The Banker and the Bear

by Henry Kitchell Webste

  “ They’ve certainly made up all right now “

  He stopped as the two young people entered the library. The instant of silence told them that they had been the subjects of the conver- sation they had interrupted, and Dick blushed, first in embarrassment and then in vexation over having blushed. Jack returned the Bags- burys’ greeting nervously. He was asking him- self why he would be such an ass as to try to do things theatrically. He ought to have told John down at the office, or written him a note. Well, there was nothing to do now but see the thing through.

  Then suddenly he read in Alice’s expectant look and in John’s quizzical smile, and last of all in Dick’s flushed face, the interpretation that the Banker and his wife were putting upon this little scene. That fairly scattered him.

  “I came around to tell you “ he began wildly “ to say that we that is, Dick and I have “

  “We bought the stock in the bank to-day what Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Meredith bought of Mr. Sponley.”

  Dick spoke quickly, but not an instant too soon; another second and John would have been giving them his blessing.

  At her words, however, he dropped back into his chair and looked blankly from her to Jack and back to her again.

  “ You did ! “ he exclaimed ; then after a moment, “you did!” and then in spite of his best attempt to keep a straight face he began to laugh. “ I beg your pardon,” he said, when he had his voice under control again. “ I was surprised. Tell me about it, please. How did you happen to do it ? “

  Without the smallest misgiving for he at- tributed John’s laughter to the ridiculous mis- take he had so nearly made Jack told his tale. He said nothing about the motive which had led him and Dick to buy the stock, but he dwelt with a good deal of humor on the per- plexities into which his ignorance of business had led him in the course of the negotiations. He could afford to laugh at them because he and Dick had succeeded, in spite of all, in effecting a sale of a large part of their own securities and, in the teeth of opposition, in buying the Cartwright-Meredith stock. They had spent the day profitably and had thoroughly enjoyed it. The encounter with the broker was what pleased Jack particularly.

  “ I all but had it fixed,” he said, “ when this other fellow came around and began to bid up the price. But after that they gave me rather an exciting time. I’d make them an offer, and then they’d have a consultation with the mys- terious stranger, and I’d have to raise it We kept it going until the middle of the afternoon, and then he quit. I’d have been there yet if he hadn’t. The business roused my sporting blood somehow ; I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in a long while.”

  Dick had helped tell the first part of the tale, eagerly snatching the thread away from Jack, and then handing it back to him with, “Oh, I don’t understand it, you tell him.” But toward the end she became silent, watching with puz- zled curiosity the quick changes of expression in John Bagsbury’s face. When Jack finished, she asked, “ Have we done something awfully, absurdly stupid ? “

  “ You have done one of the most thoughtful, generous things I ever heard of,” said John, “ and it was a good move, too. Only we’ve all made a mistake in not telling each other just what we meant to do. You see, I was the man who sent around that broker.”

  “ Good Lord ! “ said Jack.

  Dick began to laugh, and John Bagsbury’s smile gradually expanded into an indubitable grin ; but Jack’s face remained as solemn as an old raven’s.

  “ Laugh ! “ Dick commanded. “ The mistake doesn’t matter. The stock is all in the fam “

  She colored, and, correcting herself, proceeded to punish Jack for her slip.

  “The stock I bought is all in the family. Jack, of course, will vote his as he pleases.”

  “ I’ve put in quite a day of it myself,” said John, quickly, in the interest of peace. “ I would have been as busy as I care to be without any visitors, and there was a regular procession of them. And Curtin came in for a long talk, too. He had a story to tell, mostly about Sponley. Said he had known Sponley a long time, and that he had got him his job in the bank. Then, according to him, Sponley tried to make him pay for his place by giving away information about the bank. He bought Curtin’s stock, it seems, and then threat- ened to get him put out of the bank unless he did as he was told. Curtin says he told him of the loan to Pickering, thinking it was all right to do it ; but he denies having known any- thing about the collateral. I suppose Sponley guessed at that.”

  Dick gave her fellow-amateur detective a look which said, “ We’re saved from doing any- thing foolish about that,” but Jack was still thinking about the outrageous injustice of her last remark, and he affected not to see.

  “ Do you think he was telling the truth ? “ she asked of John. “ What are you going to do with him ? “

  “ Oh, it was probably somewhere near true. I shall let him stay till the year’s out. I have all I want on my hands just now, with- out trying to get rid of my officers. If he had a little more spunk, he might make a pretty good rascal; but as he is, he can’t do much harm.”

  “ Do you know,” the Banker went on after a long pause, “ you did a good thing for the bank by bidding up that stock and paying a big price for it? It got Cartwright and Meredith over their fright a lot better than if you’d bought it cheap. If they had got badly scared and talked around, there’s no telling where they’d have landed us. But I guess there’s no danger of that now.”

  “ No,” said Jack. “ They were as pleased as possible, when the thing was finally fixed up. They seemed to be mighty glad to be well out of it.”

  “I wonder “ began John. He rested his chin on his hands and stared intently at noth- ing for a minute, then he looked at his watch.

  “ I’m going to see them,” .he said, rising.

  “ Now ? “ asked Dick.

  “ Yes, I’m going to suggest that they turn the whole estate over to me.”

  Not a word was spoken in the library until they heard the door close behind John Bags- bury.

  “I suppose I’d better go,” said Jack, without stirring in his big chair.

  “ Perhaps so,” said Dick ; “ we’ve knocked about together all day “

  That brought him to his feet like a flash. “ You’re right,” he said. “ Good night.”

  He shook hands with admirable nonchalance, and marched he could not help marching into the hall.

  “ Stupid ! “ said Dick, just after he closed the door. A little later she said “Stupid” again, but with an entirely different inflection, and with something a little like a laugh on the end of it.

  But by that time poor Jack was halfway down the block, walking at the rate of at least five miles an hour.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE STARTING OF AN AVALANCHE

  HOWEVER important a campaign may be, how- ever long it may have been in the making, the hours which prove really to be decisive are likely to be few. The dramatic situation in the lard market was the outcome of months of thorough planning, of ingenious preparation, of well-con- cealed manipulation ; but once the actual fight- ing began, and the whole commercial world gathered around to see, it lasted but three days and a little way into the fourth, that is, from Monday morning to an hour before noon on Thursday.

  Measured by the volume of trading done, Monday was the heaviest day of the four. Sponley’s operators on the floor, Stewart and Ray, began selling when the big bell gave the signal at half-past nine, and until it rang again, at half-past one, there was no cessation. The Bear was explicit in his instructions, and acting.

  on these, Stewart and Ray took a furious pace. They sold actual lard, wholly imaginary lard, grotesque prophecies of lard, which by no pos- sibility could be realized ; and little Mr. Keyes, of Keyes and Seivert, and tall Mr. Jones, of Ball, Snyder, and Jones, bought it all, while the Old Man, as they called Pickering, strolled about their offices with an utterly irresponsible air, and smoked Wheeling stogies.

  It was a great round they fought that day ; but it is not
so well remembered as those that suc- ceeded it, because at half-past one the relative position of the combatants was just what it had been four hours earlier. With all the tremen- dous pounding given and taken that morning, nothing happened. Neither had faltered for an instant, and there was not the slightest founda- tion for a guess as to where the advantage lay. But to one who could know what was in the minds of the two men, it would be evident that Pickering had rather the better of the situation, for at closing time he was just where he ex- pected to be he was not disappointed. But Melville Sponley had not counted on an incon- clusive day. The reinforcements he had looked for so confidently had failed to come up.

  Sponley spent the morning in his office, but he had lieutenants wherever they could possibly be of service, and he knew that the first unfavor- able rumor that should be set afloat regarding Bagsbury’s bank would reach him instantly. But all the reports he received were negative. The clerk he had posted at the stock exchange called him up two or three times, but only to say that no Bagsbury stock had been offered for sale, and from Curtin at the bank there came not a word. When he had given Curtin his in- structions the day before, he had been aware that it was hardly likely that the rumor of the bank’s difficulties would spread fast enough to develop a run on the bank before closing time on Monday ; but he had counted confidently on its reaching the provision pit in time to have a decisive effect. The run, he calculated, would begin on Tuesday morning. But all Monday afternoon he heard never a whisper, and by evening he began to wonder if he had not made a serious mistake.

  Immediately after dinner he decided to learn what he could from Mr. Cartwright ; but he hes- itated whether he should call on him or tele- phone him. Mr. Cartwright, he knew, was as

  yet unreconciled to the telephone, and regarded a message over it much as many people regard a postal card, and yet the other course seemed still more inadvisable. If Sponley had called in person, he would, you remember, have found John Bagsbury there; but as it happened the telephone bell in Mr. Cartwright’s library rang only about six feet from the place where John was sitting. Mr. Cartwright answered it im- patiently.

  “ Oh, good evening, Mr. Sponley,” John heard him say. “Yes, we sold all our stock this afternoon Yes, a very fair price He was a young man whose name escapes me at this moment Yes, thank you very much Good evening.”

  And John, with some difficulty, kept a per- fectly straight face. At the other end of the ‘phone Sponley turned away with an exclama- tion of disgust.

  “ What is it ?” Harriet asked.

  “ I’d rather deal with three rascals than with one fool,” he said shortly, “ and that Cartwright’s an infernal fool.”

  The first notable event at the bank Tuesday morning was the early arrival of Pickering. He

  walked without ceremony into John’s office, seated himself near an open window, and at once proceeded to light a fresh black stogy from the stump of the one he had been smoking.

  “ I have to smoke these as soon as things be- gin to get interesting,” he explained. “ I find cigars too tame. I hope the smell doesn’t bother you.”

  “ Not a bit,” said John. “ It would take more than that. I don’t bother easily.”

  “I don’t believe you do,” Pickering’s voice came from a cloud of pungent smoke. “ You don’t look worried to-day; but unless I’ve missed my guess, you’ve had to take a lot in these last days that would have worried most men.”

  “ Is that a guess ? “ John asked quickly.

  “ Nothing else,” said Pickering. “ I haven’t heard any talk. Only I know that the story in the Sunday paper of your having made me that loan must have thrown some of your directors into fits, and I thought they might have tried to pass ‘em on to you.”

  John could not help smiling over his recollec- tion of the spectacle Cartwright and Meredith had presented Sunday morning, but he said :

  “ They’ve taken it very well, upon the whole.

  The Starting of an Avalanche 235

  Whatever they may think of the wisdom of making the loan, they seem perfectly willing to let me run the thing through, now that I’m in it.”

  “That’s not to be wondered at,” said Picker- ing. “ You have a way about you that would convince most men that you can mind your own business better than they can mind it for you.

  “ I came around this morning,” he went on, without waiting for the Banker’s meagre word of thanks, “ because I need some more money.”

  “How much?”

  “ Three hundred thousand.”

  No man can spend his life working toward and in the high offices of a bank, as John had done, without losing a good deal of his original righting instinct, or if he can, he is a danger- ous banker ; the lifelong responsibility for other people’s money makes caution a sort of second nature. But not even a banker, until he is totally unfit for the business, loses all his red corpuscles. John Bagsbury had been betrayed, had been challenged to fight, had been threatened with certain defeat if he would dare to fight ; and being a man, and a profoundly angry man, he was eager for Sponley’s complete overthrow. He would have liked to say to Pickering,

  “Go ahead and smash him, and I’ll see you through.”

  But if Pickering had guessed the existence of this feeling, and had counted it a circumstance in his favor, he had a mistaken notion of his

  man. John Bagsbury might feel the impulse, but the Banker would make or deny the loan.

  “ I want to know just what property you’ve got,” said John.

  Pickering took a slip of paper from his pocket. “I thought you would,” he said. “ Here’s a schedule of it.”

  John laid the paper on his desk, and for some time pored over it in silence. “ I don’t want any more lard,” he said at length ; “ I’ve got enough now to last quite a while. And I don’t want to go into the soap business, either; yet I don’t see that I have much choice if I make the loan. All your convertible securities are pledged already.”

  Still he studied the schedule earnestly, and Pickering was silent. At last the Banker said,

  “ If you will give me a judgment note for it, I’ll let you have the money.”

  Pickering reddened. “ I’m not bankrupt,”

  The Starting of an Avalanche he said, “nor going to be. I’d rather give a man a check signed in blank than a judgment note. It’s as bad as a death-warrant, with every- thing filled in but the date.”

  “Of course,” said John, “it puts you entirely in my hands. If you’re afraid of me, you’d better not take the loan. That’s the only security I’ll take.”

  Pickering relighted his stogy and gazed meditatively out of the window. “ All right,” he said at length, with a dry laugh, “give me the blank and I’ll sign it. I guess I’m about as safe in your hands as I am in my own.”

  While he was making out the note there came a knock at the door. “ Mr. Dawson is here to see you, Mr. Bagsbury,” said the cashier.

  “ Come in, Mr. Dawson,” said John, rising. “You know Mr. Pickering?”

  Under his heavy white brows Dawson’s eyes twinkled. “ You are giving us plenty to think about these days, Mr. Pickering.”

  He seated himself heavily, mopped his red face with a redder handkerchief, and ran his hand through his thick white hair. Dawson had accumulated plenty of treasure on earth; but I think that all unconsciously he had been laying up a greater treasure in heaven, if a life of courage and honesty and the wisest optimism counts for anything, and the long file of men his kindly help saved from financial ruin and worse are to be permitted to testify. There was no sentimentality about him : he was hard- handed as an old sailor; but many a practical man of business to-day can hardly speak of him dry-eyed.

  “ You are making a great fight,” he went on, still addressing Pickering, “and I half believe you stand a chance to win.”

  The other men laughed. “ I’m more hope- ful,” said Pickering. “ I fully expect to win. The Bear took his pounding badly yesterday, and to-da
y I’m making him sweat to protect his margins.”

  “ I’m not trying to discourage you,” Dawson answered; “but until Sponley is actually busted, and his accounts are closed out, the chances are always in his favor. He makes an effort to play square; but he plays to win, and I don’t believe he ever went into a game of this kind without an extra ace about him somewhere.”

  “ He’d better get it out of his sleeve pretty quick, then,” said the soap-maker.

  “ He will,” retorted Dawson. “ He’ll bear watching by both of you.

  “You’ve been making Mr. Pickering another loan, I take it,” he went on, addressing John Bagsbury.

  Both men nodded.

  “ In a way, you’re playing right into his hand. He’s making a deliberate attack on the bank. He’ll stop at nothing, and the knowledge of this second loan makes his case stronger. The moral effect on the depositors will be bad. You can bet they’ll know about it before night.”

  Pickering rose, “Are you still willing to let me have it, Mr. Bagsbury ? “

  “ Yes,” said John, curtly. “ I told you you could have it. The loan’s good and the security’s good. I’ll chance it on the effect.”

  “ I guess I’d have done the same thing my- self,” said Dawson, after the speculator had left the office ; “ still I can’t be sure it isn’t a mis- take. I must go on just dropped in to see if you were in any trouble. Good-by.”

  A little later Curtin telephoned over to Sponley the news of the second loan to Pick- ering and of Dawson’s visit to the bank. There had been, he added, no unusual drain on the bank, nothing in the least resembling the begin- ning of a run.

  As he left the telephone box, he saw that John Bagsbury’s eye was on him ; he avoided it, then with a poor affectation of coolness sought it again and, being unsuccessful, walked hastily to his desk. He knew John thought him a cur ; but he wondered whether the president sus pected anything else.

  The blow was a heavy one to Sponley, heavier than all the hammering Pickering was giving him, and he took it hard. The reenforcement of his enemy was bad enough, but it was not the worst. He could measure it. Dawson’s visit was a mystery. How much or how little it might mean he could not even guess, but the thought that this tremendous old fighter might take a hand troubled him seriously. And his ingenious plotting to start a run on the bank had evidently failed. Somewhere or other, he had made a bad miscalculation.