CHAPTER XXIV
THE PROGRESS OF A "CORNER"
There are honest and honorable stock brokers, and Page, a friend ofNickerson's and acting broker for him, was one of them. He knew Simmonswell, and had at one time or another come in sharp conflict with thelatter in some stock deal. He had watched the bubble, Rockhaven, eversince its inception, and accustomed as he was to the endless variety oftricks resorted to by others of his class, had an intuitive conceptionof how the general partnership of Weston & Hill and Simmons would becarried to its culmination.
"It's a swindle, pure and simple," he said in confidence to Nickerson,"and while Weston is willing to dupe the confiding investors he haspersuaded to buy the stock, the real end and aim of his scheme is to getthe street short of it and, by some sort of scare, start the bears tobidding against each other, and when the right time comes Simmons willappear on the scene and unload Rockhaven at top price. How soon thattime will come and how far up they will push the stock before the shortstake fright, is a guess. It is now steady at six and not much interestin it. Then again it's an open question how much stock is owned on thestreet and how great a short interest has been created. No one has anyconfidence in it, and yet many are ready to take a flyer in it for aturn. My idea is to handle it as one would a hot horseshoe. I am long athousand or two, you are ditto for five hundred, and we hold fifteenhundred in trust for your friend Hardy and this islander, Hutton.Whether to unload now and make four points or hold for a big stake, isthe question. It's a gamble either way."
And this, be it said, fairly represented the situation.
But Simmons, who really held the key to this well-set trap, knew verywell that he had the street all guessing, and more than that, was justthe man to keep them at it. He sold and he bought a little stock eachday, just to keep it active and quoted. He could have bought every shareon the street if necessary, but that was not his game. What he did wantwas to aid the bull pool that had been formed, for every share theybought meant one more short of that share, and when the time came, onemore scared bear to bid it up. It was an unscrupulous scheme, but onecontinually being worked in one way or another by these legalizedgamblers.
Then, as if the devil came to Simmons's aid, Rockhaven began to bequoted in the bucket shops, and the crowd there, as usual, were allbulls. It is a strange fact, but true, that every lamb who goes into oneof these wool-shearing offices is always sure to buy, expecting anadvance. With him, stocks are bound to advance--never go down. If theydo, he feels it's only for the time being, and they must go up again,and so he foolishly puts up more margins, and still more, and the craftythief who manages this robber's den assures him he is right; they arebound to go up, and in privacy smiles at the innocence of his victim.And so the shearing goes on.
In this case it helped the arch-plotter, Simmons, and his backer,Weston, for as the stock held firm, those who were short of it at two,three, and four, had no chance to cover. Then as it began to creep up alittle, to even up their shortage they sold still more, and every fewdays a paid item in the _Market News_ helped matters on. What they wereneed not be stated. They were all to the same purpose, and that tocreate confidence in Rockhaven, and as usual every bear on the streetdiscounted these statements and felt more certain that Rockhavens werewithout substantial value.
And they were right.
Meanwhile Weston, the great financier, as he now felt himself to be,rubbed his hands with satisfaction and concocted more news items; andSimmons hobnobbed with the street, assuring one and all of the otherspeculative liars what a safe investment Rockhavens were, and how sureto advance.
"We have not sold much stock and do not care to," he said, "we know agood thing when we see it, and in this quarry we have a certainmoney-maker. It costs us a mere nothing to quarry the stone, the marketabsorbs all our product at a good price, and the ledge we own islimitless. Then we have an excellent manager in whom the firm trustsimplicitly."
He always used "we" in speaking of the stock, that pronoun carrying acertain assurance, as he well knew, for Simmons, who had grown old andgray on the street, was a shrewd money-maker and well known to be wortha million or more.
But while Weston was happy in his prospective success, Hill was not. Hewas too greedy, and, narrow-minded as he was, could not wait contentuntil the Rockhaven plum was ripe. He wanted to grasp it at once, evento ruin its fruition entirely. He railed and groaned whenever a dollarwas put out, and had from the start. In his narrow vision it was so muchthrown away. Every item in the press that called for outlay, the use ofthe thousands held by Simmons to manipulate the market, and especiallythe hundred or more that each week had to be sent to the island, eachand all added to Hill's misery. Weston, the liberal rascal, had for along time felt disgusted with his partner's miserly instincts; now hepositively hated him and longed for the day when he could deal him acrushing blow. Both were unscrupulous schemers and thieves at heart, butof the two Hill was the worse. Not only did Weston come to hate Hillmore and more each day, but he grew tired of the sight of his pinchedand hypocritical face, his sunken eyes and clammy handshake--for shakehands with him occasionally he must. Then Hill was so unlike Weston inother ways it added to the feeling of disgust; he never used tobacco ordrank, and held up his hands in holy horror at any lapse from the codeof morality, and worse than that, if Weston let slip any word ofprofanity, as he occasionally did, Hill exclaimed against it.
To have one's small vices made a daily text for short sermons isunpleasant, even to the best of us.
But while Weston's hate and disgust grew apace, no hint of it leakedout, and since he was the master spirit in the Rockhaven Granite Companyand in that scheme held the reins, it moved on to culmination,unaffected by Hill's whining.
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