CHAPTER XLIX
The peculiarity of this particular proposition was that it had thebasic elements of success. Mr. Ross had the experience and thejudgment which were quite capable of making a success of almostanything he undertook. He was in a field which was entirely familiar.He could convince almost any able man if he could get his earsufficiently long to lay his facts before him.
Lester was not convinced at first, although, generally speaking, hewas interested in real estate propositions. He liked land. Heconsidered it a sound investment providing you did not get too much ofit. He had never invested in any, or scarcely any, solely because hehad not been in a realm where real estate propositions were talked of.As it was he was landless and, in a way, jobless.
He rather liked Mr. Ross and his way of doing business. It was easyto verify his statements, and he did verify them in severalparticulars. There were his signs out on the prairie stretches, andhere were his ads in the daily papers. It seemed not a bad way at allin his idleness to start and make some money.
The trouble with Lester was that he had reached the time where hewas not as keen for details as he had formerly been. All his work inrecent years--in fact, from the very beginning--had beenwith large propositions, the purchasing of great quantities ofsupplies, the placing of large orders, the discussion of things whichwere wholesale and which had very little to do with the minor detailswhich make up the special interests of the smaller traders of theworld. In the factory his brother Robert had figured the pennies andnickels of labor-cost, had seen to it that all the little leaks wereshut off. Lester had been left to deal with larger things, and he hadconsistently done so. When it came to this particular proposition hisinterest was in the wholesale phases of it, not the petty details ofselling. He could not help seeing that Chicago was a growing city, andthat land values must rise. What was now far-out prairie propertywould soon, in the course of a few years, be well built-up suburbanresidence territory. Scarcely any land that could be purchased nowwould fall in value. It might drag in sales or increase, but itcouldn't fall. Ross convinced him of this. He knew it of his ownjudgment to be true.
The several things on which he did not speculate sufficiently werethe life or health of Mr. Ross; the chance that some obnoxiousneighborhood growth would affect the territory he had selected asresidence territory; the fact that difficult money situations mightreduce real estate values--in fact, bring about a flurry of realestate liquidation which would send prices crashing down and cause thefailure of strong promoters, even such promoters for instance, as Mr.Samuel E. Ross.
For several months he studied the situation as presented by his newguide and mentor, and then, having satisfied himself that he wasreasonably safe, decided to sell some of the holdings which werenetting him a beggarly six per cent, and invest in this newproposition. The first cash outlay was twenty thousand dollars for theland, which was taken over under an operative agreement betweenhimself and Ross; this was run indefinitely--so long as there wasany of this land left to sell. The next thing was to raise twelvethousand five hundred dollars for improvements, which he did, and thento furnish some twenty-five hundred dollars more for taxes andunconsidered expenses, items which had come up in carrying out theimprovement work which had been planned. It seemed that hard and softearth made a difference in grading costs, that trees would not alwaysflourish as expected, that certain members of the city water and gasdepartments had to be "seen" and "fixed" before certain otherimprovements could be effected. Mr. Ross attended to all this, but thecost of the proceedings was something which had to be discussed, andLester heard it all.
After the land was put in shape, about a year after the originalconversation, it was necessary to wait until spring for the properadvertising and booming of the new section; and this advertising beganto call at once for the third payment. Lester disposed of anadditional fifteen thousand dollars worth of securities in order tofollow this venture to its logical and profitable conclusion.
Up to this time he was rather pleased with his venture. Ross hadcertainly been thorough and business-like in his handling of thevarious details. The land was put in excellent shape. It was given arather attractive title--"Inwood," although, as Lester noted,there was precious little wood anywhere around there. But Ross assuredhim that people looking for a suburban residence would be attracted bythe name; seeing the vigorous efforts in tree-planting that had beenmade to provide for shade in the future, they would take the will forthe deed. Lester smiled.
The first chill wind that blew upon the infant project came in theform of a rumor that the International Packing Company, one of the bigconstituent members of the packing house combination at Halstead andThirty-ninth streets, had determined to desert the old group and layout a new packing area for itself. The papers explained that thecompany intended to go farther south, probably below Fifty-fifthStreet and west of Ashland Avenue. This was the territory that waslocated due west of Lester's property, and the mere suspicion that thepacking company might invade the territory was sufficient to blightthe prospects of any budding real estate deal.
Ross was beside himself with rage. He decided, after quickdeliberation, that the best thing to do would be to boom the propertyheavily, by means of newspaper advertising, and see if it could not bedisposed of before any additional damage was likely to be done to it.He laid the matter before Lester, who agreed that this would beadvisable. They had already expended six thousand dollars inadvertising, and now the additional sum of three thousand dollars wasspent in ten days, to make it appear that In wood was an idealresidence section, equipped with every modern convenience for thehome-lover, and destined to be one of the most exclusive and beautifulsuburbs of the city. It was "no go." A few lots were sold, but therumor that the International Packing Company might come was persistentand deadly; from any point of view, save that of a foreign populationneighborhood, the enterprise was a failure.
To say that Lester was greatly disheartened by this blow is to putit mildly. Practically fifty thousand dollars, two-thirds of all hisearthly possessions, outside of his stipulated annual income, was tiedup here; and there were taxes to pay, repairs to maintain, actualdepreciation in value to face. He suggested to Ross that the areamight be sold at its cost value, or a loan raised on it, and the wholeenterprise abandoned; but that experienced real estate dealer was notso sanguine. He had had one or two failures of this kind before. Hewas superstitious about anything which did not go smoothly from thebeginning. If it didn't go it was a hoodoo--a blackshadow--and he wanted no more to do with it. Other real estatemen, as he knew to his cost, were of the same opinion.
Some three years later the property was sold under the sheriff'shammer. Lester, having put in fifty thousand dollars all told,recovered a trifle more than eighteen thousand; and some of his wisefriends assured him that he was lucky in getting off so easily.
Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel Page 49
