The banker and the bear

Often it is not the first step that costs, but the waiting for the second. Last night, at a crisis, John Bagsbury had found it easy to make what was really the most important decision of his life. However carefully he had balanced upon the pros and cons of the proposition Sponley had made, when it came to the extreme instant of choice, the question had been referred not to his judgment, but to a sentiment. His words had said themselves. But this morning it was the Banker, a very different person from the picture-seeing John Bagsbury, who sat at his desk trying to think through the situation, and to guess what would happen next.

The sentiment which gets a man into a difficulty rarely stays around to help him out of it, and what the Banker saw was enveloped in no luminous atmosphere of optimism. Sponley had not overstated the case last night. In supporting Pickering, John knew that he must encounter determined hostility in his Board of Directors; that if he had not won clear by next January, his chance of reëlection was nothing; and, worst of all, he seemed to have thrown away the possibility of getting absolute control of his property from the trustees.

The Banker had to reckon with a formidable antagonist, but he had this advantage,—in his long association with Melville Sponley he had not walked blindly. He knew his man thoroughly. This knowledge had saved him from being deceived by the Bear’s last conciliatory words. Sponley did not make a fool of himself, Sponley did not lose his temper. The man to whom he confessed such things would do well to be very alert. When he had said, “and I swear to God I’ll smash you, too, if you don’t stand from under,” he had meant it. He would do nothing in anger or from spite, nothing that was not directly in line toward his end; but once convinced that it was necessary, not for a breath would he hesitate.

John thought long and carefully over the probable nature of Sponley’s next move. The most obvious thing for the Bear to do would be to work among the other directors and endeavor to stir up a storm of such violence that John would be forced either to let go of Pickering or to resign from the presidency. If that were all, if it were to be simply a question of brute strength and patience, there was no doubt in John’s mind as to the outcome. They could not force him bodily out of the bank, at least, not till the fight was over; and he knew they could not frighten him into yielding.

There were moments when he ceased to be a banker, when he was simply John Bagsbury; and then into his memory would come vivid patches of the old time, and he would realize how much he had counted on the friendship he had just broken. Those were unpleasant moments; they brought him even a sensation of physical discomfort, but they were infrequent and brief. In a moment he was again a mere strategist, studying his enemy’s position. With Sponley to fight, it was unlikely to be a question merely of strength. The Bear was sure to practise some wily deviltry or other, but there was no foreseeing what it would be; so John did his other work, and waited for the disagreeable scenes he felt sure were coming with the directors.

He waited all day—it was Thursday—and all through two that followed; but no one came to remonstrate, or advise, or threaten; no one who came seemed to have any knowledge of the loan to Pickering. It was Sunday morning before anything of that sort happened.

But if, on Friday afternoon, he had gone to the golf links, and there could have sat unobserved within earshot of a conversation which took place about dinner-time in a corner of the club-house veranda, he would have heard some interesting facts and would, perhaps, have been able to deduce some others.

Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Meredith played golf together once a week. Mr. Cartwright played because he felt it to be his duty, and Mr. Meredith because Mr. Cartwright did. They played with much formality, and with proper regard for the conventions of dress and deportment; but, unhappily, with no great skill, and for this reason they chose Friday afternoon for their game. They would come out to the club-house at the hour when there were likely to be the fewest people about, sheepishly put on their golf clothes,—they were still as self-conscious in those absurd red coats and checked knickerbockers as youngsters who have just been promoted to long trousers,—and steal away to the most remote holes, where they would play vigorously for an hour or so. Then hastily they would get back into their wonted attire. They really enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Finally, after dining on the veranda, they would go home together, as proud and boastful over their golf playing as they had been ashamed of it while in the act.

The Friday of the week in which Pickering’s lard deal sprung into public notice was a hot day, especially for golf, and the two old men were unable to hide from each other the fact that they were glad when it was over. But the veranda, about sunset time, was pleasant enough to compensate, and they were dining there with the greatest satisfaction, when a man they knew invaded their privacy. He bowed to them from the doorway, and then, after hesitating a moment, came toward them and, drawing up a chair, seated himself at their table. His name was Myers, and he was a stockbroker.

“This is a double fault of mine,” he said with a deprecatory smile; “I’ve intruded myself upon you, and now I’m going to intrude a matter of business.”

Mr. Cartwright frowned, whereupon Mr. Meredith cleared his throat impatiently. “Well, sir,” said Mr. Cartwright.

For an instant a smile that was not in the least deprecatory quivered in the corners of the stockbroker’s mouth. “You gentlemen are trustees of the Bagsbury estate, are you not?”

The two old men nodded, and their faces grew a shade redder; for they were thinking of Mr. Moffat, the disaffected, the revolutionary, the schismatic, the bane of their hitherto peaceful existence. It was not necessary, however, to speak of Mr. Moffat, so they merely nodded.

“I thought of that the moment I saw you together,” Myers went on, “and it occurred to me that you were precisely the men I wanted to see. A large block of the stock in Bagsbury and Company’s Savings Bank was placed in my hands this morning for sale. The owner gave me no further instructions, and I suppose his idea was that I sell it on the stock exchange, in the open market. There would be no difficulty about that, for everybody knows that the stock’s a gilt-edged investment.”

He paused to give them plenty of time to think, and then went on:—

“Bank affairs are like family affairs; if you can settle them without an appeal to the general public, it’s somewhat better. This is a large block of stock, and offering it in the open market would attract attention. I don’t know that it would do any harm. This bank’s too solid to be hurt that way. But it seemed to me that if I could sell it privately, it would be better. In any case, it wants to be settled up by to-morrow morning. I was very fortunate in finding you here together. It occurred to me that you trustees might want to buy it for the Bagsbury estate.”

Again the two old gentlemen frowned, and again the stockbroker smiled almost imperceptibly. For the estate, indeed! That would mean, no doubt, another snub from the intolerable Moffat.

“Or, of course, for any other party. I shall be very glad, indeed, if you gentlemen can relieve me of the matter.”

“It was most praiseworthy of you to make this attempt to dispose of the stock quietly,” said Cartwright, with ponderous condescension. “I cannot applaud your delicacy too highly. A public sale would undoubtedly arouse impertinent curiosity and set idle tongues to wagging. We shall be glad to consider your proposition. Er—who is the present holder of the stock?”

“There is nothing to make a mystery about. I know of no reason in the world why I should not tell you it, except—(he was something of a practical humorist, this stockbroker)—except that I have no explicit instructions giving me the right to tell you.”

“You decline to tell me—”

“In the absence of express permission from my customer to tell you, I think it would be rather unbusinesslike to do so. That is all. You are familiar with the way the stock is held, and doubtless if you buy it, the certificates will inform you who it is who has sold them.”

For some time the trustees, or rather Mr. Cartwright, toyed with the bait, trying to find out who was holding the other end of the line. Through the conversation you must imagine Mr. Meredith as Echo, sending back, with profound conviction, the last phrase of each of Mr. Cartwright’s sentences. There was some haggling over the price, some discussion of ways and means, and at last the two old gentlemen agreed to take the matter under serious advisement, and the stockbroker left them.

“They promised to let me know in the morning,” Myers telephoned his customer a little later. “I think we’ve landed them all right.” Next morning he was able to verify his prediction. “I’ve got the check. They tried hard to make me tell them who you were, and they’re trying to guess now, from the names of the original holders on the certificates. They’re pleased clear through over the deal, though. They think it gives them a sort of a grind on Moffat.”

John Bagsbury always began the celebration of the Sabbath day by a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to shave himself, and it was quite in the nature of things that when he came downstairs he should find the rest of the family waiting for him in the dining room. He glanced at the index column of the thick Sunday newspaper, which lay beside his plate, and then, instead of making his usual remark that he didn’t like to have the thing in the house and meant to discontinue his subscription, he turned quickly to the front page of the supplements. There in big letters across the sheet he read, “Pickering’s Lard Deal.” The article which followed was treated after the most approved principles of Sunday journalism. There was a miserable “half-tone,” which bore no resemblance to William G. Pickering, and there were spirited illustrations of the scenes on the Board of Trade when the bottom had mysteriously fallen out of the market. The subject was treated exhaustively. Other famous deals in lard were brought up for comparison with this one, and there was a detailed account of Pickering’s earlier exploits. And then at the bottom of a half column of seemingly learned comment upon the probable outcome was the statement that Bagsbury and Company was said to be in the deal with Pickering, and would no doubt see him through if possible, as they had already let him have a great deal of money.

John glanced over the whole article. He should have taken warning from the other and contrived to head this off; but there was no time for regretting the mistake, and he turned from that to the present aspect of the situation. Sponley had made his second move, and John felt it a relief that the period of inaction was over. The Bear must have had some good reason for waiting till now for giving out the information he had possessed as early as Tuesday night. It remained for the Banker to discover what that reason was.

He tossed the paper aside, told two funny stories to Mrs. Bagsbury, ran a verbal tilt with Dick, who, taken by surprise, had rather the worst of it, and then began asking Martha absurd questions about her Sunday-school lesson. When they rose from the table, he announced his intention of going to church.

“I can think so well there,” he explained. “I can see through more things while the sermon is going on than I can all the rest of the week.”

“There’s a gentleman to see you, sir,” said the maid. “He’s in the library.”

When John opened the door he found Mr. Cartwright striding hurriedly about the room, much in the manner of a caged polar bear. The old gentleman had driven to the house, but he could not have looked warmer had he run all the way.

“Sit down, Mr. Cartwright,” said the Banker. “Make yourself as comfortable as possible this hot morning.”

But Mr. Cartwright had no intention of being comfortable. He wheeled upon John, drew from an inner pocket the Morning Herald Supplement, and thrust it out at arm’s length, as though it were a deadly weapon. “Have you read that?” he demanded.

John glanced at it carelessly, then handed it back. “Yes,” he said, “I have read it. That kind of thing is extremely irritating.”

“Irritating!” thundered Mr. Cartwright. He walked suddenly to the window and peered anxiously down the street. “I telephoned to Mr. Meredith to meet me here,” he said, in an uneasy parenthesis. Then turning again upon John he wrathfully repeated, “Irritating!”

“That is my great objection to the Sunday papers,” the Banker went on politely. “They drag a man back to school when he’s entitled to a holiday. A man should be spared annoyances of this sort one day in the week.”

“I do not take the Sunday papers; I disapprove of them as strongly, no doubt, as you yourself. This infamous article was shown me by a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine.”

“I should be inclined to doubt the friendship of a man who did me such a favor,” said the Banker, smiling.

“Upon my word, you take this very lightly, Mr. Bagsbury!” The old gentleman spoke fiercely, but he was not himself; he missed his echo. He checked another movement toward the window. “I wish Mr. Meredith would come. In a grave matter like this, his judgment would be invaluable.”

“If you will allow me,” said John, “it seems to me that you are taking it rather more seriously than is necessary.”

“Is it not serious?” demanded the other. “You don’t mean to tell me, sir, that it is not true!”

“It’s not true. It has a groundwork of fact, if you will; but in so far as it insinuates that the bank is involved, and that the safety of the bank depends on Pickering’s succeeding in running a corner in lard, it is an unqualified lie.”

“I was otherwise informed by my friend—”

“Your friend is one who can speak with authority in the matter?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Cartwright. “He told me that for several days he had feared that this would happen. He thinks that the publication of these facts puts the bank in a very serious position.”

“Did he—did Mr. Sponley, I mean—suggest that you come to me?” John asked quietly.

“I do not see the pertinency of that question, Mr. Bagsbury.” Mr. Cartwright glanced nervously toward the door. He longed for the unwavering support of Mr. Meredith’s valuable opinion.

“You are right,” said John. “That has nothing to do with the matter. But I can assure you that Mr. Sponley is mistaken. I know more of the bank’s condition than it is possible for Mr. Sponley to know, and I am not at all alarmed. We may feel the effect of this attack for a few months, or even longer; I fancy that we shall. But I cannot, really, see any ground for your concern in the matter. Your position as one of the trustees of my property is not affected. Of course, if the bank should fail, you might have to bear part of the stigma that a bank failure almost always brings. But the bank is not going to fail. A falling off in our deposits, or a depression of the market value of our stock, or even the passing of a dividend, need occasion you no distress. Those things may trouble our stockholders, though I don’t imagine that any of the larger ones will feel any great alarm. But you and Mr. Meredith—and Mr. Moffat—need have no uneasiness.”

“Mr. Moffat may be uneasy or not, just as he pleases; but Mr. Meredith and I are stockholders, sir; large stockholders.”

“Indeed?” said John. “Have you held the stock very long?”

“There again, sir, you are asking an impertinent question.”

The next moment poor Mr. Cartwright, his temper all gone to shreds, drew a breath of relief, for the maid had opened the door and ushered Mr. Meredith into the library.

“Mr. Cartwright and I have been discussing this most unfortunate article in the Herald,” said John.

“Unfortunate is too mild a word for my feelings,” said Mr. Meredith. Then in his great excitement he made a perfectly original remark,—

“If we had only waited another day—”

He stopped there, transfixed by a blasting look from his fellow-trustee, but he had said enough.

So that was Sponley’s reason for waiting. As John thought of the beautiful shrewdness of the move, he smiled.

“You are amused, eh!” roared Mr. Cartwright. “I understand you. You sold us that stock yourself, and when you have run the bank through a few more scandals, you mean to buy it back cheap. You are a swindler!”

“That brings our discussion to an end, Mr. Cartwright,” said John Bagsbury. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he added, holding open the door into the hall.

As the carriage drove away he walked back to his desk and wrote the following note:—

“Are you going to church with us, dear?” asked Alice, from the doorway.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go twice. Just wait a minute and I’ll be ready.”