnell’s speech savoured slightly of the pedagogical, like
-a school-boy enunciating obvious truths, but using his teacher’s
-professional solemnity.
-
-“That is not the point,” interrupted the richest man in the world.
-
-“What is the point, then?” asked Grin-nell, with an air of forgiving
-Mellen’s impoliteness.
-
-“Do you propose to flood the world with gold?” Mr. Mellen’s voice rang
-out rather unpleasantly.
-
-“That,” said the young man slowly, “is a very remarkable question, Mr.
-Mellen.”
-
-“Mr. Grinnell”--Mr. Dawson spoke with a half-jocular voice--“I have told
-Mr. Mellen of your extraordinary deposits, and he naturally wishes to
-know if you are ever going to stop.”
-
-“Yes, Mr. Dawson, I am going to stop at once. I shall transfer my
-account to another bank. Will you be good enough to--”
-
-“No, no, no! You misunderstand me.”
-
-“Mr. Dawson, I have told you several times that if the fact that I was
-one of your depositors disturbed you, you could rid yourself of your
-suffering by telling me to seek some other bank. The reason why I
-selected this one was because it was the richest and, I supposed, the
-most ably managed in the country. Nothing but the fear of arousing a
-curiosity I could not gratify made me deposit my gold gradually. If a
-man deposited fifty or a hundred millions at once, and everybody
-knew it, he could not live in peace in this country. The sensational
-newspapers would hound him to death. You know what my views are, and
-that I hope to do some good to my fellow-men in this world. But I see
-that I was mistaken in my assumption that I could deposit some of my
-funds with you. To prevent further--”
-
-“Mr. Grinnell, I beg that you will not close your account with us. Your
-money is yours to do with as you see fit; but don’t withdraw it because
-of a misunderstanding. We are very glad indeed to have your account. But
-really, my dear Mr. Grinnell, you must see how natural it is that we
-should wish to know, not so much the source of your gold, but the
-quantity controlled by you.”
-
-“And the source too,” said the richest man in the world, in a tone that
-showed there should be no argument about a purely family matter. “Where
-does it come from?”
-
-“Mr. Dawson,” said Grinnell, distinctly ignoring Mellen, “Mr. Mellen is
-one of your largest depositors, is he not?”
-
-“Yes; he--”
-
-“Do you insist upon his telling you where he gets the money that he
-deposits here?”
-
-“Mr. Grinnell----”
-
-“Is my gold any different from his gold? Is an Assay Office check not
-as good as an International Distributing Syndicate check? I don’t mean
-ethically, but financially.”
-
-Mr. Mellen flushed. Mr. Dawson said with the dignity of suppressed
-anger: “It is not that; but if gold is to become as cheap as
-pig-iron----”
-
-“Why should it?” interrupted Grinnell idly. “Does Mr. Mellen intend to
-give all his money to the poor?”
-
-“This is----” began Mellen, in a rebuking voice.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, still with much dignity, “we have
-no desire to pry into your private affairs. But great wealth means great
-responsibilities, and what is permissible to a pauper is not permissible
-to you. You must admit that there is no limit to the harm that can be
-done from a too rapid increase in the gold supply of the world.”
-
-“I realize that. You agreed with me that an increase of one hundred
-millions a year, in addition to the normal output of the mines now in
-operation, was not excessive. Since I saw you I have carefully
-studied the matter”--Grinnell’s voice and manner showed profound
-conviction--“and I have come to the conclusion that the world could not
-only stand two hundred and fifty millions more than it is now getting,
-but be all the better for it. That is only a billion more in four years.
-Four years is a long time.” He looked pensive--as if he were thinking
-how very long that would be.
-
-Mr. Mellen started. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Grinnell
-went on quickly: “Tell me, Mr. Dawson, is it not true that the expansion
-in business all over during the past few years, while it has been
-followed by a great expansion in bank credits, has not been followed by
-a proportionate increase in the supply of actual cash? That being the
-case, why couldn’t it be possible to add two hundred and fifty millions
-a year without disturbing business, by distributing one hundred millions
-among banks in Germany, France, and England, and scattering one hundred
-and fifty millions among banks in various sections of the United
-States?”
-
-“Do you propose to do this?” Mr. Dawson was looking at the young man
-with an intentness which he could not help tinge-ing with anxiety.
-
-“That isn’t the question,” said Grinnell, a trifle impatiently, as if
-unwilling to lose the thread of his argument. “Do you deny that such a
-thing could be done?”
-
-“Yes, I do! It would mean wild inflation; it would lead to a world
-panic!” said Mellen, not altogether composedly.
-
-“Do you think so, Mr. Dawson?” Grin-nell persistently ignored Mr.
-Mellen.
-
-“I think,” replied the president, nervously, “that $250,000,000 in gold
-a year more than the world is now getting would be too much. Without
-definite knowledge of the source and limit of the new supply, sentiment
-would become so alarmed that it would mean a disastrous panic, probably
-the worst in the history of humanity, since there would be the keenest
-apprehension over the possibility of gold being demonetized. An
-inexhaustible supply of gold could lead to nothing else; and then--God
-help us all!” The president was so impressed by his own words that his
-face grew livid. Mr. Mellen was breathing quickly.
-
-“Who said anything about an inexhaustible supply of gold?” said Grinnell
-angrily. “I, of all people, do not wish gold to be demonetized. What
-would my gold be worth if that happened?”
-
-“Precisely; that’s why we wish you to confide in us,” said Dawson, with
-a very friendly smile.
-
-“But I still believe,” said Grinnell doggedly, “that two hundred and
-fifty millions a year would not do harm. I have made up my mind on that
-point, and I will not change it. Mr. Dawson, you have asked me several
-questions. Now, let me ask you one: Do you, or do you not, wish me to
-make any additional deposits in this bank?”
-
-“Certainly I wish you to if you do.”
-
-“Very well.” The young man took from his pocket-book a package of slips.
-He read one after another--the bank president could see that they were
-Assay Office checks--and finally selected one. He said, “Here is a
-check for eleven millions two hundred thousand,” and returned the
-others--there were at least eight--to his pocket-book. “I shall deposit
-this.”
-
-Mellen walked over to the desk and took the slip from Mr. Dawson’s hand
-with a calm authoritativeness, as though the bank president were his
-clerk, which, indeed, was what Wall Street thought, though erroneously.
-Then he turned to Grinnell.
-
-“What assurance will you give that you will do nothing to ruin us? If
-the world knew your secret it would mean ruin for all, absolute ruin!”
- The sound of that word, uttered by himself, seemed to shake Mellen’s
-composure. He glared at the young man.
-
-“Mr. Mellen,” said Grinnell, very quietly, “you are an older man than I.
-I shall try not to forget it.’”
-
-“I must know! At once! Do you hear me?” said Mr. Mellen loudly. It was
-not exactly anger which burned in his eyes, but a sort of overgrown
-petulance at being baffled. There was an obstacle; it might be
-insurmountable. The uncertainty was in itself a check. An invincible
-pugilist had been knocked down for the first time in his career as
-champion.
-
-“William!” said Mr. Dawson, approaching his friend; “you are excited.”
- Then to the young man, apologetically: “He has been under a severe
-strain for some time past.”
-
-The richest man in the world grew composed as by magic. For the first
-time that day he became his normal self. He had crushed all opposition
-to his Syndicate twenty years before by the exercise of stupendous
-will-power. For a decade he had not been called upon to weigh his words
-or his actions. Through disuse the qualities that had made him the
-richest man in the world had atrophied. But now he was again the William
-Mellen his competitors had feared.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a politeness that was not excessive, “I
-apologize. I beg that you will forgive the nerves of a man who, as you
-say, is much older than you, and has many more troubles.”
-
-“Have you thought of any investment yet, Mr. Grinnell?” interposed
-Mr. Dawson. It was to change the conversation. At the same time the
-answer would be interesting, possibly valuable. Mr. Mellen sat down and
-listened attentively.
-
-“No, I have decided to wait until my deposits at the various banks are
-larger.”
-
-“How much do you propose to deposit with us?”
-
-“Oh,” said Grinnell, with a smile full of an ingratiatory humour, “if
-you are still frightened I’ll only deposit a million a week. I suppose I
-ought to start a bank of my own.” Mr. Dawson and Mellen exchanged quick
-glances, unperceived by the young man, since the young man continued to
-smile, almost boyishly.
-
-“Yes; you must not dream that you can produce two hundred and fifty
-millions a year,” said Mr. Mellen, ignoring the last bomb, about the
-bank. “That would not do at all.”
-
-“I think it would. Even at that rate it would take a man some time to
-catch up with your fortune, Mr. Mellen.”
-
-“It isn’t a question of my fortune, Mr. Grinnell,” Mellen said in a
-kindly voice, “but of the fortunes of all the world; yours as well.”
-
-“I have no objections to seeing my fortune many times larger than it is,
-I assure you.”
-
-“Neither have we, provided you take your time about it, said Mr. Dawson
-earnestly.
-
-“I know I am young, but there are many things I wish to do before I die.
-Life is uncertain.”
-
-“Yes, it is. And if you died?” asked Mellen. He leaned forward slightly
-as he spoke, his eyes on the young man’s.
-
-“My sister would do what she could.”
-
-“And if she dies?”
-
-“_AFTER US_,” said the young man, “_THE DELUGE!_”
-
-A deluge of gold; a deluge of ruin, devastation, and misery! financial
-anarchy; commercial chaos! thought the richest man in the world. He
-leaned back in his chair and breathed a bit quickly.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell,” said Mr. Dawson, “your fortune already makes you
-independent. But I think Mr. Mellen will join with me in saying that
-if you care to consider a working alliance with us, commercial or
-financial, we should be glad to have your co-operation.”
-
-Mr. Mellen was again leaning forward, almost as if ready to shake hands
-with his dear friend and comrade, Grinnell, to whom he would be as a
-father whose love made him over-indulgent.
-
-“Mr. Dawson, you will realize how little of a business man I am when I
-tell you that I desire to stand alone. If it were a question of doubling
-a fortune of ten or fifteen millions I suppose I’d be only too glad. But
-I must work out my salvation unaided. You will grant that the possession
-of such money as I have deposited in this bank may conceivably kill the
-desire for more, unless it is to be used in carrying out plans nearer to
-the heart than mere physical comforts. There are many things I’d like
-to do which, with my present capital, I am not yet able to do. So I’ll
-choose those that I can and let the others wait. For example, do you
-deny that, if a man had two or three hundred millions of dollars and
-started a bank with that capital he could solve many problems of vital
-importance to the community?”
-
-“I see great possibilities for evil--appalling possibilities for harm,”
- said Mr. Mel-len, with impressive solemnity.
-
-“Infinite possibilities for good also, Mr. Mellen,” said the young man,
-a trifle sternly. “A bank designed, not so much to pay big dividends to
-its stockholders, but to protect the public and to help business men and
-the entire community in time of distress. An income of a quarter of a
-million a year is sufficient to gratify the most luxurious tastes of any
-man. It’s much more than enough for me. The rest might be devoted to the
-good of humanity.”
-
-“Is that one of your plans?” asked Mr. Dawson very quietly.
-
-“Not at present. I realize that more is required than merely honest
-motives. I may have the will to do good as the president of such a bank,
-but I lack the ability and experience to conduct it. I am content to see
-Mr. Dawson,” with a pleasant smile, “at the head of the richest bank in
-America.”
-
-“Thank you, Mr. Grinnell,” returned Mr. Dawson, with the cordiality of
-immense relief. “What are your plans, then?”
-
-“My first plan is to make more--ah--to make arrangements to deposit more
-gold.”
-
-“You were going to say ‘make more’ something--when you stopped,” said
-Mel-len, with a sort of nonchalant curiosity. At least, that is what he
-meant it to look like.
-
-“I was going to say,” answered the young man, very quickly, “make more
-deposits.”
-
-“I thought,” said Mellen with a smile, though his eyes were serious,
-“that you were going to say ‘make more gold,’” He was speaking in
-the quiet, self-possessed way that had so impressed the Congressional
-Committee which had “investigated” his Syndicate’s business and its
-violation of the law, because it so resembled the self-possession of
-an utterly honest man to whom there had never come a thought of the
-possibility of a doubt of the righteousness of his every action. It
-made logical the impression that the richest man in the world believed
-himself the instrument of Providence.
-
-The young man laughed. “That would be dreadful. We’d be in a terrible
-fix if we had to re-create the science of chemistry. It would mean a
-scientific panic, a slump in the molecular theory market.” He laughed
-again as if pleased at the application of Wall Street phraseology to
-chemical science.
-
-“Don’t you make it?” persisted Mellen; his voice had an insinuating
-quality, as though he were inviting spiritual confidences. He was not a
-persuasive man, but he often looked so much as though he had persuaded
-himself, that it had the effect of persuasion--on stubborn and misguided
-competitors.
-
-Grinnell looked at the richest man in the world seriously. “It is
-perfectly astonishing,” he said, musingly, “how many people still
-believe in alchemy. That comes from the tommy-rot they read in the
-Sunday newspapers about scientific discoveries.”
-
-“You haven’t answered my question.” Mellen’s persistence was not
-offensive. He might have been a Sunday-school teacher trying to make a
-shy boy tell how good he was.
-
-“Mr. Mellen, the chemical laboratory which you built for the Lakeside
-University is the finest in the country. Professor Ogden is one of our
-foremost scientists. Ask him if it is possible for any living man to
-make gold.”
-
-“I’d rather ask you if you make it?” The voice was still of the
-Sunday-school, and Grinnell the favourite but shy scholar.
-
-“If you insist upon asking such questions I insist upon refusing to
-answer them. If I did make it, would I tell you? You’d tell everybody.”
-
-“Indeed not!” exclaimed Mellen eagerly.
-
-He could not help it. He was almost human.
-
-“Well, Mr. Dawson,” turning to the president, “I’ll deposit these eleven
-millions.”
-
-“You have more gold with you?” asked Mr. Dawson.
-
-The young man felt in his vest pockets, ostentatiously, one after
-another. Then he shook his head and said: “No.”
-
-Mr. Dawson smiled to hide his anger. “I meant Assay Office checks,” he
-explained.
-
-“I’m going,” confessed Grinnell, “to make some deposits with
-the Eastern, Agricultural, and Marshall National banks. But the
-Metropolitan,” he added with a pleasant smile, “is my first love.
-Good-morning, gentlemen.” He turned to go.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell, one moment, please. I should like to ask a favour.
-I think you are depositing too much. Ten millions a week means five
-hundred millions a year.”
-
-“So it does. But I thought----” He checked himself; and then went on:
-“What is the favour you were about to ask?”
-
-“Could you abstain from depositing any more gold in any bank for, say a
-month or two?”
-
-The young man’s eyes were thoughtful for a moment.
-
-“Well, I have some gold I must deposit, as I have no facilities at
-present for storage, save in bank vaults. You see, I had not figured
-upon--well, one does not always think carefully enough in advance of
-what he is going to do, and he finds himself confronted by conditions
-he had not reckoned on. How was I to tell I couldn’t deposit even fifty
-millions without disturbing you? I fear I must deposit a little more. In
-fact, I can’t stop, even if I wish to. But I’ll think over what you have
-said.”
-
-“Have you much more on hand?”
-
-“Quite a chunk of it!”
-
-“How much?” asked Dawson. The richest man was leaning forward again,
-his eyes fixed on the young man because the young man was not looking at
-him.
-
-“I don’t know. I haven’t weighed it,” answered Grinnell.
-
-“You are commencing to disturb the money-market. People have begun to
-wonder where the gold is coming from. The newspapers will take it up.
-You will find the financial reviews already speaking about it. It is
-lucky a lot of Klondike gold has been coming to New York lately. But
-unless you let up, there will be glaring headlines, and then--”
-
-“The newspapers must not take it up,” said Mellen, almost tenderly.
-“That must be seen to, Richard. It must be stopped at any cost.” The
-president nodded.
-
-The young man was thinking. He turned a perplexed face to Dawson.
-
-“How long must I stop depositing my gold?”
-
-“It isn’t so much a question of stopping as of reducing the amounts
-deposited.”
-
-“I can’t reduce them. I must deposit several millions a week or stop
-altogether. My arrangements are peculiar because--” he paused; then
-went on quickly, with a smile as if pleased at being able to cease to
-flounder--“because I don’t like half-way measures. But I think I can
-stop for a month.” He thought for a moment. Somehow Mr. Mellen felt as
-if the young man were speaking of a factory. “Yes,” finished Grinnell,
-“I can stop for a month, Mr. Dawson, out of regard for what you say.”
-
-“Thank you. I appreciate it more than I can say.”
-
-“Then say nothing. I’ll make another deposit in a day of two, and then
-I’ll give you a nice long rest. How does that please you, Mr. Dawson?”
-
-“Very much. Only be sure to do the same by all the other banks.” Dawson
-tried to show gratitude, but the anxiety was uppermost.
-
-“I will.”
-
-Mr. Grinnell extended his hand. The president grasped it; his own
-was very cold--and very dry. Mr. Mellen was gazing intently at the
-arabesques in the rug at his feet. He did not answer when Grinnell said
-“Good-morning.”
-
-As the door closed, Dawson rose and approached Mellen.
-
-“William?” he said.
-
-Mellen did not look up. Dawson laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder
-and repeated: “William!”
-
-Mellen turned an expressionless face to the president.
-
-“He makes it!” said Dawson.
-
-“He makes it!” repeated the richest man in the world, hypnotically.
-
-“Do you feel certain of it?” Dawson’s voice betrayed his eagerness to
-find comfort in Mellen’s assent.
-
-Mellen’s mind awoke. “What’s that? Certain of what?” But he still looked
-blankly puzzled. It made the president uncomfortable. He repeated:
-
-“That he is making gold.”
-
-“It can’t be,” said the richest man in the world. “It can’t be. Of
-course not. And yet--” He paused. He clenched his hands; his lips were
-pressed tightly together. Into his eyes there came a straining
-look. Gradually the tense lines about his mouth relaxed. He murmured
-doubtfully: “But he might as well make it. Perhaps he does. He has the
-gold. He will have more.”
-
-“I am sure of that,” agreed Dawson, not over-cordially, but still as if
-that were his firm conviction.
-
-“We must find out more about him. Are we going to take his word for all
-he says? Even if he made it he must make it out of something. Where does
-the gold come from? How does it come?”
-
-“It comes from his furnace. Costello all but saw it. He--”
-
-“Why didn’t he see it?” interjected Mel-len, glaring at Dawson. “Why
-don’t you put a hundred men at work? Is that all you can learn about
-this man?”
-
-Dawson had never before seen his financial backer display vehemence,
-ever so slightly, for the power of fabulous wealth had given an almost
-pious severity to Mellen. The years of golden invulnerability seemed
-to have rolled away from the richest man in the world, and left him an
-impatient youth, crossed in some cherished plan, exasperated, after long
-and soothing immunity from attack, at being forced into defenciveness.
-The president said to him, not servilely at all, but nevertheless with
-more than a suggestion of self-defence:
-
-“We have done all that men could do. Grinnell had been at this work only
-eight or ten weeks, and he already has fifty millions in cash. It it
-were not for that you might call him a charlatan, a trickster of some
-sort. You believed what he said when he spoke of his plans; you did not
-think he was lying. You know men as well as I do. What impression did
-he produce on you? The gold comes out of his house. His servants won’t
-talk. I told Costello to offer them any price for information. But he
-was convinced it could not be done without Grinnell’s learning of it,
-and we don’t want him to know; or, how do we know what complications
-might follow? Costello doesn’t think they know anything, anyhow. The
-house is guarded day and night. Costello himself went into the cellar
-with a load of coal. There is no doubt that Grinnell takes no gold into
-the house, and that the gold comes out of the electrical furnace. He has
-fifty millions now, and he won’t rest until he has a billion. That is
-his minimum. And, in the meantime, if somebody learns his secret--”
-
-“We must find out,” shouted the richest man in the world, shaking his
-fist wildly in the air. “A billion in gold. What will become--” He
-checked himself as he caught Dawson’s half-frightened look. He drew in
-a deep breath, and began to walk to and fro. At length he stopped by
-Dawson and said, more composedly: “Richard, I think as you do, yet it
-doesn’t seem right; but I can’t tell what is wrong. If he produces gold
-at will, and we knew how he did it, we’d still have to sell our bonds.
-It is better to prepare for the worst now. Begin at once. Sell those
-that are in my box, here. You have the list. Tell Thompson to bring you
-the list of those in the safety vault at the office.”
-
-“Yes,” said Dawson, with less relief in his voice than might have been
-expected. “We’ll have to be very careful. The market won t--
-
-“This is no time to think of eighths and quarters,” said Mellen with
-decision. “If we are right, of what use are our bonds? If we are making
-a mistake--” He hesitated. Doubt again showed in his face. Dawson
-hastened to speak:
-
-“If we could be perfectly sure he’s not going to--”
-
-Mellen’s doubts and convictions came and went like irregular
-pulse-beats--he had been disturbed to his very depths, and his mind did
-not work with its normal precision. He became calm again, and he spoke
-with quiet decision: “This young man means well. That is what makes
-him dangerous. He will flood the world with gold, and think he is doing
-good. Yes. Sell the bonds.”
-
-“Very well,” Dawson sighed. It came easier to him to believe the worst;
-he had seen more of Grinnell. But he knew the bonds would have to be
-sold at grievous sacrifices.
-
-“It’s the only thing we can do,” the richest man said, almost
-consolingly; he knew Dawson’s thoughts. “But,” he added, “you must keep
-on trying to find out where he gets the gold. Send Costello to me. And
-you must buy stocks.”
-
-Bonds are payable, principal and interest, in gold coin of the present
-standard of weight and fineness. If Grinnel’s operations made gold as
-cheap as pig-iron, each $1,000-bond would be worth fifty ounces of
-iron, and no more. If some other metal took the place of gold, the
-corporations would take pains to be paid in the new coin, whatever that
-might be, and they would pay dividends on their stocks in the same.
-But the interest on bonds they must pay in gold. Bondholders would be
-ruined, and stockholders would profit by the others’ losses. All
-this Dawson and Mel-len had realized on their first interview; it was
-perfectly obvious. The president of the Metropolitan National Bank
-merely had wished the richest man in the world to be as certain of the
-existence of the Grinnell gold-factory as he himself had become, before
-selling bonds and buying stocks.
-
-“Which stocks?” asked Dawson.
-
-The richest man in the world did not answer. He was looking at Dawson,
-meditatively. At length, he said, musingly: “If he dies? And if his
-sister dies? ‘_After us, the deluge._’ he said. The danger lies in that
-man’s secret becoming known. Yes. We have no time to lose.”
-
-In winning his fabulous fortune, the richest man in the world had
-gambled stupendously. His stakes had been hundreds of fortunes,
-thousands of lives. But after the first hundred millions he always had
-gambled calmly--he had grown to think he was doing his duty, and that
-Providence, whose confidential servant he was, had dealt cards marked
-for his benefit. What had unnerved him was the sudden realization that
-his financial life hung by a thread. The armour in which thirty years of
-success had encased him had been broken. It had fallen from him. He had
-acted as he might have acted at the time when he was not the richest man
-in the world.
-
-He went to the president’s desk and wrote out a long list--all stocks of
-steam and street railroads, gas companies, and industrial concerns. His
-writing was very even, and the letters were small, but the figures were
-very plain.
-
-“It’s only a question of time,” he told Dawson, as he finished, “when
-Grinnell’s gold process will be known to the world.” He rose, and
-seeing the president’s serious look, he said, with an air of conscious
-jocularity (for he did not jest often, and when he did he had
-to announce it beforehand, with his face, that there might be no
-misunderstanding): “Cheer up, Richard. The worst is still to come!”
-
-
-
-
-
-PART III: THE PARADOXICAL PANIC
-
-Wall STREET was suffering from its worst disease--dullness. The
-public--the only genuine octopus--did not find the menu printed on the
-ticker-tape at all appetizing. It was hard at work in its office, miles
-away from the Stock Exchange, out of hearing of the ticker, scanning the
-financial pages of the newspapers only on the street-cars to pass away
-an irksome half-hour. Months before, the fumes of the wine of gambling
-had gone to its head; and then the public had been made sober suddenly
-by the “shrinkage in quoted values,” otherwise the shearing. Since then
-the public had grown a new fleece, though it was not yet itself aware of
-it.
-
-It was a delicate task, before the president of the Metropolitan
-National Bank. He was a resourceful stock-market manipulator, though
-he would have resented being called a thief not half so hotly as being
-called a speculator, because that sounded worse in a bank president. He
-desired the public to buy bonds; not necessarily at high prices, but at
-any prices. It was purely philanthropy on the face of it. That is why
-the task was delicate. You can disarm suspicion if you are bad, in
-Wall Street. But, if you are good, the hopelessness of it is appalling.
-Moreover, there was no time for finesse or subtle strategy or ingenious
-experiments with the elemental psychology of stock gamblers. The
-occasion called for broadly-painted effects.
-
-The first thing he did was to offer bonds to savings-banks and trustees
-of estates all over New England and New York, at concessions too slight
-to arouse suspicion, but substantial enough to tempt purchasers. This
-through the best bond “drummers” in the land. Then he sought the Stock
-Exchange.
-
-The bond-market, which had slumbered profoundly for months, suddenly
-awoke. Gilt-edged issues were pressed for sale, not violently at all,
-but insistently. They came from many sources, the Street thought, not
-knowing the full contents of the huge strong box of the richest man in
-the world. The fortunes of the ordinary multi-millionaires grow faster
-in the newspapers and in club-comers than in reality. This fortune was
-even greater than the gossip of it. Mellen spent time in making people
-look at his wealth through a reversed telescope, that it might be
-diminished in the public’s estimate. That is all he had ever done to
-diminish it, being a practical man.
-
-The bond “specialists” felt faintly alarmed; then they became exultantly
-busy. It might be unwise to buy stocks the future market-career of which
-was problematical; but everybody knew what Pennsylvania Central first
-mortgage fives were. Not to buy them under 125 was to sin regrettably.
-The bonds sold at 122. To abstain from purchasing them at 120 was
-lunacy. And at 115 passivity became a crime against one’s family. Many
-bought, but not enough; and because the supply was greater than the
-demand the price shrank further.
-
-The Street held its breath and waited for stocks to follow. But,
-simultaneously with the sales of the best bonds of the best railways in
-the United States, came purchases of the stocks of the same railways,
-and though prices of bonds declined, stocks did not. The Street felt
-that to “trade” in such a market was like playing _rouge-et-noir_ in
-an utterly dark room. What was the sense of betting on the black if the
-bettor could not tell, because of the darkness, whether his chips were
-on it or on the red?
-
-The newspapers, being puzzled, printed dozens of columns and hundreds of
-explanations, all of them highly ingenious and uniformly incorrect.
-In his Monday morning article, Philip King, of _The Sun_, compared the
-bond-market to the old story of the great psychologist who, dressed as a
-pedlar, offered on a Broadway sidewalk to sell five-dollar gold-pieces,
-warranted genuine, to the passers-by at $3.98. Never a fool so foolish,
-in the passing thousands, as to shake hands with fortune on the
-psychologist’s coin-laden tray. Now they would not buy bonds.
-
-Of the millions of dollars of bonds that were sold, some were
-registered in the name of William Mellen or Richard Dawson, or of known
-stool-pigeons--clerks in their offices, etc. This became known in the
-end, though Dawson delayed the inevitable as long as possible. Then,
-of course, the mystery was solved: The “Fort Dawson” crowd was selling
-bonds and buying stocks! The country was prosperous. There was no cloud
-in the financial sky. Obviously, the greatest capitalists in the United
-States were engineering a gigantic stock boom!
-
-The _Evening Scold_, the greatest journalistic exponent of the Undoubted
-Wisdom of the Sneer, promptly filled itself with wrath and editorialized
-its feelings, as follows:
-
-_The abnormal increase in the cash resources of the New York banks
-during the past few weeks, was too good an opportunity for certain bank
-presidents and their pals to neglect. The banks are not in Wall Street
-to safeguard the interests and the cash of their depositors, but
-obviously to help the directors and their schemes. In this instance,
-the overgrown arrogance of the latest stock-market millionaires has
-degenerated into imbecility, induced by protracted success in their
-despoilment of the public. Fortunately, it should prove the undoing of
-the financial Condottieri, for the stupid public surely cannot be stupid
-enough to permit itself to be hypnotized into paying absurd prices for
-brazenly manipulated insecurities like Transcontinental Air Line or
-Great Southern Preferred, or into sacrificing gilt-edged bonds. Let the
-would-be buyer of stocks, and the would-be seller of bonds, beware!_
-
-But, after all, it was only the very wise--Messrs. Dawson and
-Mellen--who bought stocks. Only a few foolish lambs sold stocks at the
-high prices and bought bonds at the low! Also some of the alert-eyed
-men over whose office doors were foreign names ending in “stein,” and
-“baum,” and “berg,” and “mann.” The fools in their folly, and the shrewd
-in their shrewdness, were helping the richest man in the world, and the
-ablest bank president in the United States, during those stirring days
-in Wall Street--shivering days when a great crash in the stock-market
-was expected momentarily by so many that it did not come.
-
-The expected never happens in Wall Street. It can’t afford to.
-
-“How do we stand, Richard?” asked Mr. Mellen, as he walked into the
-president’s office.
-
-“Almost there,” answered Dawson. “I have sold most of your
-semi-speculative issues, and we are working off the last better than I
-expected. You got the memorandum of stocks bought to-day?”
-
-Mellen nodded. Then he walked to the busy ticker in the corner, and
-regarded the tape.
-
-“The newspapers have warned the public against buying inflated stocks,
-or selling bonds at unreasonably low prices. A free press, Richard, is
-the best safeguard of the liberties of a nation. We should be grateful
-for this boon.” There was a trace of nervousness about his manner; but
-it was a nervousness as of relief rather than uneasiness.
-
-Mr. Dawson laughed admiringly, and approached his friend.
-
-“Yes. I’ve sold them impartially all over New England, here, and in
-London and Berlin. But the Governments--”
-
-“Never mind those. The Government will make good, somehow. We’ll keep
-them to give us the right to agitate the matter later on. I am going to
-tell my brother George. I told him to come here to-day at--How do you
-do, George; I was just talking about you.”
-
-George B. Mellen, who had entered, was a strongly-built man,
-white-haired and clean-shaven. His eyes were of a dean, turquoise blue,
-that contrasted pleasantly with the white of his eyebrows. He was the
-vice-president of the International Distributing Syndicate, and at least
-the sixth richest man in the world. He nodded to his brother, and shook
-hands with Dawson, who managed to convey the impression that he had
-risen in order to greet affectionately the new-comer. That having been
-done, the president returned to his desk.
-
-“George,” said Mellen looking up from the ticker, “I’ve sold every bond
-I owned; or will have sold the last this afternoon.” He resumed his
-scrutiny of the tape, very calmly.
-
-“Wh-a-at?” said his brother.
-
-“No obligations payable in gold will be worth anything in a short time.
-There’s a man who has discovered the secret of making gold. And he’s
-making it.” He said it in an utterly unexcited voice.
-
-“What are you talking about?” said George with an indecisive smile. His
-brother was bent over the glass dome of the ticker, and George, still
-smiling indecisively, looked at Dawson.
-
-An office-boy entered with a note which he gave to the president.
-Dawson, as he saw the lad coming, instinctively picked up a dagger-like
-paper-cutter from his desk. But when he glanced at the handwriting,
-tore open the envelope with his fingers hurriedly, and read the slip it
-contained. He rose and gave the paper to William Mellen, saying: “That
-is the last of the bonds. They slaughtered prices, didn’t they? But,”
- with a jovially apologetic smile, “it was the best that could be done.”
-
-Mellen read the memorandum of the bond sales and the prices received.
-
-“Why, Richard,” he said it with a sort of polite regret that ended with
-a gentle sigh, “I should say they did slaughter them. It’s a loss of
-about two millions on this lot, from last week’s prices.” He shook his
-head several times as in sorrow over a fellow-Christian gone wrong: The
-stock-market had sinned. Then he studied the busy ticker once more.
-
-“William, will you kindly explain this farce?” There was no sigh to
-George Mel-len’s voice as he asked this. His frown was deep.
-
-“George, I’m not a fool, am I?” asked the richest man in the world,
-very earnestly. He must be patient. It was his duty; and duty should be
-everything to a man who, his friends thought, believed that the eyes of
-Providence were fixed unblinkingly on the centre of his soul.
-
-“Just now, I should say--”
-
-“Well, just now, I certainly am not one. I’ve sold out all my bonds and
-bought stocks. Yes, George. That,” gently, “is what I have done.”
-
-“And I’ve done nothing all week but buy bonds and sell stocks!” George’s
-eyes took on a curious expression--the blue in them seemed to grow
-strangely darker as he half-closed his eyelids. Often the brothers
-disagreed. William was the abler. But George was the older; and he
-could not forget the days when he lorded it over his slender brother by
-physical might.
-
-“You probably bought my bonds, and I bought your stocks,” said William,
-nodding as if solving a puzzle the solution of which called for no
-exultation. “I am sorry, George. But you must at once sell the bonds and
-buy stocks.”
-
-“Explain, hang you; explain!” shouted George Mellen angrily.
-
-“George, keep cool. Richard, will you kindly tell brother George all
-about Grin-nell?” He looked at the ticker with an exaggerated air of
-attention, to save further explanations.
-
-George looked from his brother to the bank president, and back to his
-brother.
-
-“William,” he said at length, quietly. William did not look up from the
-ticker. It made George Mellen angry and he said imperiously: “William,
-listen to me! There may be a good reason why you have sold out all your
-bonds. But there is none why you should not have told me before. Why
-didn’t you?”
-
-“I never thought about it,” answered William simply. There was a
-mild astonishment on his face, as if at his own forgetfulness of his
-brother’s interest.
-
-“You didn’t, either, Dawson, did you?” said George coldly.
-
-“My dear George, I certainly thought William was selling for both of
-you. He always does, you know,” said Dawson.
-
-“Oh, have it that way, George; have it that way if it will please
-you.” Then to Dawson: “Sell George’s bonds, lump results and strike an
-average,” said William Mellen resignedly. Then, with sudden irritation:
-“It’s a case of life and death, not of a few dollars.” He began to walk
-up and down the office, lost in thought. Mechanically he took a small
-pad from the elaborately carved mahogany table in the centre of the
-room, walked to an arm-chair by the farthest window, sat down and
-presently began to jot down figures with a lead-pencil, while Dawson
-told to George B. Mellen the story of Grinnell.
-
-“But the thing is impossible,” said George angrily.
-
-“Absolutely!” assented the bank president, almost amiably. “You are
-right, George.” He looked at George with a subtle felicitation in his
-eyes--at George’s intellect. “But,” he went on gently, “everything you
-think we’ve already thought. We didn’t go off at half-cock, George. It
-took facts to convince us. We know that the man can and probably will
-flood the world with gold. I have no doubt of it. Neither has William.
-Now, give me the list of your bonds and--”
-
-“And I thought I was getting bargains,” said George Mellen bitterly.
-“I might have known William’s hand was in it. I thought people had gone
-crazy, and were being prepared for a grand boom, manufactured on
-the premises! I tell you,” he exploded suddenly, “there’s a trick
-somewhere!”
-
-William Mellen looked up suddenly, and stared uncomprehendingly at his
-brother, his mind still on his figures and calculations.
-
-“No,” went on George, “I don’t mean you. I mean in this Grinnell
-affair.”
-
-“He has on deposit in this bank some forty millions, and about eight or
-ten more with other banks.”
-
-“That’s the mystery,” said George musingly. His eyes, as he thought,
-took on a straining look, as you see near-sighted people look when
-they try, without their glasses, to read printed characters twenty feet
-distant, in an optician’s shop.
-
-“I’d make haste, George,” interrupted William Mellen. “When you have
-sold out all your bonds I will tell you a plan. The world will be told
-of the Grinnell affair, and--”
-
-“You mean?” said Dawson, with a quick start.
-
-“After we have nothing to lose we have everything to gain.”
-
-“But it will--” began Dawson excitedly.
-
-“Don’t guess, Richard,” gently. “You don’t know the details of my plan.”
-
-George knew his brother. He said grimly: “The public doesn’t love the
-International Distributing Syndicate; nor us.”
-
-“They’ll love Grinnell less. We are his victims, too; don’t you see?
-That will comfort the public. Bloated bondholder will be a synonym for
-pauper. They’ll pity us.” He said this with gentle dolefulness.
-
-“William, but our friends? They’ll be ruined,” said George Mellen
-doubtfully. He knew his brother.
-
-“You can tell yours to sell out--after _you_ have sold out, not before;
-and give no reasons to them, or--” His eyes, for the fraction of a
-second, were menacing; he did not finish the threat orally. George
-frowned; but he also checked the words that he would have uttered.
-
-“You’ll have my list in fifteen minutes,” George told Dawson. “Willie
-will bring it over. Good-bye,” and without another look at either of the
-two men he left the room.
-
-“George is--ah--” began Dawson, with a conciliatory smile.
-
-“He always was,” interrupted William Mellen, not unpleasantly; “from his
-boyhood up.”
-
-“The public will have more bargains in bonds,” said Dawson.
-
-“Yes.” The richest man in the world smiled and went on musingly: “The
-public is very wise. It is selling out its stocks because they are too
-high, and buying bonds because they pay in gold. Now, my plan--”
-
-Williams entered. The president frowned, and stabbed the assistant
-cashier through the heart with a stiletto made of a vocal icicle: “I am
-engaged, sir.”
-
-“It’s--it’s Mr. Grinnell, sir. He insisted upon seeing you. And, I
-think, sir, you told me that if he--”
-
-“Why didn’t you show him in at once?” The vocal stiletto was of
-steel, and white hot. The timorous assistant cashier left as though a
-stupendous draught of air had sucked him out of the room through the
-door. The president arose and greeted Grinnell.
-
-“Walk in, Mr. Grinnell,” he said, and held out his hand.
-
-“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. How do you do, Mr. Mellen?” said Grinnell
-cheerfully. Mr. Mellen waved his hand in amicable salutation. It was the
-first time that ever Mr. Dawson had seen Mellen indulge in such jovial
-friendliness.
-
-“Quite exciting times lately in Wall Street?” said Grinnell
-interrogatively, but obviously to make talk. “The people are going
-stock-mad. I suppose there will be a smash.”
-
-“It is more than likely,” assented Mellen gravely. Had not Mr. Dawson
-been a bank president, with a professional lack of the sense of humour,
-he would have winked surreptitiously at his friend.
-
-“Well, if it is only the stock gamblers who suffer, I won’t worry. But,
-possibly, small investors may become frightened by the decline in bonds
-and sell out. They would be foolish, of course. But I have sympathy
-for foolish people; a fellow-feeling, I suppose.” He smiled. Then,
-seriously: “Why, do you suppose, there’s been such a slump in bonds?”
-
-“More sellers than buyers,” said Dawson, with a tentative grin.
-
-“Ah!” The young man smiled at the timeworn Wall Street phrase; he had
-not heard it before. “But I think bonds are pretty cheap,” he persisted.
-
-“They certainly look so,” assented Dawson.
-
-“They certainly do,” echoed Mellen gravely.
-
-“That means you are buying them,” said the young man with a sort of
-naive astuteness. Whereupon Dawson and Mellen congratulated themselves
-with glances. Grinnell went on: “I feel like doing the same thing.
-However, what I came to see you about is this: I promised not to deposit
-any more gold for a month in any bank in New York, didn’t I?”
-
-“In the United States,” said Mellen quickly.
-
-“I don’t think I promised that, but I’ll let it go at that. My promise
-certainly did not extend to banks in Europe.”
-
-“As to Europe,” said Dawson with a shake of his head, “I took it for
-granted that--”
-
-“Never mind Europe,” interrupted Mellen with a benevolent air. “Are you
-going to ship any gold across the ocean, Mr. Grin-nell?”
-
-“I’ve suspended my gold operations entirely, as I promised. That is, I
-won’t ship any new gold. But you wouldn’t object to my drawing out some
-of the gold I have here and in other New York banks, I suppose?”
-
-“Why--” began Dawson dubiously.
-
-He could not tell what this new move meant.
-
-“Certainly not,” said William Mellen decisively. He sided with Grinnell,
-of whom, Grinnell must see, he thought highly.
-
-“Of course not,” echoed Dawson cordially, with an air of primal
-authority. To show it was his own decision, he added: “We should be
-delighted.”
-
-“I may draw on you soon,” said Grinnell.
-
-“We can sell you drafts on any part of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia,
-South America, and the Philippines,” Dawson told him, smiling.
-
-“I’ll think it over,” Grinnell said seriously. “It won’t prevent me from
-depositing more gold when my time is up?”
-
-“Not at all,” said Dawson jovially.
-
-“How much will you deposit?” asked Mellen casually.
-
-“Not much;” the young man smiled.
-
-“No,” said Dawson, with playful sarcasm “not much; about a million a
-minute.”
-
-“You’d object to a million a day,” Grin-nell shook his head dolefully.
-
-“He would not object to that,” interjected the richest man in the
-world, “if he knew how many days you would keep it up.” There was
-no playfulness in his voice, though he tried to speak in an easy,
-conversational tone.
-
-“Well,” began Grinnell doubtfully. He went on quickly: “Oh, yes, he’d
-object before the end of the first week. I know him.” He nodded toward
-the bank president with a boyishly mischievous air. Dawson tried to
-smile back; he said:
-
-“I’m getting to know _you_, too. I am going to be more generous in the
-future.”
-
-“Good!” said Grinnell; he would take the president at his word when his
-month was up. “Now, if I should want drafts on London and Paris in a day
-or two--”
-
-“Mr. Williams will be at your service, at any time,” the president
-assured him, as though Mr. Grinnell were an ordinary depositor
-transacting ordinary business. “No notice is required in _this_ bank,”
- with a curious suggestion of bravado. He pushed one of a row of electric
-buttons on his desk. The assistant cashier, his fat face distorted
-dismally into an anticipatory excuse, appeared.
-
-“Mr. Williams, Mr. Grinnell may call on us for drafts on Europe. You
-will place yourself at his disposal, and give him your very best efforts
-at all times.”
-
-“Certainly, sir,” said the assistant cashier, with a hasty deference.
-“Very glad to do what I can, Mr. Grinnell,” he said, in a grateful
-voice, to the young man.
-
-“That is all,” said the president. The assistant cashier apologized
-facially, and left the room.
-
-Grinnell rose to go. “Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. I’ll be around when my
-month is up.
-
-“You are not doing time, Mr. Grinnell,” smiled the president.
-
-“I feel like it. I don’t like idleness. Good-morning.”
-
-He didn’t like idleness! He would resume the manufacture of gold! Given
-rope, the young man would hang himself and the bond-holding public. But
-Dawson now had no bonds. When the discovery came, the community would be
-convulsed. The bank was fortifying itself with legal tender notes. Gold
-would have but little value when the crash came. There were various
-points to study. In the entire affair there was but one danger. The
-president voiced it.
-
-“William,” he said, “after the cat’s out of the bag, what’s to hinder
-Grinnell, out of pure philanthropy, from stopping his production of gold
-in order to avert a disastrous world panic?”
-
-“I’ve thought of that,” answered the richest man in the world, with
-a calmness that came from previous meditation and settled conviction.
-“He’s quite likely to cease his operations in new gold, as he calls
-them. But not before there has been a crash, Richard. And we will then
-be his principal advisers. I feel he will keep on until the mischief
-is done. We are prepared now. And yet, somehow--” His face clouded with
-doubt.
-
-George Mellen entered hurriedly. “Here, Richard, here are my bonds.” The
-president looked at the long list. “Those I’ve marked with a cross
-I’ve already ordered sold. Meighan & Cross, and W. A. Shaw & Co. are
-practically giving them away at this moment,” finished George Mellen,
-with a touch of bitterness.
-
-William Mellen approached the ticker, and passed the tape through his
-fingers with a deftness that betrayed practice.
-
-“I think you are right,” he said softly. “Green River general 4s, 87!”
-
-“I should think the insurance companies--” began George Mellen.
-
-“Richard has already sold them all they can take,” returned his brother
-kindly, as though he were anxious to please brother George.
-
-“Also the savings-banks, and about three hundred estates,” added the
-president, with a slight touch of pride.
-
-“I’m going to tell Freer, Morrison, Stuyvesant, and one or two others,”
- announced George Mellen with a trace of defiance. He anticipated
-opposition, but the richest man in the world said:
-
-“I should tell them this much only: That for certain reasons you cannot
-divulge, you are selling out your bonds, and that I’ve already sold
-mine.”
-
-“The last is unnecessary. They’d guess it without my telling them,” and
-George Mel-len left the room abruptly. Mr. Dawson began to write selling
-orders, copying the names of the bonds from the list before him. Then
-he summoned his trusty brokers and bond specialists, and gave them the
-orders, exhorting them to use caution; also much haste.
-
-Under the new selling pressure the market acted crazily. The
-inexplicable declines in bond prices of that memorable week had brought
-into Wall Street deluded “bargain hunters,” who bought the securities
-at “ridiculously low figures,” but, values went still lower, until the
-bonds were so very cheap that they were dear--too dear for people to buy
-who did not know why they should be so cheap. Therefore, the speculators
-in bonds, who had bought, now sold at a loss, thereby adding to the
-general uncertainty. But as some sold, others bought, and quotations of
-gilt-edged issues, usually so staid and slow of movement, fluctuated
-as violently as, in other times, the manipulated and highly speculative
-stocks had been wont to do. On the whole, the public bought more bonds
-than it sold, and sold more stocks than it bought. Yet, bonds fell,
-and fell, and stocks rose and rose. And there still remained the pet
-investments of George B. Mellen’s intimate friends; men who, accustomed
-to risking much on the turn of the wheel of the ticker, yet kept a
-portion of their fortune safe beyond peradventure by buying bonds which
-were unassailable by demagogues and socialistic legislatures, unaffected
-by hard times or strikes, or crop failures; absolutely safe just so long
-as the United States remained a nation of Americans--or, until such time
-as aërial navigation supplanted steam railroads. Also, so long as the
-gold basis endured, _and no longer!_
-
-Grinnell had stopped outside and spoken to the assistant cashier.
-
-“I think I should like to have a sight draft on London for two million
-pounds sterling, Mr. Williams.”
-
-The assistant cashier opened his mouth. Remembering what the president
-had said--and the tone of his voice--he closed it apologetically and, to
-excuse himself said, very quickly: “Certainly, Mr. Grinnell, certainly.”
- He busied himself with the expostulating head of the bank’s foreign
-exchange department. It was an extraordinary transaction, but the
-Metropolitan was an extraordinary bank, and Mr. Dawson was an
-extraordinary man when vexed.
-
-He came back and asked: “Payable to whom, Mr. Grinnell?”
-
-“To my order, please.”
-
-“Yes, sir; yes, sir.”
-
-The bill of exchange for £2,000,000 was made out on Waring Bros., of
-London, in favour of George K. Grinnell. Mr. Williams handed it to
-Grinnell with an obsequious little flourish and said, “Thank you, Mr.
-Grinnell.”
-
-“Thank _you_,” said Grinnell smiling. “Good-morning.”
-
-Mr. Williams bowed him out.
-
-Grinnell walked briskly up Wall Street to the Wolff Building, and
-entered the office of Wolff, Herzog & Co.
-
-“I should like to see Mr. Isaac Herzog,” he told a spectacled,
-middle-aged man who sat by a little table near the gate of a railing
-on the other side of which was a half-door of ground glass marked
-“Private.”
-
-The gate-keeper, incredibly myopic, peered at him through such thick
-lenses that his eyes looked unpleasantly unnatural.
-
-“Vhat ees yoor peezness, pleaze?”
-
-“Tell Mr. Herzog that I come on a very important matter.”
-
-“Ach!” The middle-aged man shrugged his shoulders with a sort of
-regretful despair, and then shook his head. Everybody that came there
-always came on very important matters--including book agents and pedlars
-disguised as gentlemen.
-
-“I’ve come direct from Mr. Richard Dawson, president of the Metropolitan
-National Bank, to see Mr. Herzog. Tell him that--”
-
-“Pleaze sit down,” he opened the gate and pointed to a chair. Grinnell
-obeyed and the man left. Presently he returned.
-
-“Mr. Herzog vill see you, sir,” and Grinnell was ushered into the office
-of the head of the firm, for Mr. Wolff had been dead many years, and
-his son-in-law and partner reigned in his stead--a far greater king of
-finance.
-
-He was a little man, white-haired and patriarchially whiskered. His
-features were of a pronounced Jewish type. His eyes were alert but
-kindly--kindly rather than merely good-natured. The accumulated wisdom
-of five thousand years was in this Hebrew banker’s business soul; and
-with it that respect for the higher Law that has made Israel endure as
-a nation through the marching centuries while other races have risen,
-flourished, and disappeared, blended into the composite types of to-day.
-
-“Good-afternoon, sir. Mr. Dawson sent you?” asked Mr. Herzog, with a
-strong German accent. He knew English thoroughly, like a scholar--a
-German scholar.
-
-“He didn’t send me. I--”
-
-“You have been admitted under that impression,” Mr. Herzog said this
-sternly--a rebuke for a falsehood rather than irritation over what
-seemed likely to be the wasting of a very busy banker’s valuable time.
-The young man before him did not look shabby enough to be a professional
-mendicant, but there was something deferential about his manner that
-might mean a more expensive appeal. Amateurs have exaggerated ideas.
-
-“Excuse me, Mr. Herzog. I told your man, when he thought you couldn’t or
-wouldn’t see me, that I came from Mr. Dawson’s office to see you. It’s
-true. I did leave him a few minutes ago. I know your reputation, Mr.
-Herzog, and I have come to you because I am in need of help.”
-
-Mr. Herzog was famous as a philanthropist. He maintained at his own
-expense a sort of personal charity bureau to which applicants for help
-were referred, that he might give much but, above all, that he might
-give intelligently. He spoke to the young man with cold austerity:
-“I beg to refer you to Mr. Asiel, room 82, upstairs, sir. He will
-investigate your case. But I do not like the way in which you have
-gained admission to this office, sir.” He nodded dismissingly.
-
-“One moment, Mr. Herzog,” said Grin-nell, smiling. “I wish your help in
-a business matter. I wish to buy one hundred million dollars of the best
-railroad bonds.”
-
-A spasm of alarm contracted Mr. Herzog’s face. It passed and he said
-soothingly, with an accent more Germanic than ever: “Why, yes, of
-course. Yes, yes! I shall be very glad to do so. I will ask the
-gentleman in charge of our bond department to do as you wish. He is
-a very nice young man; a very competent young man. He knows all about
-bonds. Will you allow me to go after him? I shall return directly.”
-
-Grinnell laughed out and out. It was a laugh unaffectedly merry. But Mr.
-Herzog turned pale and breathed a bit quickly.
-
-The young man drew from his pocket-book some checks.
-
-“Here are four certified checks for one million dollars each, and a
-draft on Waring Bros., of London, for two millions sterling. Won’t you
-please look at them before you go for the nice young man in charge of
-your bond department?”
-
-Mr. Herzog instead looked at the door; the young man barred his exit.
-He was atavistically a fatalist. What was to be, was to be. Mr. Herzog,
-calm now from resignation, turned to the checks. One look was enough.
-His face changed, but having grown resigned to death, the banker did
-not now sigh with relief. He merely said, very quietly, as if he were
-resuming the thread of his conversation: “Perhaps you will tell me which
-bonds you wish to buy?”
-
-“Yes, sir; but before I tell you that, let me tell you this: I come
-to you because I have absolute confidence in your wisdom and in the
-integrity of your firm. I wish to buy a hundred millions of bonds,
-on margin--a margin of fifty per cent or more. None must know of this
-transaction excepting yourself and those of your partners who must, in
-the nature of things, know it. I require no pledge but your word.”
-
-“It is all the pledge we ever give, sir. It was unnecessary to speak
-of it. Nevertheless, I thank you for your confidence in us. Will you be
-good enough to proceed?”
-
-He was looking at the young man steadily.
-
-“I had on deposit at the Metropolitan National Bank this morning some
-forty-six millions of dollars, of which I have drawn this £2,000,000.
-Also with, other banks slightly more than six millions, of which those
-are four.”
-
-Mr. Herzog nodded. He said meditatively: “You are, then, the gentleman
-to whom those institutions owe their remarkable gains in gold during the
-past few weeks?”
-
-“I don’t know whether I am or not.”
-
-“You are, sir.”
-
-“Then I must be.”
-
-“Pray proceed.”
-
-“Well, I propose to purchase one hundred millions of dollars par value
-of bonds, carefully but steadily. Bonds are very cheap.”
-
-“Owing to circumstances not yet known to the community, or possibly to a
-misapprehension of certain facts, they are cheap. Huge blocks have been
-thrown on the market this past week. Prices have been sacrificed; you
-doubtless know by whom?” His eyes interrogated as well as his voice.
-
-“I know nothing. I think the bonds are very cheap,” said Grinnell
-impassively.
-
-“I think so too, sir, _now_. I had begun to fear that they were not
-cheap, at any price, a few minutes ago.”
-
-“Indeed?” Grinnell was sincerely astonished.
-
-“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Herzog calmly.
-
-“I will give you a check or checks on the Metropolitan National
-Bank--certified if you wish. Is fifty millions enough margin?”
-
-“We do not take speculative orders.”
-
-“Then, Mr. Herzog, I can only wish you good-morning, and request that
-you mention this to no one,” and Grinnell rose.
-
-“In this case,” said Mr. Herzog, waving his hand and pointing to
-the chair from which the young man had risen, “you are conducting a
-financial operation unparalleled in our history. If you care to have
-us associated with you in this matter, to share proportionately in the
-profits--”
-
-“Thank you. We shall consider that later on. I should not be surprised
-to see bonds rise to the level at which they were before they--ah--”
-
-“Before the misapprehension to which I referred?” prompted Mr. Herzog
-gravely, but with intention.
-
-“Before they began to decline so inexplicably,” corrected Mr. Grinnell
-with equal gravity. “Bonds are selling at par and under which should
-command a great premium.”
-
-“Will there be additional deposits of gold by you at the Metropolitan or
-other banks?”
-
-“I have not deposited any gold at any bank, Mr. Herzog.”
-
-“I mean Assay Office checks, sir.”
-
-“That is a matter, Mr. Herzog, which I must decline to discuss.”
-
-“Excuse me, sir. I did not know.”
-
-“But in justice to you, I will say that I have pledged myself not to
-make any deposits whatever for a short time.”
-
-“Ah, that was William Mellen,” said Mr. Herzog with a positiveness that
-startled Grinnell.
-
-“I mentioned no names, Mr. Herzog.”
-
-“No. But I know how his mind works.”
-
-“Now, what shall I do? Shall I give you a check on the Metropolitan
-or--”
-
-“By drawing bills of exchange on London,” said the old banker musingly,
-“Mr. Dawson will not know for some days what you wish the money for.”
-
-“Well, you have one there for £2,000,000 as a starter,” said the
-young man calmly. Mr. Herzog looked at him searchingly; then he smiled
-approvingly.
-
-“Good! I see!”
-
-“Well, sir?” asked Grinnell quietly.
-
-“We will sell bills of exchange on London, Berlin, and Paris to Mr.
-Dawson’s bank. They will presently buy from us, thinking the high rates
-of exchange tempt us to sell them. This is enough for this week. There
-are still the bonds of the friends and of the friend’s friends to be
-sold, Mr.--” The old man paused. “I do not know your name sir; but I
-know _you._”
-
-“My name is Grinnell.”
-
-“Thank you. Of course, it was on the checks. And, if I may ask, sir,
-what is your business, besides that of a great financier?”
-
-“I am a metallurgical chemist.”
-
-“Chemist?” The old banker started. He looked at Grinnell intently.
-The young man’s face was impassive; perhaps too impassive. Mr. Herzog
-blinked his eyes; not dubiously, but as some men will when their
-thoughts are racing at a furious rate. His head was bent slightly to one
-side as his alert, intelligent eyes looked and looked at the young man
-from under the thick, shaggy eyebrows that so heightened the patriarchal
-aspect of his face. At length he straightened his little body up as
-though he were on springs, and began to rub his hands briskly. It was
-imagination--Oriental imagination, more vivid, more opulent in detail
-than the Occidental.
-
-“I see! I see! Good!” He arose and, unable to contain himself, extended
-his hand and said: “Mr. Grinnell, I am certain you are a great man. I
-am proud to have your confidence. Bye-and-bye, when it does no harm, you
-will tell me all, and I shall see if I am right?”
-
-“Some day we shall both see whether we are right or not,” said Grinnell
-composedly.
-
-“Yes, yes. Now answer me: Do you find that great wealth is also a great
-temptation?”
-
-“I do not,” answered Grinnell frankly.
-
-“There are many things you would not do for money if you were penniless,
-much less would you do them, having fifty or a hundred millions. Is it
-not so?”
-
-“There are many things I should like to do if I had a thousand
-millions,” said Grinnell, very earnestly.
-
-“Precisely. That’s what you told them. Ah, William Mellen! William
-Mellen!” and the little old man shook his head and raised his hands
-ceilingward, as though he saw the richest man in the world there and
-were apostrophizing him. “You have imagination, but only one pair of
-eyes. I see!”
-
-“You know him?” Grinnell asked.
-
-The Hebrew banker, at this question, instantly became merely a banker.
-He said, briskly: “If bonds are too low, stocks are too high; much too
-high. It would be well to sell some to those wise rich men who wish
-to buy them; for the public is not buying stocks. Only the rich can
-buy--and suffer, it may be, eh, Mr. Grinnell?”
-
-“I shall be glad to join you in such an operation, Mr. Herzog.”
-
-“Thank you, sir; thank you. You leave it to me?”
-
-“Yes, sir.”
-
-“Very well. It is possible you are rich; but it is certain your are
-wise, Mr. Grinnell. First, we shall buy bonds for you. That is the
-investment operation. For one hundred millions we may buy one hundred
-and twenty millions par value, of the best bonds in the world. After
-that will come the--ah--” He paused and looked at Grinnell. The young
-man, his face still impassive, said:
-
-“Yes, sir. If you wish any more money--”
-
-“I will let you know, Mr. Grinnell. Come every morning at half after
-nine. Please let me have your name and address. There is much I should
-like to ask you; but bye-and-bye, you will tell me of your own accord.
-And your lawyer is?”
-
-“Col. Gordon McClintock. You know him?”
-
-“Yes. I shall not need him. Come tomorrow morning. There is much to do.
-Good-afternoon, Mr. Grinnell,” and Mr. Herzog shook hands warmly with
-the young man.
-
-It happened as Mr. Herzog had said. The friends of the Mellens’s were
-told in the strictest confidence to sell bonds for good and sufficient
-reasons. They told their friends, also in strict confidence; and their
-friends told their friends, and their friends their friends, even unto
-the fourth and fifth generations, until there came the panic of the
-millionaires, for these men, in the nature of things, had no poor
-friends. Their aggregate sales were torrential, appalling. The
-professionals were too frightened to buy or sell anything, unless it was
-life insurance policies without the suicide clause.
-
-And the flood of fine investment issues rolled resistlessly over the
-corpses of little speculators who bought them one day, thinking them
-incredibly cheap, only to see them on the next day incredibly, fatally
-cheaper, because the rich were selling! And the insane boom in stocks
-waxed greater, madder, more stupendous! Because the Mellens were buying!
-
-It could not continue much longer. The Secretary of the Treasury came
-to New York twice that week to confer with the great financiers, who
-listened intently--and suggested nothing. The country at large fixed
-its eyes on Wall Street and endeavoured to see clearly. The tide _must_
-turn. The public began to buy bonds outright--to buy a few bonds, pay
-for them and then, frightened at its own temerity, doubtful of having
-after all secured bargains, run breathlessly home and lock up its
-purchase, and not look at the next day’s quotations for fear of finding
-that the price of the same bonds had dropped farther.
-
-Still the public _had_ begun to buy. But not before Wolff, Herzog & Co.
-had purchased for $117,000,000 bonds which a month before could not have
-been purchased for less than $148,000,000, all for account of Mr. George
-K. Grinnell; and had sold short 250,000 shares of stocks at an average
-price of $190 per share, stocks which four weeks previously could not
-have been sold at $125 per share, these for account of “Account G,” which
-included equally Mr. George K. Grinnell, Wolff, Herzog & Co., of New
-York; I. Benjamin & Co., of London; Stetheim & Sons, of Frankfort and
-Amsterdam, and Goldschmidt Freres, of Paris. And because of these
-operations the bond-market steadied and the stock-market ceased to
-advance, and people plucked up courage and bought bonds and sold stocks,
-until bonds began actually to rise slowly and stocks to decline steadily
-and greater courage gained thereby. And because the public, which is
-everybody, is greater than anybody, greater even than the richest man in
-the world, the Paradoxical Panic was checked.
-
-There came a lull. After all, the public had but ceased to fear to buy
-bonds. It must be made to fear not to buy them; for bonds still were
-much too low and stocks very much too high. Wherefore, the Evening
-Scold, which had been importuning Mr. Isaac L. Herzog for an expression
-of his views, was at last able to publish an interview, double leaded,
-in its front page, in which the great financier strongly urged investors
-not to sell bonds but rather to buy. As for stocks, it was not wise
-to buy them but rather to sell. Investors need not be anxious over
-fundamental business conditions. Speculators, on the other hand, had
-before them a highly dangerous stock-market.
-
-It was the first and only interview any newspaper had ever been able to
-obtain for publication from Mr. Herzog; and the _Evening Scold_ was so
-uniformly ill-natured and impartially condemnatory that it was above
-suspicion. It was ultra-Mugwump in politics, art, literature, finance,
-and base-ball. The morning papers “verified” the interview and reprinted
-it prominently on the next day. And into Wall Street poured hordes of
-men, of all ages and political complexions--Jew and Gentile--of all
-degrees of fortune, and of no fortune at all, but all of them men who
-believed in Mr. Herzog’s integrity, and particularly in his sagacity.
-There followed a Great Day. Mostly, the public bought bonds. The selling
-pressure really was over by now, the enlightened millionaires being
-practically bondless; so bonds rose quickly, unchecked. And stocks
-declined, not so quickly, but every whit as steadily.
-
-Mellen read the Herzog interview in Dawson’s office. When he was done
-with them, he carefully folded the newspapers and piled them neatly on
-the table. It was an unfailing habit of his--that and saving the twine
-that came with parcels.
-
-He arose, with a troubled expression on his face, and said to the
-president:
-
-“Herzog is a very able man. I don’t like this interview. He speaks too
-confidently.” Into Mellen’s eyes came the puzzled, indecisive look which
-Dawson had seen there so frequently in the last few weeks, and so seldom
-in the previous twenty years.
-
-“He has a considerable following,” admitted the president in a cheerful
-voice, as though to keep his friend from dwelling too much on sorrow.
-“They have been heavy buyers of bonds and heavy sellers of stocks.
-That’s for Europe. They’ve sold us nearly all the sterling bills that
-we needed for Grinnell’s drafts. Grinnell has practically drawn all his
-money and sent it to London.”
-
-“I don’t like it, Richard; I don’t like it a bit. Perhaps we’ve been too
-hasty; and yet--” He stared at Dawson unseeingly. “Where did he get
-it?” His lips were dry; he moistened them with the tip of his tongue and
-pressed them together.
-
-“William, every bullion dealer in the world has been interviewed.
-Costello had twenty men in the West visiting the mines and smelters. We
-have had reports from the Klondike, from the Transvaal, from Australia,
-from mining engineers everywhere. We have even gone over the manifests
-of vessels that have brought bullion here and to other ports this year.
-Costello was twice in the laboratory. Since he promised to stop
-depositing, Grinnell has been idle. The dynamo has not been running.”
-
-“But there must be a mine.”
-
-“I am certain the gold doesn’t come from any mine on this earth.”
-
-“He may have accumulated it.” The richest man in the world said this
-without conviction.
-
-“Who gave him the money to pay for it?” asked Dawson, in an
-intentionally controversial tone, because he vaguely feared his friend’s
-doubts at this late hour. “And if somebody gave it to him, from whom did
-the giver buy it? Not from any smelter, or mine or dealer in the last
-five years. _That_ is certain too.”
-
-“Yes, yes; that’s it,” said Mellen irritably, because the answer would
-not come. “Is he under surveillance still?”
-
-“Costello returned from the Pacific Coast Tuesday night, and I told him
-not to lose sight of Grinnell for one instant.” The president approached
-the ticker.
-
-“Hm!” he said. “Quite a rally in bonds.” From force of habit the richest
-man in the world drew near. He passed the tape through his fingers
-slowly; then he told Dawson:
-
-“I think we’d better help stocks go down.” Seeing a doubtful look in the
-president’s eyes, he added: “Oh, we’ll get them back cheaper.”
-
-The door opened and Costello entered--he had instructions to walk into
-Mr. Dawson’s private office without being announced, no matter who might
-be there with the president. Dawson merely looked inquiringly at the
-detective but the richest man in the world walked up to him quickly and
-asked: “What is it, Costello?”
-
-“Did you see Mr. Grinnell’s marriage announcement in the _Herald_, sir?”
- He looked first at Mellen, then at his chief. “It’s among the ads. in
-the front page.”
-
-“No,” answered Mellen, turning toward the table, but Dawson had already
-picked up the Herald. He read aloud, Mellen looking over his shoulder:
-
-_GRINNELL-ROBINSON.--On Tuesday, September 12, by the Rev. DeLancy
-Williamson, at his residence, Margaret, daughter of Thomas M. Robinson,
-to George Kitchell Grinnell. Middletown, N. Y., and Youngstown, O.,
-papers please copy_.
-
-“Robinson?” said Mellen quickly. He answered an unspoken question of his
-own: “But he hasn’t so much.”
-
-Dawson knew what he meant. He shook his head and said with a slight
-frown: “I doubt if he has even ten millions. I know he sold out all his
-Consolidated Steel during the boom but that couldn’t have been more than
-five millions. I don’t think so.” He looked ill at ease.
-
-“We must see Grinnell at once,” said the richest man in the world,
-speaking quickly. “If Robinson knows what Grinnell is doing--” He
-checked himself with a frown. A great anger filled his very soul to
-overflowing: Always Grinnell came before him--an obstacle to plans,
-enveloped by doubt-breeding mystery, surrounded by an uncertainty
-which, by not openly revealing dangers, made the young man a ceaseless
-menace.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell is now at Wolff, Herzog’s office,” said Costello. “He’s
-been going there every day for a week.”
-
-“I knew it!” said the richest man in the world explosively. He sat down
-in an armchair and leaned back, breathing quickly.
-
-“We must make sure,” said Dawson. He sat down at his desk and took up
-the telephone. Then he said to Costello: “Anything else?”
-
-“No, sir. He went into Mr. Herzog’s private office. The door-keeper told
-me he was a very rich man and that he came there every day.”
-
-“Very well,” said Dawson, dismissingly. The detective left the room.
-Mellen stretched his right hand toward Dawson and opened his mouth.
-But he said nothing. His hand dropped and he stared intently at a paper
-weight on the president’s desk.
-
-Dawson took up the telephone.
-
-“Let me have Mr. Herzog, at once,” he said sharply. A minute later he
-said: “Herzog?--This is Dawson--Is Mr. Grinnell in your office?” Mellen
-drew near and stood beside his friend.
-
-“Hello?” went on Dawson, with a tinge of impatience. “Is Grinnell--”
- He turned to Meilen and explained, spitefully: “He says to wait a
-moment--Hello? Yes. I’d like to see him--”
-
-“Tell him to wait for you there,” said Mellen, in a tone of command.
-Dawson spoke into the telephone:
-
-“Well, if he’ll wait for me at your office I’ll run over at once. Very
-well. Good-bye.” Dawson rose and, putting on his hat, followed the
-richest man in the world who had already started out of the office
-briskly.
-
-In Herzog’s office the old banker, at Dawson’s first question, carefully
-placed his hand over the transmitter and said to Grinnell: “Dawson wants
-to know if your are here.”
-
-“I cannot tell a lie,” laughed Grinnell; “I am.”
-
-A moment later Mr. Herzog said: “He says he will come over if you will
-wait here for him.”
-
-“Very well,” replied Grinnell. He added: “I think this will close the
-incident.” But Herzog shook his head--he was listening to Dawson and
-couldn’t hear the young man’s words.
-
-The bank president and the richest man in the world walked more quickly
-than was their wont, each busy with his own thoughts. The myopic
-door-keeper at Wolff, Herzog & Co.’s, knew Mr. Dawson. He opened the
-gate obsequiously and then hastened ahead and held open the door to Mr.
-Herzog’s private office. They entered abreast.
-
-Mr. Herzog rose quickly and, walking toward them, extended his hand
-to Dawson. Then he shook Mellen’s. Grinnell arose from his chair near
-Herzog’s desk and merely said, “Good-morning, gentlemen.”
-
-Dawson bowed to him, and with his diplomat-at-a-reception smile,
-replied:
-
-“Good-morning, Mr. Grinnell.”
-
-Mellen used the same words, and no smile.
-
-“Be seated, gentlemen,” said Mr. Herzog with a polite wave of the hand.
-
-“We came over to congratulate Mr. Grin-nell,” said Dawson. “We’ve just
-seen the _Herald._”
-
-“Yes,” said Mellen grimly.
-
-“Oh, thanks,” returned Grinnell, very politely.
-
-“Herzog,” said the richest man in the world abruptly, “you have been
-buying a great many bonds.”
-
-“We have bought some,” assented the banker, with much gravity.
-
-There was a pause. Grinnell glanced at Dawson, who was looking so
-extremely unconcerned that the young man smiled slightly. Mellen, who
-had been leaning forward in his chair, straightened himself and asked
-curtly: “Why?”
-
-Mr. Herzog arched his eyebrows with a sort of amazed inquisitiveness and
-said nothing, intending his silence as a snub. But he changed his mind
-and said: “They were very cheap.”
-
-The richest man in the world turned toward Grinnell. Before he could ask
-any questions the young man said pleasantly: “You told me so yourself.
-Don’t you remember, Mr. Mellen?”
-
-“Did _you_ buy any, Mr. Grinnell?” Mel-len’s voice had a serious ring.
-The young man’s face took on a boyishly confidential look. He said:
-
-“I bought some for my father-in-law. He had been waiting for them to go
-down. So had I. You see, my marriage was to come off as soon as I had
-invested his money.”
-
-Mellen’s eyes opened wide, and Dawson, in a very quiet tone, asked: “And
-did you invest yours as well?”
-
-“It seems to me,” said Grinnell, “that we are drifting toward family
-matters--”
-
-“I beg your pardon,” said the president stiffly.
-
-“I understood,” the young man said apologetically, “that you wished to
-speak to me on some business matter. I haven’t overdrawn my account,
-have I?”
-
-“Perhaps we had better discuss this at the bank, Mr. Grinnell; if you
-could come--”
-
-“I’m very sorry, Mr. Dawson, but I start on my wedding tour in an hour.
-I have no business secrets from Mr. Herzog, so if it is a business
-matter we may discuss it here. In all probability I would repeat our
-conversation to him.”
-
-Dawson’s face flushed violently; his nostrils dilated unpleasantly.
-Mellen’s face turned perceptibly paler and the lines of it became
-harder. But his voice was steady and his manner almost matter-of-fact as
-he said to the young man: “Then it is almost certain you are not going
-to deposit too much gold hereafter at the Metropolitan Bank.”
-
-“I am not going to deposit any more gold at any bank, because--”
- Grinnell hesitated.
-
-“Yes?” Mellen’s eyes were fixed on the young man’s face, is if he
-thought every fleeting expression was as important as the words
-themselves.
-
-“Because I haven’t any more gold to deposit,” finished Grinnell, very
-calmly.
-
-“That is now. But will you not produce any more gold?” The richest man
-in the world spoke very quietly and very distinctly.
-
-“I never produced any. I sold the Assay Office the last ounce I ever had
-over a month ago.”
-
-“You must have obtained it somewhere, somehow,” said the richest man in
-the world. His manner conveyed an impression of patience. “Did you buy
-it?”
-
-“No, sir. I didn’t buy it.” The young man’s calmness was not theatrical
-and it had a quieting effect. He paused an instant; then he went on: “In
-fact, I had no gold of my own. It was all my father-in-law’s.” He turned
-away and rose as if to go to the window.
-
-Mellen spoke sharply: “Mr. Grinnell!”
-
-“Yes.” He looked the richest man in the world straight in the eyes.
-Mellen said rudely: “Explain yourself, sir!”
-
-“Mr. Mellen!” interjected Herzog. His voice conveyed a rebuke; but his
-look was austere rather than offended.
-
-Grinnell frowned. He spoke to Mellen with impatience in his voice: “Mr.
-Mellen, you have asked me many questions, which you had no right to
-ask. I’ve not said anything about it before; but I tell you now that you
-annoy me!”
-
-Mellen turned livid. “I--” he began. “Listen, please,” interrupted
-Grinnell quickly, his face growing stem. “I am going to tell you about
-that gold. That is, I shall tell if you do not interrupt me. I don’t
-wish you to ask me any more questions--not one.”
-
-[Illustration: 0215]
-
-For many years no one had spoken thus to Mellen. But he answered
-nothing; his eyes were fixed on Grinnell’s lips with a fascinated
-stare. Dawson, unconsciously, had allowed a frown of intense interest to
-contract his brows. Mr. Herzog’s head was bent forward as if not to lose
-a word, his bright little eyes blinking furiously. Grinnell spoke very
-clearly and deliberately:
-
-“My father-in-law, Mr. Robinson, two years ago at the height of the boom
-thought the stock-market must collapse sooner or later: I became engaged
-to his daughter, whom I had known ever since I was a boy. He naturally
-talked over his affairs with me in a general way, though I am not a
-business man.” He paused as if to pick his next words. A curious smile
-flickered for a fraction of a minute on Mr. Herzog’s lips.
-
-“He wished to sell most of his stock holdings in various companies and
-then buy bonds. But if stocks were too high, bonds were not low enough.
-It was therefore decided to sell stocks at once, but to defer the
-purchase of bonds until a more propitious occasion. That occasion came
-last week. Mr. Herzog bought the bonds for him. That’s where _he_ comes
-in.”
-
-The young man paused again. Mellen did not interrupt; he nodded twice,
-not quickly at all, but in an acquiescent manner that invited further
-revelations. Grinnell continued slowly:
-
-“Mr. Robinson had been a rich man for years, but I did not suspect how
-rich until he had sold all his stocks, when he told me he had fifty-four
-millions to his credit at his banks. To me this was so incredible that
-it made me think a man with that much cash in bank might do other things
-just as incredible. He is one of the unknown millionaires whom the
-newspapers discover when their wills are probated. That fact, the
-ignorance as to the extent of his wealth, also would help. As at that
-time so many of our financial institutions were unsafe because their
-officers were gambling in stocks and underwriting ventures, we
-concluded to lose the interest on it and turn it into gold. Once we
-had accumulated fifty millions in gold, the existence of which was
-unsuspected by bankers or brokers or newspapers, it was obvious that
-there were various ways in which the gold and the secret of it could
-be made valuable. Mr. Robinson, lacking the excitement of active
-speculation in stocks, and having retired from active business, was
-quite willing to indulge in a few psychological experiments. I had
-suggested various plans. He accepted one of them. So, we got the gold
-together.” Grinnell made an end of speaking and looked at Mr. Herzog
-meditatively, as if trying to remember whether he had forgotten
-anything, and speculating on whether he need say anything more. Herzog,
-oblivious of the presence of Mellen and Dawson, asked eagerly:
-
-“Yes, but _how? Where_ did you get that much gold?” It was the one thing
-he could not guess.
-
-“There was only one way that I could see. We withdrew gold coin from
-circulation, gradually, all over the country, but principally in San
-Francisco. We spent two years at it. It took a great deal of care and
-trouble. Indeed, that was the hardest part. As fast as we got it I took
-it to my house, which I had bought for that very purpose, and melted it
-into bars so heavy that no burglar could carry away one. I painted them
-black and put them in the cellar, near the back wall. They were safe.”
-
-“Ah!” The sigh came from the Hebrew banker who now leaned back in his
-chair and looked at Dawson. The president’s lips were slightly parted,
-and the frown was still on his face, his eyes on Grinnell. Mellen’s face
-had lost its tense look. He said, very quietly: “I see!”
-
-“I deposited the gold, as Assay Office checks, in Mr. Dawson’s bank, and
-stopped calling on my _fiancée_. Later, I bought the bonds. I didn’t see
-Mr. Herzog until they were cheap.”
-
-The president, his voice husky with anger, said: “Then you
-deliberately--”
-
-“Don’t!” commanded the young man sharply. “Of course, I assumed that
-business training and Wall Street practices did not kill the imaginative
-faculty. That is what I had to work on. No financier can be great that
-has not great imagination. And you gentlemen are great financiers.
-If you will recall my exact words at the various times that I had
-the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Dawson, you will not find one that is
-untrue. I made no assertion that was not justified by facts. I recall
-every word because I studied them very carefully.” There was no
-self-complacency in the young man’s manner. It was a trifle deprecatory
-toward the end; the light in his eyes kept it from being humility.
-
-“You scound----”
-
-“Richard!” interjected the richest man in the world, soothingly. He had
-already reckoned the extent of his enormous losses, for he would have to
-buy back at high prices bonds he had sold at low, and he would have to
-reverse the process in stocks. Grinnell, or his father-in-law, probably
-had made fifteen or twenty millions through the mistake. Mellen’s
-losses, because of the imaginative faculty, would probably be twice as
-great. But gold was gold still, and therefore, he was not ruined. He
-would retrieve the loss. He saw what he must do.
-
-He turned with a look of almost benignity to the young man and said
-suavely: “Mr. Grinnell, I should like to have you come to see me when
-you have time. You have told me a very interesting story. I should
-like to see more of you. You are rich, but--” He stopped, to look
-encouragingly at the young man.
-
-“Oh, no,” laughed Grinnell, “my father-in-law is. But even he is not in
-your class.”
-
-“Come and see me anyhow. There is no telling what class _you_ will be
-in.” In his mild earnestness and soft voice there was an unmistakable
-promise. The young man did not answer. Dawson now smiled affably.
-
-“Mr. Grinnell, you are still one of our depositors, you know,” he said,
-with an air of claiming family relationship.
-
-“Yes; to the extent of $342. I’ll give that to the detectives who--Oh,
-no offence, Mr. Dawson. I’m sorry I must leave you. We married men have
-trials.” He shook hands warmly with Mr. Herzog, nodded pleasantly to
-Dawson and Mellen, and said: “Good-morning, gentlemen.”
-
-As the door closed on George Kitchell Grinnell, Mellen, thinking of the
-new working alliance he must effect with Herzog in order to facilitate
-the campaign of retreat and re-conquest, turned to the Hebrew banker and
-said quietly, “Now, Herzog let us get down to business.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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