Jack and the Check Book

"Ah! Really?" said Wilbraham. "And who the dickens are you?"

"I am the head butler of the Fairies' Union assigned to your service, sir," replied the stranger, civilly, making a low bow to Mrs. Wilbraham.

There is no use of describing the meal. It was all there as foreshadowed in Wilbraham's gastronomically inspired menu, and having had nothing to eat since the night before, the fortunate couple did full justice to it.

"Before we go any further, Richard," said Mrs. Wilbraham, after the duck had been served, "do you happen to remember how many of your last six wishes are left?"

"No, I don't," said Wilbraham.

"Then you had better order a few more lest by the end of this charming repast you forget," said the thoughtful woman.

"Good scheme, Ethelinda," said Wilbraham. "I'll put in a bid for a gross right away. There is no use in piking along in small orders when you can do a land-office business without lifting your little finger."

"And don't you think, too, dear," the woman continued, "that it would be well for us to open a set of books – a sort of General Wish Account – so that we shall not at any time by some unfortunate mistake overdraw our balance?"

"Ethelinda," cried Wilbraham, his face glowing with enthusiastic admiration, "you have, without any exception, the best business head that ever wore a pompadour!"

Thus it began. A cash-book was purchased and in its columns, like so many entries of mere dollars, Wilbraham entered his income in wishes, faithfully recording on the opposite page his expenditures in the same. The first entry of one gross was made that very night:

March 16, 19 – , Sight Draft on U. S. Fairy Co., 144

Before long others followed and were used to such an effect that at the end of the year, by a careful manipulation of his resources, carefully husbanding the possibilities of that original third wish, Wilbraham found that he had expressed and had had gratified over ten thousand wishes, all of such a nature that the one-time decrepit farm had now become one of the handsomest estates in the country. A château stood on the site of the old mansion. Where the barns had been in danger of falling of their own weight were now to be found rows of well-stocked cattle-houses and dairies of splendor. The decaying stables had become garages of unusual magnificence, wherein cars of all horsepowers and models panted, eager to be chugging over the roads of Diggville, which by a single wish expressed by Wilbraham had become wondrously paved boulevards. And in the chicken-yards that had taken the place of the discouraging coops of other days thousands of hens laid their daily quota of prosperity for their owner in the plush-upholstered nests provided for their comfort by Wilbraham, the egg king, for that was what he had now become. In all parts of the world his fame was heralded, and hosts of sight-seers came daily to see the wonderful acres of this lordly master of the world's egg supply. And, best of all, there was still a balance of forty-three hundred and eighty-seven wishes to his credit!

The leading financiers of the world now began to take notice of this new figure in the realm of effort, for they soon found their most treasured and surest schemes going awry in a most unaccountable manner. No matter how much they tried to depress or to stimulate the market, some new and strange factor seemed to be at work bringing their calculations to naught, and when it became known to them that the mere expression of a wish on the part of Wilbraham would send stocks kiting into the air or crashing into the depths, no matter what they might do, they began to worry.

"To-morrow," said John W. Midas, as he talked to Wilbraham and his friends one evening at the club, "International Gold Brick Common will fall off thirty-seven points."

"Not so, Colonel," Wilbraham had retorted. "It will rise seventy points."

"Oh, it will, will it? How do you know that?" demanded Midas.

"Because I wish it," said Wilbraham.

And on the morrow International Gold Brick, opening at 96-5/8, lo and behold! closed at 166-5/8, and the friends of Midas who had laughed at Wilbraham and sold short went to the wall. A half-dozen experiences of a similar nature showed the former rulers of the financial world that Wilbraham had now become a force to be reckoned with, and for their own protection the more eminent among them called a meeting at the home of Mr. Andrew Rockernegie to consider the situation. There was too much power in the hands of one man, they thought, although that idea had never occurred to any of them before. The result of the meeting was that Colonel Midas was appointed a committee of one to call upon Wilbraham and see what could be done.

"You may not be aware of it, Mr. Wilbraham," said the Colonel, "but by your occasional intrusions into our lines of work you are making finance an inexact science. Now, what will you take to keep your hands off the market altogether? Twenty millions?"

Wilbraham laughed.

"Really, Colonel Midas," he replied, "I had no idea that you ever did business on a corner-grocery basis like that. You ought to run a vacuum cleaner over your brow. I think there are cobwebs in your gray matter. Why, my dear sir, I can capitalize this gift of mine at a billion, and pay ten per cent. on every dollar of it every year, with a little melon to be cut up annually by the stock-holders of one hundred and fifty per cent. per annum. Why, then, should I sell out at twenty millions?"

"Oh, I suppose you can have the earth if you want it," retorted Midas, ruefully. "But all the same – "

"No, I don't want the earth," said Wilbraham. "If I had wanted it I should have had it long ago. I'd only have to pay taxes on it, and it would be a nuisance looking after the property."

"On what basis will you sell out?" demanded Midas.

"Well, we might incorporate my gift," said Wilbraham. "What would you say to a United States Wish Syndicate, formed to produce and sell wishes to the public by the can – POTTED WISHES: ONE HUNDRED NON-CUMULATIVE WISHES FOR A DOLLAR. Eh?"

Midas paced the floor in his enthusiasm.

"Magnificent!" he cried. "We'll underwrite the whole thing in my office – bonds, stock, both common and preferred – for say – ahem! – how much did you say?"

"Oh, I guess I can pull along on a billion," said Wilbraham. "Cash."

Midas scratched his head. A glitter came into his eye.

"You wish to give up control of your gift?" he asked.

"You are a clever man, Colonel Midas," grinned Wilbraham. "If I had said 'yes' to that question I'd have lost my power. But I'm too old a bird to be caught that way. You go ahead and form your company, and sell your securities to the public at par, pay me my billion, and I'll transfer the business to you, C. O. D."

"Done!" said Midas, and he returned to his fellow-captains on the Street.

Wilbraham was felicitating himself upon a wondrously good stroke of business, when another caller entered his room, this time unannounced.

"How do you do, Mr. Wilbraham?" said the stranger, as he mysteriously materialized before Wilbraham's desk.

"How are you?" said Wilbraham. "Your face is familiar to me, but I can't just recall where I have met you."

"My name is Oberon, sir," said the stranger, "I am the secretary of the United States Fairy Company. There is a little trouble over your account, and I have called to see if we can't – "

Wilbraham's heart sank within him.

"It – it isn't overdrawn, is it?" he whispered, hoarsely.

"No, it isn't," said the secretary.

"By Jove!" cried Wilbraham, drawing a deep sigh of relief, and springing to his feet, grasping Oberon by both hands. "Sit down, sit down! You have been a benefactor to me, sir."

"I am glad you realize that fact, Mr. Wilbraham," said the fairy, somewhat coldly. "It makes it easier for me to say what I have come here to say. We did not realize, Mr. Wilbraham," he went on, "when we awarded you the three original wishes that you would be clever enough to work the wish business up into an industry. If we had we should have made the wishes non-cumulative. We were perfectly willing to permit a reasonable overdraft also, but we didn't expect you to pyramid your holdings the way you have done until you have practically secured a corner in the market."

Wilbraham grinned broadly.

"I have been going some," he said.

"Rather," said Oberon. "Your original three wishes have been watered until we find in going over our books for the second year that they reach the sum total of three million five hundred and sixty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty-seven, and that you still have an unexpended balance on hand of four hundred and ninety-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-four wishes. The situation is just this," he continued. "Our company has been kept so busy honoring your drafts that we are threatened with a general strike. We didn't mind building you a château and furbishing up your old chicken-farm, and setting you up for life, but when you enter into negotiations with old John W. Midas to incorporate yourself into a wish trust we feel that the time has come to call a halt. The fairies are honest, and no obligation of theirs will ever be repudiated, but we think that a man who tries to build up a billion-dollar corporation to deal in wishes on an investment of one poached egg is just a leetle unreasonable. Even Rockernegie had a trifle more than a paper of tacks when he founded the iron trust."

"By ginger, Oberon," said Wilbraham, "you are right! I have rather put it on to you people and I'm sorry. I wouldn't embarrass you good fairies for anything in the world."

"Good!" cried Oberon, overjoyed. "I thought you would feel that way. Just think for one moment what it would mean for us if the Great Wish Syndicate were started as a going concern, with a board of directors made up of men like John W. Midas, Rockernegie, and old Bondifeller running things. Why, there aren't fairies enough in the world to keep up with those men, and the whole business world would come down with a crash. Their wish would elect a whole Congress. If they wished the Senate out of Washington and located on Wall Street, you'd soon find it so, and, by thunder, Wilbraham, every four years they'd wish somebody in the White House with a great capacity for taking orders and not enough spine to fill an umbrella cover, and the public would be powerless."

Wilbraham gazed thoughtfully out of the window. A dazzling prospect of imperial proportions loomed up before his vision, and the temptation was terrible, but in the end common sense came to the rescue.

"It would be a terrible nuisance," he muttered to himself, and then turning to Oberon he asked: "What is your proposition?"

"A compromise," said the fairy. "If you'll give up your right to further wishes on our account we will place you in a position where, for the rest of your natural life, you will always have four dollars more than you need, and in addition to that, as a compliment to Mrs. Wilbraham, she can have everything she wants."

"Ha!" said Wilbraham, dubiously. "I – I don't think I'd like that exactly. She might want something I didn't want her to have."