At the Writing Table
13 In the Realms of Finance
Guthrie made the trip to Sayville with Mr. Pike, and it is one that he will never forget. The mountains shed water. Rivers of it dashed through every ravine, and now and then the melting snow, undermined at the base, poured down in tons. But the two escaped all dangers, and at last reached the railroad station. A mile from their destination, they met the Waterford militia company already on the march for Briarton. Guthrie told the captain that the people would now make no attempt to lynch Dilger, but the officer, true to his orders, kept on his way, and in due time reached the village.
At the station, Guthrie informed Mr. Pike that he was going to New York instead of the capital, and the Senator looked his surprise, but said nothing.
“It’s of great importance,” said Guthrie, “but I hope to be back soon.”
He sent a despatch to his home office, telling of his errand and his hopes—again taking the chance of approval—and a little later he boarded an east-bound local train, receiving a hearty grasp of the hand and farewell from Mr. Pike, who was yet at the station, waiting for his own westward train.
Fifty miles farther on, where the expresses make their only stop in the mountains, he left the “local” and waited for the through train for New York, which arrived an hour late, and, picking him up, whirled him on eastward.
Guthrie was in a berth in one of the finest trains that runs between the East and the Middle West, one that skims every day over the mountains, its passengers surrounded by luxury, never realising the primitive wilderness through which they are shot at the rate of forty miles an hour. But it was all real and vital to Guthrie, who was beginning to understand its passions and its sentiments, and who, as he sat amid the plush, and the mahogany, and the polished brass, had a singular little longing for tiny, lonely Briarton in its cove among the peaks.
But his mind soon turned to the task before him —no light one—and, having always made it a rule to secure rest when rest was needed, he went to bed, and in half an hour was sound asleep.
He awoke the next morning among the rolling hills of the East, and a little after dark arrived in New York. The morning after that he sent from his hotel to Jimmy Warfield this telegram:
“What is state of affairs? For God’s sake, fight off vote as long as you can. I may bring help.”
In two hours, the reply came:
“Pike arrived, and says he will vote for Carton. Takes four Republican senators with him, and chances now so nearly even that each side afraid to push for a vote. Carton saved for present, but for future our hopes in you.”
“What a loyal fellow he is to his friends!” was Guthrie’s unspoken comment. “He doesn’t know why I’m here, but he takes my word for it that I’m to make a find.”
His next step was to find the address of Purvis & Eaton in the city directory, and then he went down to the number given in Nassau Street, near Wall. Guthrie had been in New York before, but the roar and rush of the mighty down-town canyons called streets almost stunned him, coming now from the silence and peace of the mountains. However, his thoughts lingered little on these phases; he was too intent on his plan of campaign, and his object was to spy out the country of the one whom he considered the enemy.
The office of the great financiers indicated massiveness and simplicity. It was on the second floor of a white stone building of severe architecture, and occupied, so Guthrie reckoned, at least a dozen rooms. The men who passed in or out wore silk hats and frock coats, and were mostly of full flesh. Everything bore the appearance of wealth and importance.
Satisfied for the present with this external inspection, Guthrie returned to his hotel, which he had purposely chosen in the down-town district in order that he might always be near to his field of battle. There he bought all the morning papers and looked carefully over their financial columns, but he found nowhere a quotation of “United” bonds or stock, preferred or common. He had not really expected to find such quotations, as the company was yet without a charter, but he was not willing to neglect any possible source of information. Then he went forth upon a second expedition.
It was his purpose now to buy a share of “United” stock, or at least to make an offer for it, if there was such a thing in the market, and he decided to attempt the purchase as close as possible to the offices of Purvis & Eaton. He had noticed brokers’ signs on doors in the same building, and he entered one on the third floor. He gave his name and State, and then mentioned the stock that he wished to buy. The broker looked at him with some curiosity.
“There is no such stock in the market,” he said.
“I was told that Messrs. Purvis & Eaton, the bankers in this building, were financing the company,” said Guthrie boldly, surmising that this assertion would act as a leading question.
“I recall it,” said the broker meditatively, “and if I mistake not, Purvis & Eaton were to bond and stock the scheme. But I haven’t heard anything of it recently; I suppose it’s fallen through; lots of these Western and Southern enterprises do, you know.”
Guthrie thanked him, and went out, his heart beating happily. The broker’s words were vague, but they confirmed—if a conviction can be confirmed—the belief that he had formed when Senator Pike’s chance words at Briarton gave to him the name of Purvis & Eaton. He walked again by their offices, and looked up at the massive sign, “Purvis & Eaton, Bankers, New York, Paris, and London,” and watched the portly, silk-hatted, and frock-coated men go in and out. “I shall get at you yet,” he said to himself, confidently and triumphantly.
He devoted all the rest of the day to inquiries concerning Purvis & Eaton, bankers. He went to the galleries of the Stock Exchange, asking chance questions there, and at last he introduced himself to the financial editors of the great newspapers, and sought information from them.
Sometimes he was rebuffed, and sometimes his questions were answered; but Guthrie noticed in all the replies a certain caution and reserve, as if his informants were not telling quite all they knew. His keen instinct at once told him the cause: this firm, despite its great business and its dignified connections, had one little shady corner. Purvis & Eaton, he learned, operated all over the world, and there were five partners, three Americans, an Englishman, and a German.
This was the limit of his day’s work, and after dark he went to his hotel and sent to Jimmy Warfield this brief telegram: “How are things?” In an hour came the briefer reply: “Status quo.” Guthrie had a great feeling of satisfaction, and in the night he walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, looking down upon the scene of the world’s greatest activity, all dark and quiet now. It was his conclusion that the darkness hid alike much that was good and much that was bad.
The next day, he pursued the same line of inquiry, trying to find exactly what that shady corner in the business of Purvis & Eaton covered. He noticed in the most solid of the morning papers a small advertisement by the firm, stating that they were dealers in State and city bonds, and could furnish good investments. He found later that they made a specialty of the West and the South, and at last, in his pursuit of shares of the United Electric, Gas, Power, Light, and Heating Company, he came to one broker, who, in anger, told just what he wanted to know.
“That,” he exclaimed, “is one of Charlie Warren’s schemes!”
Warren, as Guthrie had ascertained, was the youngest partner in the firm of Purvis & Eaton. But he said nothing, waiting for the broker, who, he judged, had got the worst of some transaction with Warren, to continue, as he seemed willing to do.
“I don’t know what has come of it,” continued the broker, “but, if it goes through, as likely it will, the bonds and stock of the company will be worth a lot of money.”
“But our city is hardly large enough to pay big dividends on rival street railway, electric light, heating, and gas companies,” said Guthrie mildly.
The broker looked at Guthrie with rather an amused glance, and contracted his left eyelid just a trifle, so much as to say: “Well, you are a green one.”
“Do you take Charlie Warren for a fool?” he asked.
“I do not know anything about him.”
“So it seems. Charlie Warren and the firm of Purvis & Eaton do not dream of running a street railway, an electric light, or any other kind of a company. They have a better use for their time and money than that.”
“Then what do they want?”
“Why, to sell out to the old companies the moment they get their charter. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, and as simple as A, B, C. It can be done, too, right along, if you are powerful enough and unscrupulous enough to do it. You see, all these Western and Southern States are aflame against corporations and monopolies, and they are honest in it, too, but their anger can be used for other purposes. Just find a large city where a company has had an exclusive public franchise of any kind, then you go up to the Legislature with an application for a franchise for a new and rival corporation to break the power of the old—all in the people’s interest, of course—and, nine times out of ten, it will go through if pushed well.”
“And then?”
“And then—after a while, when the noise about it has died out, the new company sells out to the old—compels it to buy, so to speak—sort of legal blackmail, and there you are; the old company still has its monopoly, the new company has its price, and the public its experience. Young man, there are more ways than one in this world to whip the devil around the stump!”
“I see,” said Guthrie, and thanking the man, he went out. “They say that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’” he murmured to himself, “but I fancy that one broker worsted in a trade by another is just about as bad.”
This concluded another day’s work, and again, at nightfall, Guthrie telegraphed an inquiry to Jimmy Warfield, and back came the answer, “status quo.”
Then Guthrie sent another message which read: “Keep it up; things here beginning to come our way.”
Jimmy Warfield received this second telegram a little before midnight, and his face glowed as he read it. Then he took it to Carton, who was still awake, gloomily gazing out of the window. “I don’t know what it means,” said Warfield, “but Billy Guthrie never would send a telegram like that unless he had something up his sleeve.”
“He certainly would not,” said Carton, his face lighting up with hope.
Guthrie now prepared himself for the boldest stroke of all—one that he would not have tried, had he not been absolutely sure of his ground. He went the next morning to the office of Purvis & Eaton, and sent his correspondent’s card to the great Mr. Warren, to be informed a few minutes later by the supercilious messenger that Mr. Warren was too busy to see any newspaper representative.
Guthrie was not disconcerted. He understood the important manner, and he had learned early that men really great never have an important manner.
He wrote a note to Mr. Warren, saying briefly that he expected to send to the Times a full account of Purvis & Eaton’s interest in the Electric, Gas, Power, Light, and Heating Company’s bill. He had ascertained that the bill was prepared in their office, pushed through by their lobbyist, Mr. Caius Marcellus Harlow, and that no preparation had ever been made, even to begin a plant in case of the bill’s passage. The public, therefore, must infer that the new company, if it obtained a charter, merely intended to force the old ones to buy out its privileges. If Messrs. Purvis & Eaton cared to say anything, he would be glad to annex it to his account.
“Take this to Mr. Warren,” said Guthrie to the messenger.
The boy hesitated, but Guthrie’s stern gaze cowed him, and he disappeared within the doors. Guthrie had no doubt of the result. He knew how, in gambling language, to meet a bluff with a bluff, and he waited, at ease. The messenger was a much longer time than before in returning. Finally, he came with word that the partners would see the visitor, and Guthrie followed him through offices in which many clerks toiled at great ledgers, and through one door he caught a glimpse of a boy marking quotations on a high blackboard. Then the messenger opened another door, and, with the words, “the partners will see you here, sir,” left him.
Guthrie stepped into the private office of Messrs. Purvis & Eaton, and closed the door behind him. Four of the partners were present, two of the Americans, the Englishman, and the German. Three of them were men of fifty or more, heavy, portly, side-whiskered, and dressed in black. But the fourth, who was not over forty-five, was thin, smoothly shaven, and wore a gray sack suit. Guthrie knew instinctively that this was Mr. Warren.
No one asked him to be seated, and, of his own accord, he took a chair. Then he glanced coolly around the room, which was darkly carpeted, had mahogany chairs on the floor and large portraits of the five partners on the wall. As none of the partners yet spoke, evidently waiting for him to do so, he continued his survey of the room, and also remained silent.
Guthrie noticed that the four men were gazing at him in a haughty and reproving manner, but he was not awed. The element of respect, even deference, was not lacking in his composition. He valued money, and he thought it a silly affectation to pretend to despise it; but the money-king never appealed to him as a great man. Once a bank cashier in a moment of condescension had said to him: “You look like a grave and sensible young man, Mr. Guthrie, and, by application, you may in time become a cashier as I am,” but Guthrie was not flattered. He had been taught to look toward other ideals. To him, the great men were the great statesmen, and writers, and soldiers, and artists, and ministers. Lincoln and Thackeray were infinitely more inspiring names to him than Rothschild or Rockefeller. It was, therefore, with perfect calmness that he faced the four partners, who, he knew perfectly well, would try to browbeat him and make him feel as if he were a presumptuous intruder.
The youngest of them held Guthrie’s card in his hand, and twirled it rather contemptuously. Guthrie noticed the action, and glanced indifferently out of the window.
“This is an extraordinary, I may say, an impertinent note that you have sent us!” at last said the senior and plumpest partner, Mr. Purvis.
“It did not impress me as being impertinent,” replied Guthrie coolly. “At any rate, your Mr. Warren made it necessary; I sent in my card at first with no note at all.”
“This is a threat,” continued the senior partner, the dull red flushing into his cheeks. “You tell us that you are going to publish an article defaming one of the largest and most reputable banking firms in New York City. It is blackmail, it is—”
“Kindly stop where you are,” said Guthrie, “you make nothing by calling me names. I stated facts in that note. I have ascertained beyond a doubt that you originated and pushed the bill for the ‘United.’ You are at the back of the fight against Mr. Carton, the Speaker of the House in our State, because he divined the purpose of this bill, and, through his power as Speaker, has long prevented its passage. You are the cause of his present impeachment. He is my friend, and I shall serve both him and the cause of justice.”
Mr. Purvis was about to speak, evidently with anger, but the junior partner, Mr. Warren, raised his hand.
“May I ask, Mr. Guthrie,” he said, smoothly, glancing at the card when he uttered the name, as if his memory did not serve in so slight a matter, “where you have learned all this very interesting romance?”
“You mean history, not romance; by many inquiries among bankers, brokers, financial writers, and others. I am willing to tell you also that, in anticipation of the passage of the bill, you gave the contract for printing the stock and bond certificates to the American Printing Company, 24 Nassau Street, and their work, very neatly and handsomely done, is now ready for delivery.”
The junior partner bit his lip, but in a moment recovered his suavity.
“Very interesting,” he said, “and suppose, for the sake of argument, we should grant its truth, what then? So far, we are entirely within our rights. It is our business to place stocks and bonds. One of our functions is that of a sales-agent.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“What then becomes of your second charge that it is our purpose, and has been our purpose from the first, to compel the old companies to buy us out. That is a very difficult thing to prove, and your newspaper will be liable in heavy damages.”
“The charge stands. I shall make it, and take all chances. I know morally that it is true, and I can pile up enough evidence to convince anybody. And I tell you, too, for your information that you could not possibly get a jury in my State, where such a case would have to be tried, to give a verdict in this connection against the Times and in favour of a distant corporation like yours.”
“Then, why have you come here at all?”
“To take your statement, if you care to give it. We are fair; we do not wish to publish one side and suppress the other.”
Here Mr. Purvis, who had been heaving and flushing in silence, broke all bounds.
“Get out, you impudent young rascal! How dare you come here and talk in this manner to us!” he cried.
“I may be impudent, and I am glad to be young, but I am not a financial pirate; I don’t try to make money by plundering others.”
The suave Mr. Warren intervened.
“Mr. Guthrie has shown himself very enterprising,” he said, “but I cannot understand why he wishes to put such motives into a legitimate business transaction. Our purpose is entirely within the law—both legal and moral—but, at the same time, we do not care to have the name of an old and honoured firm showered with innuendo in the public prints. Will nothing induce you to stop the sending of this despatch, Mr. Guthrie?”
“Nothing! Do you care to make any statement that I can publish with it?”
“None whatever.”
“Then, we are wasting each other’s time. Good day.”
“Good day.”
Guthrie put on his hat, and went out, followed by the frowning glances of the partners. In the hall, he rang the bell for the elevator, and, when it came, a single passenger stepped from it—a middle-aged man, with gray hair carefully brushed back from his temples, and a smoothly shaven, wary face.
It was Caius Marcellus Harlow.
He started, and Guthrie,for the first time in his life, saw him show surprise.
“I am happy to see you, Mr. Harlow,” he said—and he told the truth. “I have just come from an interview with your employers.”
“Ah!”
“And they are not happy.”
“No?”
“No, they are not. Mr. Harlow, I know the whole story; it will appear in the Times in the morning.”
Caius Marcellus Harlow bent upon him a curious look; it was not anger nor even disappointment; there was in it a trace of admiration.
“Mr. Guthrie,” he said, “you win,” and bowing he passed on toward the office of Purvis & Eaton.
Guthrie walked slowly to his hotel. Once he glanced back, and saw following him at a little distance the messenger who had shown him into the private office of Purvis & Eaton. But he did not care.
At the hotel, he sent to Jimmy Warfield once more the inquiry “how are things?” and back came the old answer, “Status quo.” Then he sent to Warfield another despatch: “Have everything; see Times in the morning,” and after that he wired to his home office this bulletin: “Full details of conspiracy against Carton; ten thousand words to-night; pay no attention to despatches from Purvis & Eaton. Absolutely sure of facts.” Then he went to his room, cleared his table, and began to write.
There were ten thousand words to write, but Guthrie knew exactly what he wanted to say, and the sentences flowed from his pen. Although he had not the shadow of a doubt as to the object of Purvis & Eaton, he would not charge them directly with selling out, but the fact that the scheme was born in their office—and of that he had plenty of proof—left an implication so clear that the public could never mistake it. The people, not the Times, would say that the purpose of Purvis & Eaton was to sell out, and Guthrie knew that no number of denials could shake a belief obviously so well-founded. As for the threat of a great libel suit, he had not the slightest fear of it; he knew that it would never go further than a menace.
He found the writing easy; the facts marshalled themselves in order, and he felt so deeply about Carton that he drew in vivid lines the picture of a faithful public servant whom designing people sought to ruin because they could not shake his policy.
He had been writing two hours when there came a knock at the door, and Guthrie, without laying down his pencil, called “Come in!” The door was opened, and Mr. Warren and Mr. Harlow entered. Both were suave and smiling though not overdoing it, and they sat down as guests who, if they were not expected, were at least not unwelcome.
“Writing I see,” said Mr. Harlow lightly as if he were passing the time of day.
“Yes,” replied Guthrie briefly, “the account of which I told Mr. Warren this morning.”
“I have a little to add to our conversation then,” said Mr. Warren; “I did not wish to speak of it before my partners, who, I tell you in confidence, are absorbed in issues, leaving details to me.”
Guthrie put down his pencil, and gazed intently at Mr. Warren, who flushed and paused a few moments. “We are entirely innocent in this matter,” continued the junior partner presently, “but an article such as you are writing may do us a great deal of harm. A libel once disseminated can never be thoroughly corrected. We also recognise the fact that, even with a just cause, it is practically impossible for us to obtain a verdict against the Times, before a partisan jury devoted to home interests and influenced against foreign corporations by the public prints.”
“Well?” said Guthrie, inquiringly.
Mr. Warren hesitated again, the tint in his cheeks deepened, and he glanced at his ally, Mr. Harlow.
“I merely wish to tell you,” he said, “that, in a vault in a safe deposit company not more than a quarter of a mile from here, there is a sealed envelope containing the sum of fifty thousand dollars. The key to that vault could be left—”
Guthrie rose at once, his face quite gray.
“Mr. Warren,” he exclaimed, “leave my room at once! And as for you, Mr. Harlow, I am astonished that you should have come here with this man on such an errand.”
Mr. Harlow never flinched.
“Mr. Guthrie,” he said quietly, “a statement is due both to you and to myself. Knowing you as I do, I opposed this visit and its purpose, but Mr. Warren is my employer. He wished to take this last chance because we should have had a vote to-morrow, and the impeachment of Carton would have passed the Senate by a majority of two. That I know positively, and, after it, our bill would have passed with a rush. Good day.”
“Good day,” said Guthrie as they went out. Then he resumed his writing.