CHAPTER XVII
The summer wore on. At the end of August Alice returned from Newport
for a couple of days, having some shopping to do before she joined
the Prentices at their camp in the Adirondacks.
Society had here a new way of enjoying itself. People built
themselves elaborate palaces in the wilderness, and lived in a
fantastic kind of rusticity, with every luxury of civilisation
included. For this life one needed an entirely separate wardrobe,
with doeskin hunting-boots and mountain-climbing skirts--all very
picturesque and expensive. It reminded Montague of a jest that he
had heard about Mrs. Vivie Patton, whose husband had complained of
the expensiveness of her costumes, and requested her to wear simpler
dresses. "Very well," she said, "I will get a lot of simple dresses
immediately."
Alice spent one evening at home, and she took her cousin into her
confidence. "I've an idea, Allan, that Harry Curtiss is going to ask
me to marry him. I thought it was right to tell you about it."
"I've had a suspicion of it," said Montague, smiling.
"Harry has a feeling you don't like him," said the girl. "Is that
true?"
"No," replied Montague, "not precisely that." He hesitated.
"I don't understand about it," she continued. "Do you think I ought
not to marry him?"
Montague studied her face. "Tell me," he said, "have you made up
your mind to marry him?"
"No," she answered, "I cannot say that I have."
"If you have," he added, "of course there is no use in my talking
about it."
"I wish you would tell me just what happened between you and him,"
exclaimed the girl.
"It was simply," said Montague, "that I found that Curtiss was
doing, in a business way, something which I considered improper.
Other people are doing it, of course--he has that excuse."
"Well, he has to earn a living," said Alice.
"I know," said the other; "and if he marries, he will have to earn
still more of a living. He will only place himself still tighter in
the grip of these forces of corruption."
"But what did he do?" asked Alice, anxiously. Montague told her the
story.
"But, Allan," she said, "I don't see what there is so very bad about
that. Don't Ryder and Price own the railroad?"
"They own some of it," said Montague. "Other people own some."
"But the other people have to take their chances," protested the
girl; "if they choose to have anything to do with men like that."
"You are not familiar with business," said the other, "and you don't
appreciate the situation. Curtiss was elected a director--he
accepted a position of trust."
"He simply did it as a favour to Price," said she. "If he hadn't
done it, Price would only have got somebody else. As you say, Allan,
I don't understand much about it, but it seems to me it isn't fair
to blame a young man who has to make his way in the world, and who
simply does what he finds everybody else doing. Of course, you know
best about your own affairs; but it always did seem to me that you
go out of your way to look for scruples."
Montague smiled sadly. "That sounds very much like what he said,
Alice. I guess you have made up your mind to marry him, after all."
Alice set out, accompanied by Oliver, who was bound for Bertie
Stuyvesant's imitation baronial castle, in another part of the
mountains. Betty Wyman was also to be there, and Oliver was to spend
a full month. But three days later Montague received a telegram,
saying that his brother would arrive in New York shortly after eight
that morning, and to wait at his home for him. Montague suspected
what this meant; and he had time enough to think it over and make up
his mind. "Well?" he said, when Oliver came in. "It's come again,
has it?"
"Yes," said Oliver, "it has."
"Another 'sure thing'?"
"Dead sure. Are you coming in?" Oliver asked, after a moment.
Montague shook his head. "No," he said. "I think once was enough for
me."
"You don't mean that, Allan!" protested the other.
"I mean it," was the reply.
"But, my dear fellow, that is perfectly insane! I have information
straight from the inside--it's as certain as the sunrise!"
"I have no doubt of that," responded Montague. "But I am through
with gambling in Wall Street. I've seen enough of it, Oliver, and
I'm sick of it. I don't like the emotions it causes in me--I don't
like the things it makes me do."
"You found the money came in useful, didn't you?" said Oliver,
sarcastically.
"Yes, I can use what I've got."
"And when that's gone?"
"I don't know about that yet. But I'll find some way that I like
better."
"All right," said Oliver; "it's your own lookout. I will make my own
little pile."
They rode down town in a cab together. "Where does your information
come from this time?" asked Montague.
"The same source," was the reply.
"And is it Transcontinental again?"
"No," said Oliver; "it's another stock."
"What is it?"
"It's Mississippi Steel," was the answer.
Montague turned and stared at him. "Mississippi Steel!" he gasped.
"Why, yes," said Oliver. "What's that to you?" he added, in
perplexity.
"Mississippi Steel!" Montague ejaculated again. "Why, didn't you
know about my relations with the Northern Mississippi Railroad?"
"Of course," said Oliver; "but what's that got to do with
Mississippi Steel?"
"But it's Price who is managing the deal--the man who owns the
Mississippi Steel Company!"
"Oh," said the other, "I had forgotten that." Oliver's duties in
Society did not give him much time to ask about his brother's
affairs.
"Allan," he added quickly, "you won't say anything about it!"
"It's none of my business now," answered the other. "I'm out of it.
But naturally I am interested to know. What is it--a raid on the
stock?"
"It's going down," said Oliver.
Montague sat staring ahead of him. "It must be the Steel Trust," he
whispered, half to himself.
"Nothing more likely," was the reply. "My tip comes from that
direction."
"Do you suppose they are going to try to break Price?"
"I don't know; I guess they could do it if they made up their mind
to."
"But he owns a majority of the stock!" said Montague. "They can't
take it away from him outright."
"Not if he's got it locked up in his safe," was the reply; "and if
he's got no debts or obligations. But suppose he's overextended; and
suppose some bank has loaned him money on the stock--what then?"
Montague was now keenly interested. He went with his brother while
the latter drew his money from the bank, and called at his brokers
and ordered them to sell Mississippi Steel. The other was called
away then by an engagement in court, which occupied him for several
hours; when he came out, he made for the nearest ticker, and the
first figures he saw were Mississippi Steel--quoted at nearly twenty
points below the price of the morning!
The bare figures were eloquent to him of many tragedies; they
brought before him half a dozen different personalities, with their
triumphs and despairs. He could read in them the story of a Titan
struggle. Oliver had made his killing; but what of Price and Ryder?
Montague knew that most of Price's stock was hypothecated at the
Gotham Trust. And now what would become of it? And what would become
of the Northern Mississippi?
He bought the afternoon papers. Their columns were full of the
sensational events of the day. The bottom had dropped out of
Mississippi Steel, as they phrased it. The wildest rumours were
afloat. The Company was known to be making enormous extensions, and
it was said to have overreached itself; there were whispers that its
officers had been speculating, that the Company would be unable to
meet the next quarterly payment upon its bonds, that a receivership
would be necessary. There were hints that the concern was to be
taken over by the Trust, but this was vigorously denied by officers
of the latter.
All of which had come like a bolt out of the blue. To Montague it
was an amazing and terrible thing. It counted little to him that he
was out of the struggle himself; that he no longer had anything to
lose personally. He was like a man who had been through an
earthquake, and who stood and stared at a gaping crack in the
ground. Even though he was safe at the moment, he could not forget
that this was the earth upon which he had to spend the rest of his
life, and that the next crack might open where he stood.
Montague could not see that there was the least chance for Price and
Ryder; he pictured them bowled clean out, and he would not have been
surprised to read that they were ruined. But apparently they
weathered the storm. The episode passed with no more than a crop of
rumours. Mississippi Steel did not go back, however; and he noticed
that Northern Mississippi stock had also "gone off" eight or ten
points on the curb.
It was a period of great anxiety in the financial world. Men felt
the unrest, even though they could not give definite reasons. There
had been several panics in the stock market throughout the summer;
and leading financiers and railroad presidents seemed to have got
the habit of prognosticating the ruin of the country every time they
made a speech at a banquet.
But apparently men could not agree about the causes of the trouble.
Some insisted that it was owing to the speeches of the President, to
his attacks upon the great business interests of the country. Others
maintained that the world's supply of capital was inadequate, and
pointed out the destruction of great wars and earthquakes and fires.
Others argued that there was not enough currency to do the country's
business. Now and again there rose above the din the shrill voice of
some radical who declared that the stock collapses had been brought
about deliberately; but such statements seemed so preposterous that
they were received with ridicule whenever they were heeded at all.
To Montague the idea that there were men in the country sufficiently
powerful to wreck its business, and sufficiently unscrupulous to use
their power--the idea seemed to him sensational and absurd.
But he had a talk about it one evening with Major Venable, who
laughed at him. The Major named half a dozen men--Waterman and Duval
and Wyman among them--who controlled ninety per cent of the banks in
the Metropolis. They controlled all three of the big insurance
companies, with their resources of four or five hundred million
dollars; one of them controlled a great transcontinental railroad
system, which alone kept a twenty-or thirty-million dollar "surplus"
for stock-gambling purposes.
"If any two or three of those men were to make up their minds,"
declared the Major, "they could wreck the business of this country
in a day. If there were stocks they wanted to pick up, they could
knock them to any price they chose."
"How would they do it?" asked the other.
"There are many ways. You noticed that the last big slump began with
the worst scarcity of money the Street has known for years. Now
suppose those men should gradually accumulate a lot of cash in the
banks, and make an agreement to withdraw it at a certain hour.
Suppose that the banks that they own, and the banks where they own
directors, and the insurance companies which they control--suppose
they all did the same! Can't you imagine the scurrying around for
money, the calling in of loans, the rush to realise on holdings? And
when you have a public as nervous as ours is, when you have credit
stretched to the breaking-point, and everybody involved--don't you
see the possibilities?"
"It seems like playing with dynamite," said Montague.
"It's not as bad as it might be," was the answer. "We are saved by
the fact that these big men don't get together. There are too many
jealousies and quarrels. Waterman wants easy money, and gets the
Treasury Department to lend ten millions; Wyman, on the other hand,
wants high prices, and he goes into the Street and borrows fifteen
millions; and so it goes. There are a half dozen big banking groups
in the city--"
"They are still competing, then?" asked Montague.
"Oh, yes," said the Major. "For instance, they fight for the
patronage of the out-of-town banks. The banks all over the country
send their reserves to New York; it's a matter of four or five
hundred million dollars, and that's an enormous power. Some of the
big banks are agents for one or two thousand institutions, and
there's the keenest kind of struggle going on. It's not an easy
thing to follow, of course; but they offer all kinds of secret
advantages--there's more graft in it than you'd find in Russia."
"I see," said Montague.
"There's only one thing about which the banks are agreed," continued
the other. "That is their hatred of the independent trust companies.
You see, the national banks have to keep twenty-five per cent
reserve, while the trust companies only keep five per cent.
Consequently they do a faster business, and they offer four per
cent, and advertise widely, and they are simply driving the banks to
the wall. There are over fifty of them in this city alone, and
they've got over a billion of the people's money. And, mark my word,
that is where you'll see blood spilled before long."
And Montague was destined to remember the prophecy.
A couple of days later occurred an incident which gave him a new
light upon the situation. His brother came around one afternoon,
with a letter in his hand. "Allan," he said, "what do you make of
this?"
Montague glanced at it, and saw that it was from Lucy Dupree.
"My dear Ollie," it read. "I find myself in an embarrassing
position, owing to the fact that some business arrangements upon
which I had counted have fallen through. The money which I brought
with me to New York is nearly all gone, and, as you can understand,
my position as a stranger is a difficult one. I have a note which
Stanley Ryder gave me for my stock. It is for a hundred and forty
thousand dollars, and is due in three months. It occurred to me that
you might know someone who has some ready cash, and who would like
to purchase the note. I should be very glad to sell it for a hundred
and thirty thousand. Please do not mention it except in confidence."
"Now, what in the world do you suppose that means?" said Oliver.
The other stared at him. "I am sure I can't imagine," he replied.
"How much money did Lucy have when she came here?"
"She had three or four thousand dollars. But then, she got ten
thousand from Stanley Ryder when he bought that stock."
"She can't have spent any such sum of money!" exclaimed Oliver.
"She may have invested it," said the other, thoughtfully.
"Invested nothing!" exclaimed Oliver.
"But that's not what puzzles me," said Montague. "Why doesn't Ryder
discount the note himself?"
"That's just it! What business has he letting Lucy hawk his notes
about the town?"
"Maybe he doesn't know it. Maybe she's trying to keep her affairs
from him."
"Nonsense!" Oliver replied. "I don't believe anything of the sort.
What I think is that Stanley Ryder is doing it himself."
"How do you mean?" asked Montague, in perplexity.
"I believe that he is trying to get his own note discounted. I don't
believe that Lucy would ever come to us of herself. She'd starve
first. She's too proud."
"But Stanley Ryder!" protested Montague. "The president of the
Gotham Trust Company!"
"That's all right," said Oliver. "It's his own note, and not the
Trust Company's; and I'll wager you he's hard up for cash. There was
a big realty company that failed the other day, and I saw that Ryder
was one of the stockholders. And he's been hit by that Mississippi
Steel slump, and I'll wager you he's scurrying around to raise
money. It's just like Lucy, too. Before he gets through, he'll take
every dollar she owns."
Montague said nothing for a minute or two. Suddenly he clenched his
hands. "I must go up and see her," he said.
Lucy had moved from the expensive hotel to which Oliver had taken
her, and rented an apartment on Riverside Drive. Montague went up
early the next morning.
She came and stood in the doorway of the drawing-room and looked at
him. He saw that she was paler than she had been, and with lines of
pain upon her face.
"Allan!" she said. "I thought you would come some day. How could you
stay away so long?"
"I didn't think you would care to see me," he said.
She did not answer. She came and sat down, continuing to gaze at
him, with a kind of fear in her eyes.
Suddenly he stretched out his hands to her. "Lucy!" he exclaimed.
"Won't you come away from here? Won't you come, before it is too
late?"
"Where can I go?" she asked.
"Anywhere!" he said. "Go back home."
"I have no home," she answered.
"Go away from Stanley Ryder," said Montague. "He has no right to let
you throw yourself away."
"He has not let me, Allan," said Lucy. "You must not blame him--I
cannot bear it." She stopped.
"Lucy," he said, after a pause, "I saw that letter you wrote to
Oliver."
"I thought so," said she. "I asked him not to. It wasn't fair--"
"Listen," he said. "Will you tell me what that means? Will you tell
me honestly?"
"Yes, I will tell you," she said, in a low voice.
"I will help you if you are in trouble," he continued; "but I will
not help Stanley Ryder. If you are permitting him to use you--"
"Allan!" she gasped, in sudden excitement. "You don't think that he
knew I wrote?"
"Yes, I thought it," said he.
"Oh, how could you!" she cried.
"I knew that he was in trouble."
"Yes, he is in trouble, and I wanted to help him, if I could. It was
a crazy idea, I know; but it was all I could think of."
"Oh, I understand," said Montague.
"And don't you see that I cannot leave him?" exclaimed Lucy. "Now of
all times--when he needs help--when his enemies have surrounded him?
I'm the only person in the world who cares anything about him--who
really understands him--"
Montague could think of nothing to say.
"I know how it hurts you," said Lucy, "and don't think that I have
not cared. It is a thought that never leaves me! But some day I know
that you will understand; and the rest of the world--I don't care
what the world says."
"All right, Lucy," he answered, sadly. "I see that I can't be of any
help to you. I won't trouble you any more."
