Juggernaut: A Veiled Record

XV

Abner Hildreth was closeted in the parlor of his bank with a grave, but eager-faced man of perhaps fifty, who sat with his left hand doubled up into a fist, while he snapped the spaces between the knuckles with the fingers of the right, making a succession of little nervous snaps, which would have annoyed a more irritable person than Hildreth.

The banker had been reading aloud to his companion, and half a dozen copies of the Thebes Daily Enterprise lay open on a chair by his side. Hildreth had been reading the leading articles one after the other, and had just concluded, the series.

"I don't like the looks of it, Duncan. I don't know what it all means, or how much."

"Perhaps he is only guessing, and getting things wrong. These newspaper men often do that, you know."

"Yes – " returned Hildreth, meditatively, "but Braine isn't that sort. He is apt to surprise you just the other way. When you squeeze him to see if he knows what he has been saying, you're apt to find out he knows a good deal more. He's a cautious fellow, and not too previous." [Hildreth's speech declines to reduce itself to subjection, and must be reported faithfully.] "Besides, I particularly cautioned him when he began this series on 'Thebes as a Railroad Centre,' to go slow, and deal in glittering generalities. I told him we weren't quite ready to call the hand yet."

"What did he say?"

"Not much. He said he understood the situation, and I suppose he really thought so. I'm afraid he's upset the milk pail. I wish I'd taken him into full confidence."

"I wish you had, almost. But if you had, we should have had to let him in a good deal deeper than we intend. I suppose he's keen enough to know how thick the butter is on a slice of bread, when he gets a good look at it?"

"Keen enough? Yes, he's keen enough for anything. I'm afraid he's been too keen for us. I don't know what he's up to, or how much he knows, but it looks serious. Maybe after all it would have been cheaper to let him in on the ground floor, instead of pretending. What if he's leased the ground floor himself, and made up his mind to turn us out?"

"Had he money enough for that?"

"No, I suppose not. But brains count sometimes, and he's got brains. Couldn't you find out anyway what Van Duyn means to do?"

"No. He said he was in other things, and couldn't go in with us. Of course that means whatever he wanted it to mean. With a man of his wealth and banking connections, being in one thing or twenty things, don't prevent his going into others. But whether he's up to anything or not, I couldn't find out."

"Well, it looks bad. Braine played it very sharp on me when he got that charter and ferry franchise. I didn't know he knew of their existence, or would dream of their value if he did. Then he went to New York and got in with a lot of people there. I don't know how. Then came the sudden drop in Northern stock before we began selling short. Somebody must have been selling it quietly for days. Then when we went in to buy, you couldn't get a controlling interest at any price, and all we can make out is that a big block of it is held off the market. Now comes this series of articles."

"Read that last paragraph again."

Hildreth took up the paper and read:

"These plans are now about matured, and the hopes of Thebes approach fruition. It is yet too soon to publish particulars, but this much, at any rate, may be stated. A strong body of capitalists have secured control of the lines south of Columbia. Associated with them are the owners of the franchise for the connecting line between Thebes and Columbia. Contracts for the rapid construction of that line have been let, and the road will be in operation by the new year. Negotiations are in progress, or soon will be, for a traffic arrangement with the roads running north from Thebes, and there is now every assurance that the great tide of commerce between the North and South will speedily flow through this city."

The two sat silent for a time after the reading was done. Then Duncan said:

"Hildreth, there's more behind that; the fellow has a masked battery of some kind. Let's have the others down at once."

Hildreth rang for a clerk to whom he said:

"Telegraph to Tucker and Fanning to come down by the night express without fail, and meet Duncan here at ten in the morning. Say it's imperative."

When the clerk had gone, Duncan asked:

"What shall we do about Braine, in the mean time?"

"That's what puzzles me. On the whole, I think we'd better have him here to-night, and have it out with him some way. We may not be able to manage him, but I think we can. At all events, we'd best know how much powder he has in his magazine. Confound the fellow!"

"Don't be too hasty. He is evidently a man we want with us, and of course we can get him in some way. A very little slice of this cut will seem a feast to him. Send for him, and when we get him here we'll manage him."

Hildreth rang again, and said to the answering clerk:

"Go up to Braine's after you lock the vault for the day, and tell him to come down and see me here at eight o'clock sharp."

When this message was delivered to Braine an hour or two later the editor was quietly reading the "Biglow Papers" to his wife in the little white cottage with the sweet-williams in front. He had half an hour before received a note by messenger, which he crumpled up and threw into the waste basket. A moment later he picked it out again, went into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the fire.

When Hildreth's clerk delivered his summons, Braine quietly said to him:

"Take down my answer in shorthand and deliver it accurately. Tell Mr. Hildreth I am reading a very interesting book to my wife, and don't care to disturb myself. You may say to him, also, that after he has had a talk with Duncan, who is with him now, and Tucker and Fanning, who are to arrive by the express at ten to-morrow morning, I shall be at his service for any conference he may think necessary. Good evening, Charley."

"Why, Ed," exclaimed Helen, as soon as the clerk had gone, "this reading is of no consequence."

"I know it, dear. In fact I'm tired of it and shall read no more."

"Why didn't you go then? It may be of consequence."

"It is – to Hildreth."

"Why did you send him so – well, so curious a message, then?"

"Because I wanted him to know that I knew who was coming and by what trains."

"Didn't you get the information from him?"

"No, dear. He didn't know it himself till he telegraphed for them an hour ago, when we were at tea."

"Then how on earth did you find it out?"

"I pay for my education, dear, as I go on. The little note I burned in the kitchen brought me the information."

"But why did you treat Mr. Hildreth's message so – well, so curtly? I'm sure – "

"My dear, let me tell you a story. There was once a rich man and a poor man. The rich man wanted to make use of the poor man, and he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the poor man's master. When he had things all ready, he went to the poor man and told him about it. He promised to be a kind master and to pay the poor man well for serving him. But the poor man was constituted a little curiously. He didn't like to have a master, even a kind one who paid him well. He liked to be master himself, and so he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the rich man's master. When he had matters in readiness, he sent a reply to one of the rich man's orders, which let the rich man know that the poor man was master now. That's a little fable. But fables are often true."

XVI

It was not until noon of the next day, after two hours of preparatory conference, that Hildreth sent Braine as courteous a note as his most accomplished clerk could manufacture, asking him to meet Duncan, Tucker and Fanning in the bank parlor, "for consultation upon matters of deep interest to all of us."

A little after one, Braine appeared at the bank, and greeted the others without seeming in the least conscious that he had kept the personal representatives of a good many millions of dollars waiting for an hour.

Meantime the group had agreed upon a plan of operations, which had only the one defect of being founded upon a total misapprehension of Braine's situation, attitude and intentions. A fresh perusal of the series of articles on "Thebes as a Railroad Centre," together with Hildreth's report of the message he had received from Braine in answer to his own, the day before, had led the quartette to certain conclusions.

"He knows what we're up to," was the verdict of Tucker, a pudgy little man, with a voice at least an octave too low for his apparent bellows-power; "at least he's worked out enough of it to bank on. He's making a strike. He proposes to get in with us, and it's my opinion we've got to let him in."

"Yes, but how far?" asked Fanning, a very thin person, with a high forehead, over which the skin seemed stretched with drum head tension.

"Well, of course, a fellow like that," said Hildreth, "isn't like one of us. He'll think it a big fortune if we let him in enough to give him a little bank account, and let his wife go to some fashionable watering-place every summer. He doesn't know how much a combination of this kind means. My notion is for us to take his ferry franchise and the railroad charter – he doesn't know what that piece of paper is worth, I fancy – and capitalize the ferry at two hundred thousand dollars, and the railroad at ten millions. The road won't cost more than three millions at the outside to build, and a ferry-boat can be had, with the landing traps, for thirty-five thousand dollars. We'll assign Braine two hundred thousand dollars' worth of stock in the road, and twenty-five thousand dollars in the ferry company. The figures will knock him over. Of course, we can fix it so as to throw most of the earnings of the ferry and connecting road over to our other properties. The idea of having $225,000 in anything will fetch him. It sounds big, that sort of thing, to a fellow that's rooted for his living as Braine has. He's sharp, but of course he doesn't know how these things are managed. He's had no experience."

"But we'll need his brains now and then, Hildreth," said Duncan, "and mustn't set him in antagonism to us. He'll find out after a while what his stock is worth, and then he'll fight us, sure. Can we afford to risk that?"

"That's a fact," said Hildreth; "well, how will it do to give him the stock and a clean cash twenty-five thousand dollars? He'll be rich on that, or think himself so. And we can help him in his political schemes, too. He is ambitious, and we shall want him in politics. I'll suggest politics after the money part is broached."

And so, when Braine entered, Hildreth was equipped.

"We've been reading your articles with interest, Braine," he began, "but we find you've been a little misled by your enthusiasm and hopefulness." A few months earlier, Hildreth had called that sort of thing "going off at half cock," but he thought it best to be more circumspect now. "After all," he continued, "I'm to blame for it, you know, because I ought to have kept you better posted."

"Would you mind telling me just wherein I have been misled?" asked Braine, without manifesting the least concern as to the seriousness of his blunders.

"Well, you see it's this way. We haven't got control of the Southern lines yet. Van Duyn disappointed us, and – "

"Yes – well?" said Braine.

"Your saying we have secured control may bother us a little in the negotiations."

"Did I say you had got control of the Southern lines? I don't recall it."

"Certainly; you say," reading, "'a strong body of capitalists have secured control of the lines south of Columbia.'"

"I see. Well?"

"Oh, I don't know as it need be very serious. It will pass as a careless newspaper statement."

"Certainly. Call it that and lay it on my shoulders. Nobody will mind me. Well, what else?"

"Well, I ought to have told you that we haven't got a good ready yet to begin work on the new line from here to Columbia, and we haven't yet succeeded in buying a controlling interest in the Northern road," said Hildreth.

"You never told me," said Braine, but without any look of surprise at the information, "that you contemplated doing anything with the Northern road, after you shut it off the river front by the levee transfer."

"Didn't I? That must have been an oversight. Well I'll tell you now. I'll be perfectly frank, Braine, for we're all in one boat you know. Our plan was to sell Northern down to the breaking point on the strength of its being cut off from the river, and then, when the bottom dropped out of it, to go in and buy up a controlling interest, consolidate the road with the Central, and send the stock up again."

"Why didn't you carry out the plan?" asked Braine, with languid interest. "It looks like a very good one."

"That's where the trouble lies. Somebody else sold the stock short on the quiet before we began, and he must have made a pile on the operation too, for the market was sold so deep that when we touched it, it tumbled to pieces like a barrel with the hoops off. And then when we began to buy on the broken market, we found another block in our way. Somebody had quietly bought while we were selling, and now holds a big block of the stock off the market. We've bought every share we can get, till we've sent the market up to where it was before the break, and even a little higher, but we can't get enough to control."

"What do you mean to do about it?" queried Braine.

"We're waiting for the fellow to weaken, and that's where the trouble comes in. Your article will stiffen him up like thunder. You must admit that you were too previous this time, Braine."

"Perhaps so. But what do you suggest now?"

"Well, we count on you to patch things up. Can't you get up some news about the thing, to knock out the impression you've made?"

"No," answered Braine, "that would never do. The first condition of success in journalism is never to print false and misleading news."

"Confound journalism!" Hildreth could not altogether repress his irritation. "The whole game is at stake, my dear fellow, and you're one of us, you know."

"Am I? How much? You've never told me."

Here Tucker winked at Fanning, and Duncan nodded at Tucker. It was clear that Braine was "striking," and they were now getting at the marrow of the matter.

"We've just been talking that over," said Hildreth with eager confidence; "and this is what we think we can afford to do for you," handing Braine a memorandum. "It's extremely liberal, you see, but we want to be as liberal as possible with you. We haven't forgotten how you served us at the pinch, and we want your brains hereafter."

Braine scanned the memorandum carelessly. Then he handed it back, and said:

"My brains cannot be had at the price. I've been trying them a little, recently, and find they're worth more to me than you offer."

"Might I ask, Mr. Braine," interposed Duncan, snapping his fingers against his knuckles, "what is your notion of a fair arrangement between us?"

"Certainly," answered Braine; "and in order that you may not think me unreasonable, I will first explain how matters stand with me. In the first place, it seems only proper to say that it was I who, in the absence of any hint of your plans from Mr. Hildreth, made the mistake of selling Northern short in New York."

"You!" exclaimed Hildreth. "You! Why, where on earth did you get the money?"

"You lent me enough. It don't take a great deal of margin to sell short with, on a falling market. By the way, I'd like to give you my check for the amount I owe you, and take up my note before maturity, if it's all the same to you. Besides I have some friends in New York who are pretty strong – the Van Duyns and others – sit still and hear me out, please," as the others rose in astonishment at the mention of that name. "As I was saying, I sold Northern short till the collapse came, and you will be glad to know that I netted a very comfortable profit when the stock tumbled from 73 to 37 – just reversing the figures, which seems to me an interesting coincidence. By that time, Van Duyn and his friends had gone in with me in some plans I had formed. We thought, upon looking over the ground, that we could see a way by which the Northern road could force its way to the river in spite of the levee grant. In fact, I am pretty well convinced that the grant can be wholly invalidated if necessary. I hold conclusive proofs that the aldermen were bribed to make it. I thought if I asked to have it rescinded, all parties would probably consent rather than risk the submission of this proof to a grand jury."

By this time the four bankers were reduced, as to their moral natures, to the condition of pulp. They said nothing. They simply listened.

"However, that is aside. As I was saying, we thought Northern stock a good purchase at the price, so we bought it up to full recovery."

Here Braine paused, and going to the cooler drew a glass of water, which was far from perfectly clear as he held it between him and the light for inspection before drinking.

"Now that Thebes is sure of growth, Hildreth," – it was the first time Braine had ever spoken to the banker by his name, without the prefix of courtesy, – "we must begin to think about a water supply, don't you think so? I'll write the thing up in a few days. I'm only waiting for some books on the subject, for which I have sent to New York."

"Confound the water supply!" ejaculated Hildreth. "Go on, can't you?"

"Oh, yes; about Northern. Well, we held the block of stock you referred to just now. In fact we have a trifle over fifty-one per cent, and we don't care to sell. It ought to go to par, or above, when the Southern connection is formed. I own the ferry franchise, you know, and the Van Duyn syndicate – by the way, Van Duyn is to be here next week, as my guest. I shall have the pleasure of asking you to meet him at dinner, Hildreth, and you also, Mr. Duncan, if you're in Thebes so long."

He passed over Tucker and Fanning quite as if they had not been present. "As I was saying, the Van Duyn syndicate has a ninety-nine years lease on the lines south of Columbia. That must have been what I referred to in the article where I spoke of a 'strong body of capitalists.' Now our idea is to build the connecting link south, finish the Northern line to the river, and make one system of our properties. We've ordered, from Hambleton's yards, a ferry boat capable of transferring trains without breaking freight bulk, or disturbing through passengers. We shall be independent of the Central rivalry, of course, as that road will be dependent on us for a southern connection; but it was the general feeling in New York that consolidation is better than throat-cutting, and I am authorized by my associates to consider any propositions you gentlemen may see fit to make touching a traffic arrangement, or better still, a close alliance. It might be possible for us to get together and arrange for a consolidation of the Central with our properties, on fair terms. That is for you, gentlemen, to consider. It would save some friction, as, of course, in the event of its not being done, we should naturally not be able, with justice to our own stockholders, to offer as favorable terms on through business to a road in rivalry with a part of our line, as to a road owned by ourselves, and an integral part of our system. We shall in any case be as courteous to you gentlemen of the Central, however, as we can with a due regard to the welfare of our own properties. I think that is all I have to say, and as you gentlemen probably have business affairs of your own to discuss, I will withdraw. Good morning, gentlemen."

What passed in that bank parlor after Braine's departure, there is no means of knowing now. Braine felt no uneasiness as to the result, however. He sent a cipher dispatch to Van Duyn, and then went home to read "In Memoriam" to Helen for an hour before supper. When Van Duyn had translated the dispatch, it read as follows:

"Exploded bomb this afternoon. Effect satisfactory. Delicacy about witnessing a family quarrel prompted me to withdraw. They will ask for our terms to-morrow, and accept them. Have asked Hildreth and Duncan to meet you at dinner next week. They won't come. Engineer reports easy construction on line to Columbia. Country flat, timber abundant, and only two small bridges."

When Braine shut up the volume of Tennyson that evening, and went to supper with his arm around Helen, he stopped, imprinted a caress upon her lips and said:

"I feel this evening just as I did many years ago, on the day I whipped Cale Dodge."

But he did not explain why.

XVII

We have been back in Thebes for several weeks. The cottage is very charming – though I certainly did not realize how small it was until I returned. It needs a great many improvements before it will be quite satisfactory. They have put a remarkably ugly paper on the walls, and the ceilings look strange without any. I think the paper cannot be the same that I selected before we left, for if I remember alright it was very pretty. I spoke to the paper-hanger about it, and he assured me that it was the same, so perhaps it is.