CHAPTER V.

A MOLE-HILL THAT BECAME A MOUNTAIN.

The men went away. Brent followed them to the outer door, locked it on the inside, and went back to the great vault. He threw himself in sudden weariness into an old wooden chair the workmen had left, and sat listless, scarcely thinking. His energy was gone. Body and mind became suddenly inert. Nerves that for more than a year had been under the strain of an anxiety and excitement more intense than he himself had realized, finally relaxed. A sense of unreality in it all overwhelmed him. It had been a stupendous dream. There was no Valley of Gold down there at the world’s southernmost outpost. Fraser and his dreadful end were a horrible nightmare. The dark-skinned, lithe Patagonians were myths. So was this silent tomb of treasure in which he was sitting. He would awake presently and find that the last morsel of biscuit and cheese eaten in the smoking-room of the Victoria last night was responsible for it all. So strong did the impression grow within him that he roused himself in quite a panic of fear. He got upon his feet, walked over to the last high breastwork of gold-laden cases and struck it smartly. The blow bruised his knuckles, and he was himself again.

“The air must be bad here,” he said to himself, “to give me such a turn. I’ll have a sharp walk up to Del’s and dine.” And he put his hand into his pocket for the key to the inner door of the vault.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I’ve no money.” And then as the situation dawned upon him he sat down again and laughed. The predicament amused him immensely. “Six thousand tons of gold and penniless. It’s just as well that I want to walk up town, for I couldn’t pay car-fare. Stupid of me to get caught in this fashion. I wonder if the cashier at Del’s would take a small handful of gold-dust for a dinner. Be apt to make a sensation, I imagine, if I should put a few pinches of yellow dust on the plate when the waiter brought the bill. I must hunt up Wharton and borrow a few dollars.” He put out the electric light, locked the inner door, closed one by one the other steel barriers, drew the bolts, turned the dials of the combination locks, and left the building.

For several days Brent gave himself up to aimless idleness. He admitted that he needed rest. He was tired from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The unrelenting pressure of his task—a pressure that he had scarcely felt, so stimulating had been the attending excitement—was gone, and he yielded to the demand for rest which the reaction made upon brain and body. He reveled in the freedom from care and responsibility. The instincts and tastes which he had cultivated in his European wanderings reasserted themselves. He was half inclined to seal up his treasure-house and spend the winter amid the luxurious delights of Nice or southern Italy. He need be in no haste to execute any of the ideas which had occurred to him for the employment of some of his wealth. As a matter of fact he had made no plans, and no comprehensive scheme for the utilization of any considerable portion of his treasure had suggested itself to his mind. He had allowed various fancies to run riot in his imagination occasionally since the gold had come into his possession, but he had given little serious thought to the subject. The task in hand had been quite enough to absorb any man’s energies.

Now, however, he sat himself down to consider the opportunities, the privileges, the responsibilities, the duties, which the situation thrust upon him. He faced the problem buoyantly, hopefully, and without anxiety. The facts with which he must deal were without precedent, to be sure, and of unparalleled importance to the people of his own country and to all Christendom. He was about to make the greatest contribution to the world’s wealth, as he regarded it, that humanity had ever received. Such a gift, if judiciously bestowed, could be naught but a blessing. There was no room for any sordid motive in deciding how to employ the bulk of his treasure. He could not conceive of any human ambition which money could gratify that would call for a tenth part of the treasure locked in his storehouse. His motives were honest and generous. He was willing, nay, desirous, to administer his wealth as a monster trust-fund for the benefit of all humanity.

He reached this determination very early in his deliberations. Then he began to be puzzled a little. He realized that he could not put any considerable portion of his treasure to work in the financial or commercial world without its adding to itself an increment. To invest it, in the ordinary sense, in enterprises which “didn’t pay” would be serious folly. It would encourage bad business methods and those who least deserved it would profit by such a policy. And yet he did not feel justified in adding to his immense store by accumulations in the shape of interest or dividends. He could compel the whole industrial and commercial world to pay tribute to him with his billions. He had no desire to use such a power.

How could he diminish his fortune year by year without doing violence to any sound business principle? That was the form in which the problem soon presented itself to Robert Brent, and he did not find it as easy of solution as he expected. It was a problem new to human experience. Brent was very sure that no other man ever was troubled by it. He did not doubt, however, that his humblest acquaintance would undertake to manage it for him without the least hesitation.

One escape from his dilemma was obvious and easy. He could leave his gold where he had buried it, as non-existent to the world as if it had remained in its native bed. A few millions a year, not enough to disturb the monetary and commercial conditions of society, might be distributed in benefactions, while the great mass remained untouched. Brent debated this policy a long time, and then he rejected it. He turned from it rather regretfully. He began to understand that any other course involved tremendous responsibility, grave anxieties, and unremitting labor. He would have been glad to escape all these. But it was a burden which he did not quite dare to shirk. He could not have said just why. He would not have acknowledged a trace of superstition in his instincts, but a strong conviction possessed him that it was his duty to the world to make the best use possible of the treasure which he controlled. The more clearly he realized how gigantic and how difficult was the task, the more he shrank from it and yet the more convinced he became that he could not honorably avoid it. To an American mind more than to any other, perhaps, it was repugnant to think of such a great force lying idle.

His six thousand tons of gold should become an active factor in shaping the destinies of men and especially of his own countrymen. Brent became very determined on that point as soon as he had given it thorough consideration. But that was as far as he could get for some time. He could give away many millions. He could advance the cause of education with a greater impetus than it had ever received. He could promote science on a larger scale than the world had known. He could endow charities with a liberality that would minimize suffering throughout the nation. Ah, but could he? Was it as simple as it seemed at first thought? Was it possible to accomplish these good things without doing greater harm? He tried to trace out in a single example the effect of such a policy.

Suppose he should endow a college with a fund of $20,000,000. According to all precedent and to every principle of sound finance, that money must be safely invested, so that it would yield a return of $800,000 or $1,000,000 a year to pay the expenses of the institution. There was one fact in connection with the management of his own financial affairs after he came of age that he remembered very clearly—good investments are scarce. Stocks, bonds, anything paying a fair return without too great an element of risk, are hard to find. It would not be difficult probably to place safely and without appreciable harm to others the sum of twenty millions. But that was a mere bagatelle compared with nearly four thousand millions. The investment of such a treasure meant the overturning of all the world’s standards of value. It would be doing indirectly what he had determined not to do. It would mean that he should put the industrial and commercial world under tribute to such objects, good in themselves perhaps, as he might choose to designate. Had he the right to assume such a power, and what would he be giving the world in exchange for such an arbitrary assumption of authority? He began to doubt if a man who discovered a gold mine, however good his intentions, was a public benefactor. Perhaps the man who drove a railroad spike or plowed a field was of greater value to society after all.

Brent’s meditations from being hopeful became gloomy. His golden burden threatened to become an incubus not only to himself but to humanity. He must not keep it, he must not invest it, he must not give it away.

One other consideration added to his difficulties. Above all things he was resolved to preserve the secret of his riches. Every plan must bend to that end. He would avoid at any cost the notoriety which public knowledge of the possession of such wealth would bring him. It would mean infinite annoyance and even danger. He was absolutely selfish on this point, and he felt that he had a right to be. This determination cut him off from counsel and advice which he would have been glad to seek and of which he knew he stood sadly in need. He knew it would be necessary to make several partial confidences. No man should know, if he could prevent it, the whole truth or any large part of it. He was willing to pose as a man of great wealth in the ordinary sense, but nobody must suspect him of being a billionaire or even compare his riches with those of the Astors, the Vanderbilts, or the Goulds.

It was hampered by these restrictions and harassed by the impotent result of his unaided struggles with his great problem, that Brent began to study the affairs of the day early in December. Fortunately he admitted without reserve his ignorance and his incompetence for the task which he had assumed. His present duty, he wisely decided, was to seek information. He could do this in books, in newspapers, and in his character as a wealthy gentleman of leisure among men of business. He was not hopeful, however, of finding any definite suggestions for the disposal of the most enormous treasure that had ever been suddenly added to the world’s banking account.

His first practical step was to provide for turning some small portion of his store into money. That would be necessary in any event, for gold-dust and nuggets are not legal tender, and the metal must be in the form of coin or duly stamped and certified bullion before it will pass current in the world’s markets. He saw that he must adopt careful and strict precautions. He must guard not only the secret of his own connection with this gold, but the fact of the metal’s existence must be kept from the world. If it became known that such an overwhelming flood of new-born treasure might at any moment be poured into the ebbing and flowing tide of human traffic, the consequences would be something quite beyond the power of the imagination to estimate. Brent did not undertake to say what would happen.

He remembered that the financial disaster which swallowed up his own fortune eighteen months before had been caused primarily by the production of too much silver. It had become impossible to preserve the proportion of value which the white metal had held to the yellow in previous history. America had persisted longer in the attempt than any other country. When she abandoned the task, she suffered the severest penalties for her efforts. All this was clear in Brent’s mind, and he feared that the plethora of gold which would be created by the unlocking of his treasure-house would prove even more disastrous. He meant to guard against the possible calamity.

He decided to send to the Philadelphia Mint thirty of the boxes from the steel vault, the equivalent of about $4,500,000, which could be coined promptly. One hundred boxes more, worth say $15,000,000, he would turn into bullion at the United States Assay Office in Wall Street. He would thus be provided with an available capital of nearly $20,000,000, which would be sufficient probably for his immediate purposes. The greatest safety against suspicion he decided lay in treating his boxes as ordinary merchandise. He shipped thirty cases to Philadelphia as second-class freight. When they arrived there he allowed them to remain unguarded for a day or two in the railroad freight depot. He employed a private truckman to deliver them at the Mint.

His request for a private audience with the director of the Mint was granted at once.

“Have you a few tons of gold about you, this time, Mr. Brent?” was the official’s greeting after a cordial hand-shake.

“Not in my pockets,” was the young man’s smiling reply, “but my errand is much the same as the one which brought me here last spring, and I have the same favor of secrecy to ask of you.”

The director leaned forward in astonishment.

“Do you mean that you are bringing me several more truck-loads of native gold to be coined?” he asked.

“Well, yes, that’s what it comes to. It isn’t a fabulous amount; rather more than last time; about fifteen thousand pounds, I should judge.”

The look of amazement settled upon the director’s face. “Fifteen thousand pounds,” he repeated, “and worth more than $300 a pound, for that was the purest metal that ever came to the Mint. Close to five million dollars. Is the new lot like the last?”

“Pretty much the same, I think you will find it.”

“Free gold has seldom been found in such quantities before, Mr. Brent. I suppose the location of your mine is still a secret?”

“It may as well remain so for it is practically exhausted. I may possibly bring you more of its products. I don’t know. You’ll be able once more, I hope, to prevent any annoying rumors about the matter getting into the newspapers?”

“Oh, I think so. It would not be proper for me to conceal the facts about so important a transaction from the Department, but I will mention your wish and I have no doubt the secretary of the treasury will respect it.”

The usual formalities of weighing and receipts were completed and arrangements were made for shipping the coin to New York a few days later. Brent returned home. The difficulties in the way of turning a larger quantity of native metal into commercial bullion without connecting his name with such wealth puzzled him for some time. He considered the feasibility of establishing a private assay office in which his gold might be cast into bars or ingots which would soon be recognized as of standard purity in the bullion market. The risks in such a plan would be too great, he concluded. It involved trusting a large portion of his secret to too many strangers.

The metal must therefore pass through the government Assay Office and receive the government stamp. He resolved not to appear in any way in these transactions. He was compelled to choose an agent. Naturally, he turned to his chum of college days. He had always found John Wharton trustworthy. He believed he could trust him now. Wharton was the junior member of the firm of Strong & Co., brokers in New Street. It was not a large house or very prominent in big operations in the market, but it was sound, conservative, and respected. During the few weeks Brent had spent in New York in the spring and summer, Wharton was one of the few old friends whom he had sought out, and their intimacy had been in some degree renewed. The jovial, generous qualities of the college lad had not disappeared in the keen, energetic man of business, but he was not in the fast set in the Exchange. He was thoroughly a man of affairs, genial and popular. Brent credited him with a sound judgment, conservatism, and reserve capacity which a new acquaintance might not at once have perceived. He was not deceived. His confidence in Wharton’s loyalty and ability was well placed.

The day after Brent returned to New York he hunted up his friend and easily secured his promise to join him that evening in a tête à tête dinner at his Waldorf rooms. It was a jolly meal. Brent was glad enough to throw off the rather depressing load which his situation was again putting upon him, and he enjoyed keenly the revival of college experiences and the budget of anecdotes about the fortunes of mutual friends which Wharton supplied. It was not until the waiter had cleared the table of all but the café noir and cigars had disappeared, that the rather grave air which was becoming habitual to him returned to Brent’s face. His guest noticed it and presently broke in on him with frank friendliness:

“Look here, old man, something’s on your mind. Let’s have it. You know you can command me—advice, sympathy, anything—and the indebtedness will still be on my side. Which is it, girl or money?” There was a warm cordiality beneath the playfulness of the young man’s tone which attested his sincerity.

“You are right, John. I am puzzled about some money, but not in the way you imagine. Tell me, by the way, what you think of the financial situation.”

“Business, eh? I’m disappointed. I hoped it was romance. Well, things are rather in a mess. We haven’t recovered from last year’s smash by any means. It isn’t a good time to speculate either way. Prospects are too uncertain. About investments, it’s a question of detail. If I had certain things I’d sell them. There are a few sound securities that I believe it would be safe to buy at present prices and lay by. How have you been hit, Bob?”

“I haven’t been hit. My difficulty is quite of the other sort. I am going to tell you something of the story, Jack, and then ask your assistance. I am concerned chiefly in keeping the facts secret, and I know I can trust you. I have here in New York the product of a very rich gold mine. This gold is solely my own property and it is for me to decide what to do with it. How much? Well, I don’t know exactly. There will be about $5,000,000 to my credit at the Chemical National Bank in a few days, and—“

“Five millions! And such a fortune makes you sad? I’d like to have a touch of that sort of melancholy. My congratulations, old man,” and Wharton seized his friend’s hand enthusiastically.

“But you haven’t heard the worst,” responded Brent, with a not very mirthful smile. “I have at least four or five times as much more in native metal which I want to turn into bullion.”

Wharton searched his friend’s face, amazed and then incredulous. “See here, Bob. Are you joking?” he exclaimed.

“Does this look like it? It is the director of the Mint’s receipt for fifteen thousand odd pounds of native gold for coining,” and Brent tossed the slip of paper across the table. Wharton read it and was silent for a few moments.

“I am clean knocked out, Robert,” he observed presently. “Twenty-five or thirty millions in gold! That is more cash than the richest man in America possesses to-day. Where is this mine? Is it still producing? Is this all or is it to keep on indefinitely? What are you going to do with this money? It will make you one of the most powerful operators in the market.”

“I am under obligation not to disclose the secret of the mine and I admit I have not told you the whole truth about its value, but its future product will not be worth considering. It is with present difficulties that I want you to help me. I am fully determined on two points. I am willing to be known as ordinarily rich, as a millionaire perhaps, but I mean to escape if it is possible the notoriety that goes with vast wealth. In gratifying this desire I hope to rely chiefly on your aid. My other resolve you may think eccentric and foolish, but I am firm in it also. I have decided not to increase my fortune by investment, speculation, or in any other way. You will look upon me as a philanthropic crank, perhaps, but we will discuss that point another time. My question now is whether you can devote yourself, old fellow, pretty largely to my interests, quite within the lines of your regular business and of course under liberal conditions.”

“You have no need to ask that question, Bob. You know very well, or ought to, that you are making me one of the most flattering offers that one man could make to another. I accept, and gratefully. You may trust my fidelity, if not my judgment, and there’s my hand on it,” and the two clasped hands in the earnest, manly fashion that is a surer pledge than a man’s bond.

They fell into a discussion of plans for sending a quantity of the gold through the Assay Office. It was arranged finally that Brent should send one hundred and twenty-five boxes of the metal to the office of Strong & Co. Thence it would be transferred in smaller consignments, as fast as it could be handled, to the Assay Office in Wall Street for smelting. The transaction was to be in the name of the firm, and secrecy about the real ownership of the metal was, of course, to be maintained by Strong & Co. The resulting bullion, they decided, should be sold or used in whatever financial operations might be undertaken, as rapidly as might be without creating any serious disturbance in the market.

It was long after midnight when the two men separated. This was only one of many and frequent consultations between them. Brent learned much in these talks, but the light which he gained upon the real nature of his problem was only partial and incidental. Wharton was completely in the dark as to the size of his friend’s fortune. He naturally supposed that it did not much exceed the millions which had already been disclosed to him. His suggestions were most of them, therefore, of little value to Brent in seeking a channel for the distribution of the golden contents of his reservoir.

“If your fortune was five or ten times greater,” Wharton remarked one day, after several millions of the crude gold had already been turned into bullion, “you might do the public, and yourself too, a great service by smashing the bear clique that is having things all its own way in the market.”

Brent seized the point with genuine interest. “Do you think it would be really a good thing if prices were put up by heavy buying?” he asked.

“Most assuredly I do,” was the reply. “The market has been growing worse for weeks. Public confidence is so shaken that it is locking up its money in secret hiding-places again, as it did eighteen months ago. Pretty soon we shall have another money famine and then the bottom will go out of the market again. The intrinsic values of securities are not falling. Earnings and dividends are good. The trouble is not commercial; it is financial purely. When our financial Moses appears he will set things right again, but he isn’t in sight yet. It is quite true that fear of what may be done at Washington, or fear that nothing will be done, is the chief cause of the distrust which is daily aggravating the situation. How could it be otherwise than a boon, then, if public confidence should be strengthened by the introduction of fresh capital and the consequent advance of prices in the stock market? Why, my dear fellow, the addition of $100,000,000 in gold to the circulation in this country would settle in five days the silver question that has been tormenting us for the last five years.”

Brent pondered a few moments. Then in sudden determination:

“John, I’ll try the experiment. I’m not sure that you are right, but it sounds reasonable. I will add $100,000,000 in gold to the circulation, and at the same time I’ll advance prices a few points in the stock market. You may begin buying for me to-morrow morning. I’ll give you carte blanche.”

Wharton’s amazement was speechless for some time, and Brent, who had heartily realized the startling nature of the revelation which his declaration involved, watched his friend in some amusement. There was a nearer approach to awe in John Wharton’s voice when he finally spoke than that rather unemotional young man ever manifested before.

“Do you mean to tell me, Robert, that you are able to speak of spending one hundred millions as easily as another rich man would talk of as many thousands? How much gold is there, for heaven’s sake, in that storehouse of yours?”

“I don’t know, John; but I can spare one hundred millions. Can you invest it for me? I told you, to be sure, that I did not wish my fortune to earn any increase, and that is still my determination. It seems necessary, however, to put this sum temporarily into investment securities, but I think I can devise means for turning the income back into its former channels without its going to augment my capital. Will you undertake the commission?”

“It is too great a responsibility,” responded Wharton, still rather dazed by the other’s announcement. “No, you must not ask me to spend such a colossal sum according to my own whim. Give me definite orders and I will execute them.”

“Well, we should go about it carefully, making as little disturbance as possible and distributing our operations over several weeks or months, I should say. Suppose we buy twenty-five thousand shares of stock daily for a time, would that be enough to turn the current?”

“Immediately and effectually, I assure you. Very well, name the stocks and the amounts and I’ll buy them for you. You have about $16,000,000 in working capital with us now and it can be increased with the gold still on hand to fully $25,000,000 within a week. Any more that you may send us can be changed into bullion as fast as we shall need it.”

They arranged the details of the first two or three days’ operations and Brent prepared to watch the result of his experiment. When he thought the matter over alone he was disturbed by many doubts about his plan. He determined, nevertheless, to carry it out. Only by experiment, he decided in some discouragement, could the course of wisdom be discovered.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FATE OF THE WALL STREET BEARS.

The outlook was so bad that a strong clique apparently had begun operations a few weeks before for the purpose of hastening and profiting by the crash which many believed to be inevitable. The bears seemed in a fair way to accomplish their purpose. Prices, already low, had yielded easily. The rallies had been few and insignificant. The market was already blue and even panicky at times. Nobody seemed to think, however, that the crisis was at hand. For two or three days, the best of the active stocks, New York Central, Lake Shore, Northwest, Western Union, and C. B. & Q., had been steadily hammered. They had yielded an average of two points each and were still weak. The largest groups of brokers this morning were around the poles where these stocks were dealt in. Western Union was the most active at the outset. It had closed the night before at 77¾. It was offered freely just after trading began at 77½ and then at 77⅜. There was little support, and when one of the sellers offered 1,000 shares at 77¼, there was some surprise that a little man who had hurried over from another part of the room should accept the lot and promptly bid the same price for more. He got 2,500 shares before offers ceased and then he bid an eighth and a quarter higher still, for 1,000 share lots. He had to offer 78 before he gained 5,000 shares and then no more were forthcoming.

There were signs of animation around the Western Union pole by this time, and the nervous young broker bolted over to the Lake Shore and New York Central crowd. He bid up the price of each of these stocks a full point, accumulating nearly 8,000 shares by the operation.

Before eleven o’clock the sudden strength of these leading securities had given a better tone to the whole market. There was heavy buying of Northwest and C. B. & Q., also, and although the bears renewed the attack an hour later their stock was taken without any yielding of prices.

By the time trading closed for the day, the losses of the past week had been fully recovered, and the bear operators found they had put out nearly 30,000 shares of stock on a rising market. It was a severe check to them, and the more so because they were unable to account for the sudden strength of the lines they were assailing. They did not regard the situation with the least alarm. Things had been going their way too long for that. They were “short” more than 100,000 shares. They had sold, for instance, 30,000 shares of Western Union at from 84 to 79 and had borrowed the stock to deliver to the purchasers. They could afford to buy it back at several points higher than the present quotation and still make a handsome profit. So they determined to put the screws on a little tighter the next day and break, if possible, the new support which the market was receiving.

They tried it. They threw out again about 30,000 shares. The result was that Western Union advanced to 79½ and the other stocks which they attacked gained from one and a half to two points each. The bear syndicate was much disturbed. What was this new influence in the market? What was its motive, when the tendency of the time was toward worse instead of lesser financial difficulties? How strong was it, and who was directing it? What alarmed them most was that they found some difficulty in borrowing the necessary stock which they had sold for delivery. The buyers, whoever they might be, were taking their purchases out of the market. This indicated investment rather than speculative buying, or at all events it gave assurance of heavy capital at command of the bulls. And then there had been mysterious additions within two or three days to the New York gold supplies.

There had been almost a gold famine for weeks, the drain from abroad had been so great, and this fact had more than anything else encouraged the bear movement which had been undertaken. Within a week, however, nearly fifteen millions of bullion had been added to the stock in the hands of New York holders. General attention had not yet been attracted to the activity at the Assay Office, but the big operators in the market on both sides knew about it and it puzzled them exceedingly. Within three or four days after the sudden check came to the bear campaign, the managers of the syndicate were using their utmost endeavors to discover the source and extent of this unexpected influx of gold. They had good reason to be alarmed as well as bewildered. They had not undertaken the campaign without the most exhaustive study of the whole monetary situation. They knew almost to a dollar the free gold resources of the country. They had estimated shrewdly the timidity or distrust which characterized the general financial public opinion. They possessed sufficient capital and skill to make their scheme an almost certain success, if the situation was really what their inquiries indicated it to be. Whence, then, this unexpected obstacle? They made use of every source of information which ingenuity could suggest, and then on the last day of the year they met in the Broad Street Office of the chief member of the bear pool to decide on their future policy.

It had been another disastrous day for them in the market. Prices had recovered almost to the point where they had begun operations and yet they were “short” many thousand shares. Their position was critical and they knew it. So it was not a sanguine group which gathered about a large table in the private office of the big operator. They got down to business at once. First they listened to a statement of the business done by the syndicate to date. By this it appeared that if all contracts should be closed at that day’s closing quotations, the net result would be a loss of just $2,135,225. This was serious, but it was not all. The pool was still “short,” that is, it had contracted to deliver 195,200 shares of stock. To attempt to buy in this immense block of stock in the existing state of the market would send prices kiting higher than ever. It might more than double the losses already incurred. This meant little less than ruin for more than one of the half-dozen men around the green-baize table. But they were men of nerve, every one. They were accustomed to face emergencies boldly, and they proceeded to discuss the situation with calmness and cool logic.

The grizzle-headed, keen-eyed, energetic man at the head of the table, a millionaire ten times over, and holding nearly fifty per cent interest in the pool, first expressed himself in the terse, jerky sentences characteristic of him:

“It looks bad, gentlemen, very bad indeed, on the face of things. I hope some of you know who is fighting us. I don’t. General conditions haven’t changed since we began operations. Everything is going our way. There hasn’t been any professional buying in the rally of the last week. Everybody in the market thinks we have made the boom by taking profits. So nobody suspects that we have been hurt. That’s our safeguard. I believe we can make another raid without immediate danger of suspicion, if the chances warrant risking renewed attack. If we can break the market now there will be nothing to prevent our covering at our own figures. But can we break it? I can’t get even a decent hint of the source of the support the market is receiving. We can be sure it is confined to one source. I don’t believe it is any individual or private pool. There are none of the marks of any of the big operators. There is no man in the market able to raise the money, who is fool enough to fight the current at almost certain loss. I tell you, gentlemen, it has taken at least fifteen millions in cash to give prices the turn they have taken in the last ten days.

“Where has it come from? Are the banks supporting the market in order to stave off a panic? I should know it if they were, but they can’t afford to do it, and I get nothing but denials from them. Is it a big Treasury scheme? I don’t believe it. The government wouldn’t dare interfere even indirectly, and I am sure the Assay Office disbursements are not Treasury gold. Is there a London pool at work against us? It’s out of the question. I’ve had the closest inquiries made on the other side, and my correspondent cables this afternoon that it is impossible. ‘Americans’ were never so unpopular in the English market, and you couldn’t get the boldest London operator to touch them. I can think of nothing else. I am completely in the dark, but our salvation depends on the solution of the mystery. What do you hear, Forbes?” and he turned to the broker at his left.

“Nothing satisfactory. I agree that it is the new bullion from the Assay Office that is being used against us, but I am quite unable to trace the connection. One of our confidential men learned from an Assay Office clerk to-day that Strong & Co. have been the heaviest dealers in bullion there recently.

“I can hardly believe it, and if it is true, it doesn’t help us much. It’s a small house, you know, and very conservative. I haven’t the slightest idea who would operate through them. I am as much in the dark as the rest of you about our opponents, but you may depend upon it they are much stronger than we credit them with being. Their apparent foolhardiness in risking almost certain ruin is proof of their great resources. They have spent, we’ll say, fifteen millions in supporting an almost panic-stricken market in the face of the most discouraging circumstances. If they are able to do that they have the power to carry out the rest of the game, whatever it may be. My advice, gentlemen, is to go slow. It is time to act on the defensive and save what we can.”

“I don’t agree with you,” broke in a sharp-featured, nervous little man whose agility on the floor of the Exchange was a by-word in Wall Street. “I tell you it is a desperate game that is being played against us and we have only to sit tight a little longer to win. Some of the Clearing House crowd are in it and so are two or three moss-backed old houses that you would never suspect, but which couldn’t stand up for a day in a storm. They are loaded up and I predict that they’ll begin to unload within three days. The minute they do, things will go our way without our lifting a finger. There’s nobody to buy stocks. Let’s give them a little more rope. I’ll stand my proportion of 50,000 shares to break the market day after to-morrow. Once turn the scale and the battle is won. It would be suicide for us to try to cover now. The least sign of weakness from us will only encourage them to keep up the fight.”

“Do you see any sign of their ammunition giving out?” asked the chairman.

“I think there were signs of it in the last half-hour to-day,” replied the nervous broker. “There was no buying to speak of after two o’clock, and the market became so heavy that if we had had the courage to throw in a few thousand-share lots I believe the collapse would have begun then and there. We should start a selling movement in London before the New York market opens Wednesday morning and follow it with a sharp raid all along the line the moment business begins here.”

The discussion became general and animated. Nobody had any real light to throw upon the nature of the forces opposed to them. All agreed that it was almost incredible that any secret combination of capital could be made strong enough to stem successfully the natural flow of the financial tide which was manifestly toward the sea of liquidation. Only two courses were open to them. One was to await the discomforture of the enemy under the overpowering influence of natural laws; the other was to hasten his downfall by increasing the load which he was trying to carry. To surrender to an enemy who was probably himself on the point of retreat was out of the question. One more bold stroke upon which everything should be staked was the policy finally decided upon. The details were carefully arranged and the conference came to an end.

The onslaught was made the morning after the New Year’s holiday. It was a battle royal, quite unlike any of the earlier field days of the Stock Exchange. A sharp selling movement began the moment the market opened. Stocks were offered right and left in large blocks. Prices went off at once, but not seriously. Within a few minutes, when it seemed that the market must give way under the crash of 1,000 and 5,000 share lots thrown out like a bombardment by the forces of the syndicate, there was a determined rally. The decline was checked, and although the buying party showed no disposition to do more than support the market against the sudden attack, the danger of a break seemed to be over. But there was a feverish apprehension in the air. The situation was in the hands of two great opposing cliques. Outsiders dared not follow the lead of either party. The issue was too much obscured. The outlook was critical in the estimation of operators on both sides, and the tendency was to close short and long contracts alike.

The business of the Exchange amounted to more than 100,000 shares in the first hour and then there was a brief lull. The bears soon broke it by opening a fresh attack. It met at first the same stubborn resistance. Then it became apparent that the Broad Street syndicate was playing a more desperate game than it had planned. Its members had decided in hasty conference to stake their fortunes on a final blow. Stocks were pitched into the market in a reckless and wholesale fashion that almost matched the scenes of Blue Monday. Prices held up bravely for a few minutes and then they began to yield. Suddenly the market’s support disappeared. Western Union dropped half a dozen points in as many minutes. The wildest excitement seized the Exchange. The smaller brokers and room traders thought they saw the end of the battle and rushed in to take advantage of the bear panic. The crash had come. It was a mad scramble to sell stocks. Fractions did not count in the frantic rush to unload or sell short. The same stocks sold at two or three different prices the same moment, so great was the confusion. The roar of voices, the rushing to and fro, the struggles to get inside the groups of shouting brokers, made one of those scenes which sometimes suggest to spectators in the gallery that the New York Stock Exchange is a madhouse turned loose. Half a dozen standard stocks fell twenty points within an hour. Specialties and speculative securities were nowhere. The bottom had dropped out and there was no end in sight.

The creators of the panic had no need to help it on after the break had fairly begun. The greater part of the decline took place upon a very small volume of business. One hundred and two hundred share lots carried prices down more easily than blocks of 5,000 shares had done earlier in the day. The crisis was desperate, appalling. A few of the governors of the Exchange consulted hurriedly with the chairman. It was suggested that business should be suspended for an hour to give an opportunity for reason to reassert itself. Announcements of failures began to be made, but none of them were important.

Just as the necessity for extraordinary measures to check the rushing avalanche became imperative, the situation changed a little. There were purchasers for securities of considerable amount at lowest prices. The Broad Street syndicate had begun to take profits, to balance its account. They were compelled to do this. The market had been fearfully oversold. They must buy in some of the stock they had contracted to deliver, for it would be impossible to borrow it. Their purchases checked the panic more effectually than they hoped would happen. Soon they were accepting all stocks that were offered, but the amounts were small. Then they found it necessary to bid fractional advances, but this did not bring out shares in any considerable quantities. The small speculators were quick to take the cue and they began “to realize” also, and they joined in the bidding. A natural reaction set in.

Suddenly an astonishing rumor flew through the Exchange. The Assay Office had just received a fresh deposit of ten millions in gold. The Broad Street syndicate was among the first to hear of it. They were dumfounded. Their brokers used extraordinary efforts to accumulate stocks without starting a boom. They met with indifferent success.

It was nearly one o’clock and excitement was still high in the Exchange. The real crisis had come. The brokers who had supported the market for two weeks past had taken no part in the wild scene of the last two hours. Most of them had disappeared. Those who were still on the floor had been talking and listening anxiously at telephones or had been writing hurried notes and receiving replies from flying messengers. They did not appear to be men for whom a crash in prices meant ruin, but nobody paid any attention to them amid the mad whirl of events. Now, they suddenly became actors again in the drama. They plunged into the thick of the fight and began bidding up the very stocks in which the bears were trying to cover. It was no longer a defensive campaign on the bull side. It was the most terrifically aggressive one that Wall Street had ever seen. There was no waiting for offers. Bids for shares in any amount were made at recklessly rapid advances in price. There was a wild half-hour which marked an epoch in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. For a few minutes stocks went up point by point, almost as rapidly as they had fallen two hours before. Everybody was amazed. This was no taking of profits after a bear raid. It was a forced advance in which the manipulators of the market squandered fortunes by offering and paying much higher prices than sellers were willing to accept.

For a time the bear brokers endeavored to keep pace with the movement and to buy as much stock as possible for delivery at the settling hour, which was fast approaching. The rush quickly became overwhelming, and they stopped for a moment in sheer panic and amazement. It was wrong, perhaps, to accuse them of losing their heads even for an instant, because no matter how insane a broker’s actions on the floor of the Exchange may appear to be, he will never admit losing control of himself. The sudden silence of the bear representatives must be ascribed therefore to the necessity for seeking fresh instructions from their principals. Such an emergency as that which had suddenly arisen had not been provided for. So they rushed to their telephones. The slight delay was fatal. Within scarcely five minutes, the scramble for stocks sent prices up ten, twenty, even twenty-five points. The excitement and confusion were maddening. Men fought with each other to get near the bargain centers. Hats were smashed, coats torn off, and blows exchanged in the wild struggle. A broker in one of the largest crowds fell insensible to the floor. So money-mad were his companions that nobody gave him a thought beyond thrusting his body unceremoniously out of the rush, for the attendants to care for.

No accurate record was ever made of the events of the next few minutes. Some transactions were taken down, many were not. There were sales of Western Union, for instance, at 70, 80, and 82, at the same moment and within ten feet of the pole. An hour before this stock had touched 60. When the brokers of the bear syndicate rushed back into the turmoil, they were too late to execute any of their new orders. Stocks were beyond their reach and still bounding higher. Within another twenty minutes, Western Union was at par and other securities in which the bear syndicate had been operating were proportionately high. Meantime, the wildest excitement had been transferred to “the loan crowd.”[A] The demand for stocks from the now panic-stricken “short interest” soon became frantic. It was plain that the market had been badly oversold. Exorbitant rates were soon demanded for the loan of shares. The suspicion quickly arose that certain stocks had been genuinely cornered. The furious buying throughout the market continued and it was plain that every share purchased would be taken out of the Street. Lenders were prompt to take advantage of the situation. They demanded first a point a day, then two points, and finally as high as five points ($5 per share per day) for the use of certain stocks. This was an impossible rate. It meant what soon proved to be the case, that there was no more of certain stocks available in the loan market. The consequence to all who were still short of the cornered securities was disastrous. They must purchase the necessary stocks for fulfilling their contracts in the open market at no matter what exorbitant price, or take refuge in insolvency.

The threatened calamity added to the excitement throughout the Exchange until a mad panic raged. Failures were announced in rapid succession. Big operators and important houses were among those suddenly swept upon the rocks of bankruptcy. The scene grew worse until chaos reigned. Human nature could not endure such a strain. It was again apparent, as it had been in the morning, that extraordinary emergencies demanded extraordinary measures. The suspension of business called for to check a bear panic two hours earlier was resorted to now in order to check a bull panic. The chairman of the Exchange ordered a half-hour’s recess. The storm gradually subsided. The tension relaxed. Men who had grown haggard and prematurely old within the hour began to reason again. They were like soldiers after a desperate charge and hand-to-hand battle. They wiped their brows, dazed at first and unrealizing. Then they began to take account of their financial wounds and still threatening dangers. No one knew what it all meant or what the outcome would be. The situation was unprecedented and mysterious. The bears were completely routed. That much was clear. But would the bulls make terms with their victims or would they despoil them of all they possessed?

The brief respite had but half expired when the market received a fresh surprise and one which nobody was able to account for. It was announced that the principal buyers who were now in control of the market had agreed to compromise with such sellers as were unable to meet their contracts on a basis of about twenty per cent advance above the morning’s opening prices. These terms were severe but they were amazingly generous in view of the fact that it was within the power of the bulls to put the prices of cornered stocks at any figure they saw fit. There was little done in the way of fresh trading during the few minutes that remained of the session when the recess had expired. No one dared oppose or knew how to follow the mysterious controlling power of the market. It was recognized, of course, that the corner in stocks could be but temporary and that it was only its startling suddenness that made it successful. The next day it would be broken by the opening of strong boxes which were beyond reach in time to avail of the unexpected situation. The bear syndicate and those who had been rash enough to follow it were the only victims of the most remarkable day’s operations Wall Street had ever seen.

The opening of the Exchange the next morning was awaited with the keenest anxiety. Most bankers and financial men, the newspapers as well, were of the opinion that the previous day’s operations had been a wonderfully skilful coup de main by a bold and strong combination which nobody pretended to identify. It was a great fluke or flurry which was quite passed and a sharp fall in prices would be the natural sequel.

It was evident the moment the session opened that there was plenty of long or investment stock which was yesterday out of reach, now in hand ready to take advantage of all that was left of the boom. The morning news from London was that Americans were almost utterly neglected in that market. London had not been included in the deal and was waiting for New York to set the pace. Offers of stocks at prices quoted during the greatest excitement the previous afternoon brought no response. There was a rapid decline until the level of the compromise made by the victors of yesterday was reached. Everybody became fearful of another crash. No sooner, however, did a panicky feeling begin to manifest itself than the same stalwart support came into the market. Its brokers were compelled to take large blocks of shares, but there was no hesitation or yielding, and the rush was soon over. Before the day’s business was finished quotations averaged almost exactly in line with the terms of the already famous settlement, and the great crisis was ended.

The new year was only a few days old when a complete transformation seemed to have taken place in the financial world. But the cause was too much a mystery for anybody to have great faith in the permanence of the new order of things. The newspapers said that the disbursement of January dividends had maintained the boom. Careful observers of the market saw no evidence of the small and widely distributed buying which comes from such a source. The investing public had been too badly scared these many months to be tempted back so easily. Besides, everybody knows that careful, thrifty, conservative savers of money invest their hoardings in only the very best securities, and at times when a booming market demands inflated prices. Such is the value of that intangible but very real commodity, “public confidence.” Englishmen maintain the broadest margin to be found anywhere between investment and speculation. It has come to be almost literally true that there is scarcely any market in London for securities yielding between four and seven per cent income on the market price. A six per cent stock or bond is far too risky for prudent investors, while the temptation is not sufficiently attractive to the speculator. Possible great rewards must be offered to induce John Bull to venture his capital in anything less sound than his consols; but when he does gamble he is as reckless as the rest. The same tendency is growing stronger in America. The zone is broadening between investment and gambling in the stock market. When the public speculates it is always for a rise. Usually the “professional trader” and the “big operator” who have foreseen all the conditions which were likely to stimulate the tender courage of the gentle public, are ready to gratify its sudden desire to pay 100 cents for what had been offered it in vain at 50 cents a few weeks before.

But this common phenomenon was not taking place in January, 1895. Gullible as the poor lambs usually are, it is necessary to allow their fickle memories to forget before seeking to victimize them by a repetition of a stale trick. A steady, persistent advance in prices went on during the early days of the new year without any of the usual accompanying conditions of “improved trade,” “better commercial prospects,” “signs of a great business revival,” “sound state of the banks and national Treasury.” The usual crop of sanguine interviews with “leading business men” which appears in the newspapers every New Year’s Day had been dubiously small and weak. In fact, Wall Street had none of the common bait with which it allures old and new victims. Whence, then, came the sudden strength which had supplanted the almost unerring symptoms of pending collapse?

CHAPTER VII.

STRANGE EVENTS IN THE FINANCIAL WORLD.

The history of the financial world for the next two months was peculiar. The markets of London and of all Europe were affected by the strange conditions which developed in America. Prices of all classes of securities continued abnormally high. There had been some advance above the figures at which settlements had been made on that memorable 2d of January. Sound dividend paying stocks commanded prices which yielded on the average less than four per cent to the investor. No commercial or industrial depression, no bad news from any quarter, no offerings by holders of stock anxious to unload, had any effect upon Wall Street quotations. But the market was by no means a healthy one. Speculation had almost ceased—perhaps a good thing in itself, but the reason for it had no virtuous significance. Even speculators will not play a game they know they do not understand, and nobody understood the great game which an unknown power was playing quite in its own way in the stock market. There seemed to be no limit to its resources. Careful observers of its operations in the Exchange estimated that it had expended fully $125,000,000 in cash within two months.

Who was this new master of millions, this incognito king of finance? He must be some new-come conqueror. Of that everybody was convinced. All the veteran gladiators of the stock arena had one after another been suspected, but had declared their innocence and had proved it. They were as much in the dark as everybody else.

Even Congress had shown some disposition to search the mystery. A booming stock market is usually considered the best proof of “good times” and general prosperity, but discordant voices raised here and there suggested that it was not altogether an unmixed blessing. So a drag-net inquiry was proposed at Washington, and it probably would have been ordered had not the day of adjournment been so near. The point most dwelt upon in Washington, and in financial circles too, was the marvelous increase in the country’s supply of gold bullion. Fully ten millions per week of what was described as new or foreign gold had passed through the New York Assay Office. The announcement had just been received that a single deposit of nearly $25,000,000 had been made within a few days. This movement of the precious metal nobody had been able to account for. There had been no importations in the ordinary way. On the contrary, the flow of gold had been in a steady though not large stream out of the country, for the most part to London. The news of the last large deposit had led the House of Representatives to ask information upon the subject from the secretary of the treasury. The answer had been that the recent unusual deposits had all been made by a single firm of brokers in New York, but the government did not know who the brokers were acting for or whence the gold came.

The subject was discussed for some hours, with more or less wisdom, in both branches of Congress. Naturally it revived the by no means buried silver question. An increase of fully twenty-five per cent in the country’s supply of gold, the silver advocates argued, should be followed by a proportionate addition to the monetary use of the despised white metal. The mints were working at fullest capacity turning gold into coin under the Free Coinage of Gold Act. Surely a country with such a plethora of gold, in spite of the croakings of the monometallists less than a year ago, could afford to admit some silver to the mints to take its chance with the more valuable metal.

This special pleading had no influence upon the supporters of “sound money” theories. It was solely because silver had finally been demonetized, they pointed out, that the country was able to retain its increasing supply of gold from whatever source it had come. The great increase of the precious metal was not in the government Treasury, but in private hands. It did not strengthen the government credit, which would be ruined if it should open its mints to silver.

Nobody was quite able to demonstrate clearly even to his own satisfaction that either side was entirely right or altogether wrong. So the arguing convinced no one, and nothing came of it. Congress adjourned on the 4th of March without meddling seriously with a matter which it did not understand.

The enigma was not one which the financial world could dismiss or ignore. It bore too vitally upon the welfare of the country. One hundred and twenty-five million dollars in cash from nobody knew where had completely changed the financial situation in two short months. It had been an amazing demonstration of the superior power of actual money over any other form of wealth.

The investment of this $125,000,000 had really increased the quoted market value of stocks and bonds dealt in on the New York Stock Exchange by an aggregate of fully $500,000,000. Western Union, for instance, had sold in December below 80; now it commanded 115. The capital of Western Union is $100,000,000. The advance in price of this stock therefore represented an increased market value of no less than $35,000,000. But it had required the purchase of very much less than $35,000,000 worth of the stock to effect this advance in price. Many stocks and bonds which had not been touched by the brokers who had managed the bull movement had risen materially merely from sympathy with the rest of the market.

The situation, however, was not sound or satisfactory from any point of view. The market was not self-sustaining. It required continued heavy purchases to maintain the abnormally high range of prices. If this mysterious support should be withdrawn a sharp collapse would be inevitable. Sensible financiers recognized this fact and conservative opinion was momentarily in fear of disaster. This feeling was so widespread that it paralyzed ordinary financial affairs. Naturally it led to such a general unloading of all manner of securities by investment holders that it did not seem possible in the estimation of competent judges that the tremendous burden could be borne much longer.

On the other hand, money became very cheap—on good security. This was an advantage in the commercial world, and a considerable revival of business set in. If the boom in Wall Street and easy money could be maintained for some weeks or months longer, perhaps the country’s general prosperity would warrant the inflation of prices that had taken place under such strange circumstances. But nobody believed it could be maintained, and so it was pointed out that if a collapse must come, the sooner the paralyzing uncertainty was ended the better.

This opinion was very widely held in the early days of March, and it was justified by all visible conditions. The unloading of stocks by investment holders had been heavier than ever for a week or two. The market had been peculiarly irregular for a few days. Stocks that were systematically supported held their own steadily, no matter how freely they were offered by investment holders. But others equally good sagged in price. The influence of sympathy was not strong enough to keep the whole market at a steady level, in face of the prevailing public opinion. So there arose for a time the anomaly of quotations for stocks of known superior intrinsic value at fifteen or twenty per cent lower prices than others of lesser worth. This was abundant proof of the unnatural and threatening condition of affairs. What nonplussed banking men more than anything else was the fact that none of the great quantities of securities which were being taken out of the market were being used, as far as they could ascertain, as collateral for loans. It is usually the case, when an important bull movement in stocks is attempted, that the operators borrow of the banks large sums with which to continue their operations, using the stocks as fast as they are purchased as security for the loans. It was almost incredible that this greatest of bull campaigns could be carried on without resorting to this expedient. It must be, the New York bank men said, that loans were being made in Europe and in other American cities instead of in the metropolis.

But the real mystery was still the enormous deposits of gold made at the New York Assay Office. The reports of these deposits were now watched with greater interest and curiosity than any item of financial news. They increased rather than diminished from week to week. It was noticed that there was a close relation between the amount of these deposits and the pressure to sell stocks in Wall Street. The average weekly deposit of $10,000,000 for the past two months suddenly increased to $25,000,000 the first week in March. The following week the same enormous sum was paid in. It was this fact more than the impregnable defense in the Stock Exchange, which confounded the wiseacres of finance more than ever. They began to waver in their gloomy forebodings. They sought again by every means in their power to penetrate the mystery.

The newspapers tried it too, and some of the solutions which they offered were amusing and absurd. One enterprising sheet asserted that it had discovered a plot by the Chinese government to revenge itself for the anti-Chinese legislation during the last two or three years in the United States by getting control of the principal railroads and telegraphs of the country, with a view to dictating a change of policy or possibly in preparation for a sudden invasion. Another was confident that the Standard Oil millionaires had undertaken a vast scheme in finance. The story which obtained greatest credence, perhaps, was one which credited a great English syndicate having the Bank of England at its back with a plan for investing some of the millions which had been saved from Argentina and South Africa in really sound “Americans.” There were many speculations about the strength and scope of this syndicate. It was explained that all the gold which made its appearance in the Assay Office was shipped secretly from England, and that the flow of gold from America to London was permitted to take place merely as a blind.

It had come to be pretty generally understood that the enormous gold deposits were being made at the Assay Office by Strong & Co. Of course they were only agents. The newspapers tried direct inquiry at first, and they obtained only polite refusals of information. Indirect attempts to learn the secret were as futile. One enterprising journal set a watch for several days upon the firm’s office. At last they made a discovery. A new covered wagon, heavily built and drawn by a pair of powerful horses, drove up to Strong & Co.’s office just before ten o’clock one morning. The team was quickly backed up to the door and a pair of skids was run out. Two men who were with the driver went inside the office. A few moments later they reappeared, one of them pushing an ordinary railway baggage truck upon which was a small wooden box, apparently very heavy. This was deposited at the bottom of the skid. Then both men, big muscular fellows, pushed and tugged it up the incline into the wagon. Twenty such boxes were brought out and loaded in the same way. Then the three men jumped on the team and drove off, with a knee-nosed reporter in full chase.

The team went by a rather circuitous route to the Assay Office, where the boxes were unloaded and taken inside. The wagon returned to Strong & Co.’s, received another load, and delivered it also at the Assay Office.

Meantime, the energetic reporter had communicated with his office, and a member of the artist staff armed with a kodak had been sent to his assistance. When the wagon was being loaded the second time, one of the mysterious boxes was quickly sketched by the half-concealed penciler and a snap-shot was taken at the team and the teamsters. On leaving the Assay Office the second time the wagon started up town at a rapid trot. The reporter was quite prepared for this move. He jumped into a cab which had waited for him around the corner in Nassau Street and he easily kept the heavy team in sight. Before reaching City Hall Park, two of the men jumped off and disappeared down a side street. The reporter would have liked to follow them, but it seemed more important to keep on after the team. The driver continued north through the Bowery and Third Avenue to East Seventeenth Street. Then he turned east for a couple of blocks and suddenly drove through an open gate into what seemed to be a small private stable. The high board gate was closed as soon as the team entered.

The reporter dismissed his cab and reconnoitered. The team apparently did not belong to a public truckman; for that matter it bore no name or number according to city requirement, and there was no business announcement upon the stable entrance or the adjoining house. There was nothing to be learned by observation, so the newspaper man resolved on a bold stroke. Going to the stable gate, he tried to push it open, and then knocked loudly. He got no response. He repeated the summons two or three times without result. Then he went to the adjoining house and rang the bell. The door was opened presently by a young girl.

“Will you please tell your father that a gentleman from Strong & Co.’s office would like to see him?” remarked the young man in his most urbane manner.

“Yes, sir. Will you walk in?” said the child.

The young man congratulated himself and took a seat in the reception room. Presently the driver of the wagon, looking like a well-to-do man of affairs and not like a truckman, came into the room. He looked at his caller sharply, saying,

“You come from Strong & Co.?”

“Yes, I am not in their office, but I was just too late to see you this morning,” responded the caller with the most business-like air he could assume. “I wanted to see you about the transfer of some bullion—similar work to that which you are doing for Strong & Co.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, young man,” interrupted the other in cold sarcasm as he opened the door. “You were not sent here by Strong & Co., and you don’t want any bullion moved. You are either a newspaper reporter or you are trying to pry into Strong & Co.’s affairs for some Wall Street concern. Good morning,” and the big man made a suggestive motion toward the front door.

The other hesitated a moment, then he wisely abandoned his ruse. “Well, I admit it,” he replied, smiling feebly. “I am a newspaper man and I must learn all I can for the —— about Strong & Co.’s supply of bullion. I saw you carry two wagonloads of gold from their office to the Assay Office this morning and I followed you here. Now, I hope you won’t send me away quite as ignorant as I came.”

The big man allowed his resentment to disappear. He even grinned a little as he said, “That’s right; don’t lie when it won’t do any good. You’ve discovered quite enough already, and I haven’t a word to tell you.”