Jack and the Check Book
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"If you'll tell me whether the San Francisco, Omaha & Mott Haven is going to buy the K., T. & W. or not, Colonel," the man had said, "I can make a million or two."
"Of course you could, Jim," said the Colonel, "but I can't tell you now what will be done in that matter. I don't know myself whether we'll buy K., T. & W. or build our own connecting line. We haven't decided. If we do buy, the stock will go jumping up ten, twenty, thirty points at a time. If we don't, the bottom will drop out of it. It's the turn of a hand which way that cat will jump, but I'll do this for you: As soon as I do know I'll give you twenty-four hours' start with the inside information. We have a secret meeting to-morrow at my office to discuss the matter, and when we come to a definite understanding I'll give you the tip. What I can tell you now is that the new line into Buffalo is going to run through Rocky Corners, and anybody who gets hold of old Hiram Bumpus's farm up there under a hundred thousand will clear half a million without getting out of bed."
"Why don't you go in and buy it yourself?" demanded the other.
"Because I'm not wasting my gray matter on piking little half-million-dollar deals, that's why," retorted Midas, with a glance of scorn at his guest.
Bursting with this valuable information, Jack immediately left the Opera House and dispatched a rush telegram to Hiram Bumpus at Rocky Corners offering him fifty thousand dollars for his farm.
The answer came back the next morning:
Price of farm seventy-five thousand, cash. No checks taken.
Hiram Bumpus.To which Jack immediately replied: "Price satisfactory. Will arrive Thursday with money."
This done, our hero proceeded to camp on the front doorstep of Colonel Midas, and when that distinguished financier appeared to take his motor down to his office Jack, still wearing his invisible cloak, climbed in alongside of him, and hardly daring to breathe lest he should betray his presence in the car, rode down to the offices of the Midas Trust Company with the magnate himself. Here Midas descended from the car, and Jack, close upon his heels, followed him into that holy of financial holies, the private office.
"Any word from Rockernegie?" asked the Colonel of his secretary, as he seated himself at his desk, Jack meanwhile having perched himself on the mantelpiece.
"Here at ten," returned the secretary, laconically. They did not even waste breath in that office.
"Moneypenny?"
"Wires, here ten-fifteen."
"Asterbilt?"
"Yachting. Mediterranean. Leaves all to you."
"Good!" said Midas. "When they come show them in, and I'm out to everybody else."
And then it was that Jack had his first glimpse of really great men in action. By ten-thirty all the magnates of finance, with the exception of Mr. Asterbilt, were on hand, and the secret meeting of the rulers of the San Francisco, Omaha & Mott Haven Transcontinental Railway System was on. They came down to business without any preliminaries.
"Is it buy or build?" asked Midas.
"Buy," said Rockernegie.
"Build," said Moneypenny.
"All right – we buy," said Midas.
"It's a hold-up," said Moneypenny. "K., T. & W. was built for no other purpose."
"Perfectly true," said Midas. "Therefore, instead of announcing that we shall buy, thus sending the price up till it bumps against the Dipper, let us announce that we have decided to build our own connecting line, and when K., T. & W. lands down around 1-7/8 we can go in and scoop it."
"Always right, Midas," said Rockernegie.
"I'll change my vote and make it unanimous," said Moneypenny, whereupon the Colonel passed the cigars and the meeting stood adjourned. It had taken seven minutes to settle a question involving millions upon millions of dollars, and for a moment Jack stood aghast, but for no longer than a moment, for the time for him to get busy had arrived. He was in possession of the most valuable secret on Wall Street, and it behooved him to begin operations. Passing hastily out of the office, he first paid a visit to the Urban National, where after an hour's hard work he succeeded in getting $300,000 out of the vaults, leaving on the cashier's desk, while he was out at lunch, as security for his loan, a sufficient amount of gilt-edged collateral, also taken from the vaults of the bank itself.
"It's all right," Jack wrote in his memorandum to the cashier. "I have a big transaction on hand which can't help win out, and I shall rejoice your heart by liquidating all my loans with you before spring. After all, my dear sir, all business must be done on confidence, and I assure you you can have plenty in me. I know myself through and through, and can testify to my absolute integrity. Meanwhile let me repeat that your money is the best I have ever used, and is received everywhere with real enthusiasm."
That night before he retired, operating through a dozen brokers' offices so as not to attract undue attention, Jack purchased five thousand shares of K., T. & W. at 20, paying for them in cash. The next morning on the announcement from Colonel Midas's office that the San Francisco, Omaha & Mott Haven road had decided not to take over the property, K., T. & W. fell off to 10, at which figure, after a hurried visit to the bank, Jack acquired ten thousand more shares. At the end of the week K., T. & W. had slumped to 3-1/8, whereat Jack pyramided by taking over twenty thousand more, all paid for in cash, having meanwhile sent his lawyer to Rocky Corners with seventy-five thousand dollars to close his real-estate deal with Hiram Bumpus.
In the brief period of ten days the unfortunate tenant of the freezing apartment at the Redmere had become the owner of fifty thousand shares of K., T. & W., as well as the proprietor of a thirty-thousand-acre farm through which a new line of railway was sure to pass.
So the campaign went on over the Christmas season. Jack, by following close on the heels of Midas or Moneypenny, it mattered little which, secured inside information as to every deal of magnitude on Wall Street whole days, and even weeks, before anybody else knew about it; and having the resources of the Urban National to draw upon at need, he was never at a loss how to finance himself. January came, and just as it seemed as if K., T. & W. was about to be wiped out of existence came the report that the property had been acquired by the San Francisco, Omaha & Mott Haven crowd, and that its stock had been put on an eight-per-cent. guaranteed-dividend basis. The quotation immediately began to soar. K., T. & W. began to jump like a kangaroo. First it leaped to 30, then to 68. On the tenth of January it opened at 128-7/8, and closed at 150, where it stuck. For a time Jack waited for a further rise, but it failed to come, and in February he sold one hundred and twenty thousand shares, which had cost him on an average of $7 a share, for $150 a share, realizing a profit of $17,160,000. Reference to his books showed that he had drawn on the Urban National for a trifle over $1,250,000, which sum he now started to return in the same laborious fashion in which it had been acquired. Every day for a period of ten days the lad would put on his invisible cloak, and at the cashier's lunch-hour would walk into his office and deposit a great bundle of currency on his desk. Once he found that gentleman, and the president of the bank as well, awaiting him, but it made no difference. Secure in the concealment of his marvellous cloak, Jack stood in the doorway and tossed the package of bills into the room, hitting the astonished president of the bank himself squarely in the stomach with it.
In this way complete restitution with interest was made, and on the first of February Jack found himself clear of all obligations, with a comfortable fortune of over $15,000,000 on his hands, which made any further involuntary loans on the bank's part unnecessary; but what was even better than this, the meteoric successes of the young millionaire upon the Street brought him such renown that it was not long before the powers began to take notice.
"That young man," said Colonel Midas, after watching him for a little while, "is the most singularly astute person I ever met. I don't wish to be vulgar, but he has been the nigger in every woodpile I have tackled for six months. He knows what I am going to do almost as quick as I do. We'll have to take him in the firm."
"He has a singularly keen premonition as to values," observed Mr. Rockernegie. "I've half a mind to start a trust company and make him president."
As for Mr. Moneypenny, after a year's experience at finding Jack at the bottom of pretty nearly every scheme he went into, he made the following observation to his daughter, as he pointed Jack out to her at the opera – in his own box now – one night.
"That young man in the third box on the left, my dear, is young Mr. Jack Hardluck. He's so keen that I don't even dare think what I'm going to do for fear he'll find it out!"
"If that's the case, papa," said Miss Moneypenny, blushing, "the best thing to do is to take him into the family. Don't you think you'd better – "
The girl hung her head shyly.
"Better what, my dear?" asked the old billionaire, kindly.
"Give him to me for a Christmas present?" she answered. "I think I could get to like him very, very much."
And, indeed, that is how it came to be that in due course of time the young financier became the son-in-law of one of the financial powers of the world.
As for the invisible cloak, Jack wears it now only to travel incog., which for a multi-millionaire is sometimes convenient.
Incidentally and in conclusion, let me add that Mike Brannigan, once the janitor of the Redmere, is now the owner of that handsome apartment-house, having received the title-deeds through the mails from some anonymous benefactor.
"Who the divvle sint it, I dinnaw!" he said. "Nor what for he done it, nayther. I ain't never done nothin' to injure nobody!"
VI
THE RETURN OF ALADDIN
Night had fallen over the city, but the work in the little tailor shop on the Bowery still went on. The toiling widow of Mustafa, the incorporated valet of the Bachelors' Aid Society, who had died the winter before, leaving his family with nothing but a few debts and his ironing-board, was wearily struggling with the last batch of undarned socks received that morning from the association. She sighed deeply as she labored, for her fingers were sore with many stitches.
"Heigho!" she murmured, sadly. "Why don't these bachelors get married and have this sort of thing done at home, I wonder? This is the ten-thousandth sock I have darned since Christmas, and as for the suspender buttons, the good Lord only knows how many of those I have sewed on. There ought to be a law compelling men to marry on penalty of having to do their own mending."
Poor woman! In the weariness of her spirit she little dreamed that she was growing petulant with her bread and butter. Suddenly she heard the door of the little shop without open, and her son Aladdin entered, a great, buoyant lad of twenty, cheerful of spirit and a good deal of a giant physically.
"Well, Worthless," she said, with an affectionate glance into his fine eyes, "where have you been all day?"
"Looking for work, mother, as usual," said the young man, throwing a small package on the table. "And you?"
"The same old drudgery, dear," she replied, with a sigh. "Did you have any luck?"
"No, mother dear, not a bit," replied Aladdin.
"Do you mean to tell me that in all this great city there is no work of any kind that a hale, hearty, hungry boy like you can get to do?" she demanded.
"Plenty of it, mother," replied the boy; "plenty of it, but nothing in my special line. Lots of snow-shovelling jobs and a position as guard on the Subway were offered me, but I cannot demean myself by taking anything of that sort, Mummsy dear. Father in the last days of his life spent too many hours teaching me how to raise mushrooms under glass for me to dishonor his memory by undertaking labor that is beneath that in artistic quality, and just at present I cannot find anybody in all this city who wants a helper in mushroom culture."
"Then we shall have to go supperless to bed," sighed the poor woman. "Not a penny in the house and the pantry bare. Oh, Aladdin, Aladdin, why will you not give up this false pride of yours and get some kind of a job that will at least feed yourself and help me pay the rent?"
The boy was silent. He had had this same argument with his mother time and time and again, and he was quite aware of the futility of speech in trying to overcome her objections to what she termed his incorrigible idleness.
"What have you in the package?" the woman asked, after a prolonged silence.
"I don't know," replied Aladdin. "I picked it up outside the stage-door of the Helicon Theatre. I saw it lying in the snow and I brought it along with me. It is probably some kind of a make-up box belonging to one of the performers. If there is any reward offered in any of the morning papers for its return, maybe I shall earn a few honest pennies by taking it back to its owner."
His mother busied herself with the string, and in a moment it came untied and a small brass lamp rolled out of the brown-paper covering. It was very dirty and much battered.
"Humph!" said she, scornfully, gazing at the homely little object. "I don't think anybody will be foolish enough to offer a reward for a trumpery little thing like that."
"Ah, well," said Aladdin, gazing out of the shop window at the scurrying crowds on the sidewalk, "it might be worse, Mummsy dear. We at least have a roof over our heads this night, which is more than some of those poor wretches have, and unless I am very much mistaken this storm that is upon us is going to be a blizzard."
In very truth a blizzard had descended upon the city. All the transportation lines were blocked, and over on Broadway all traffic had been tied up for hours. Thanks to the elevated-railway structure, this portion of the Bowery still remained passable. Even this was momentarily piling higher and higher with the snow, and the wind was in one of its most violently rampageous moods.
"How would you feel if your little Aladdin had a job as a chauffeur on a night like this?" the lad went on.
The poor woman shuddered and was about to reply, when a terrific crash from without drove all thought of words from her mind. Hastily running to the window, she, too, peered out into the street for a moment over Aladdin's shoulder, but only for a moment, for in an instant the boy was up and making for the door of the little tailor shop. A heavy limousine car lay overturned upon its side upon the walk, its wheels having skidded on the slippery, snow-covered pavement, and striking the curb, toppled completely over. Aladdin, with the agility of a small monkey, soon mounted to the upper side of the overturned vehicle, and, opening the door, had assisted a beautifully arrayed young woman, possibly a year or two younger than himself, from within, and after her, fuming and condemning his luck and the world in general, a gray-haired and apparently irascible old gentleman.
"Mother!" cried Aladdin, as the girl fainted in his arms, "come quickly. The young lady has fainted."
The good woman needed no second bidding. She hastened to his side, and the limp form of the young girl was carried in her strong, motherly arms into the little back room behind the tailor shop, which formed their only home. Shortly afterward the old gentleman came also, ushered in by Aladdin.
"She is safe?" cried he, with an anxious glance at the prostrate form of his daughter.
"Perfectly so, sir," replied Aladdin's mother. "She has only fainted. Won't you sit down, sir?" she added. "You look a little shaken up yourself."
"Thank you," said the old gentleman, gazing around the room vainly in search of a chair. "Ah – what shall I sit down on, madam?"
"Try the stove, sir," laughed Aladdin. "It may warm it up a bit."
The old man gazed frowningly at the boy, not relishing such levity at so serious a moment, and Aladdin, slightly embarrassed by his own frivolity, tried to cover his confusion by seizing the lamp that had fallen from the package, and polishing its highly oxidized surface by rubbing it on the patched knee of his trousers. And then a strange thing came to pass. At the moment of the first attrition between his knee and the little brass lamp the room seemed to fill with a gray mist and in its gathering depths Aladdin perceived the huge figure of a blackamoor gradually taking shape.
"What the dickens!" muttered the lad to himself as the strange apparition rose up before him, rubbing his eyes to make sure that he saw clearly. "What do you want?" he added, springing to his feet as the genie approached him.
"I have come in response to your summons," replied the blackamoor. "Give your orders, sir!"
Aladdin grinned broadly at this. The idea of his ever giving orders to anybody seemed so very absurd. Nevertheless, he fell in with the spirit of the hour.
"All right, Sambo," he returned. "Get this gentleman a chair. There may be an extra one up-stairs in the music-room."
The blackamoor disappeared for an instant and shortly returned bringing with him the desired piece of furniture.
"Thank you," said the old gentleman, as he took his seat with an uneasy glance around him. The situation was not altogether without alarming features. As for Aladdin, you could have knocked him over with a palm-leaf fan, so astonished was he at this unusual development.
"I wish I'd asked for something to eat," he muttered to himself.
"So do I," observed the old gentleman. "I'd give five hundred dollars just now for a boiled egg."
"You ought to get one studded with diamonds at that price," laughed Aladdin, and then just for a joke he turned to the blackamoor. "Get this gentleman five hundred dollars' worth of boiled eggs, Sambo," he said.
"Hard or soft, sir?" asked the genie.
"Three minutes," said the old gentleman.
Sambo made a low salaam to Aladdin, and departing, he returned four minutes later followed by seven other blackamoors just like him, each carrying a large wicker hamper on his shoulders. These they deposited in various parts of the room, and, gravely opening them, disclosed to the astounded gaze of Aladdin and his unknown guest hundreds of eggs, steaming as though freshly taken from the pot.
"This is a half-portion, sir," said Sambo, addressing Aladdin. "We will return with the remainder in a minute, sir."
"Just wait a second," said Aladdin, scratching his head in bewilderment at the sight of so many eggs obtained with such ease. "It may be that these will be enough for the time being. I'll ask the old chap. Excuse me, Mr. – er – Mr. – er, I didn't catch your name, sir."
"I am Major Bondifeller, president of the United Mints of North America," replied the old gentleman. "A person not to be trifled with, young man, as you probably know very well."
Aladdin gasped, as well he might. Here was old Rufus Bondifeller, reputed to be the richest man in the world, a guest in his mother's fast-failing little remnant of a tailor shop.
"Gud-glad to mum-meet you, sir," stammered Aladdin. "Do you think there's enough eggs here to satisfy your hunger? There appears to be two hundred and fifty dollars' worth here now, but if you wish the rest served immediately – "
"Great heavens, no!" roared Bondifeller. "When I said I'd give five hundred dollars for a boiled egg I was merely speaking figuratively. A rich man can't eat any more boiled eggs at a sitting than a poor man; fact is, half the time he can't eat as many without a bad attack of angina pectoris."
"All right," said Aladdin, resolved to carry off the extraordinary situation with an outward nonchalance, in spite of the inner turmoil that kept his brain whirling. "You needn't bother about the rest of those eggs now, Sambo. Major Bondifeller can get along on these."
The blackamoor and his companions disappeared even as they had come, apparently irrespective of doorways, and utterly regardless of walls. They seemed merely to melt through whatever solid substances there might be between themselves and annihilation. As for Major Bondifeller, as he observed these strange developments, his face grew set and rigid. He eyed every movement of the blackamoors with uneasy attention until they had vanished from sight, and then his flashing eye was riveted upon Aladdin. Finally he spoke, sharply and to the point.
"Well," he snapped, "how much?"
Aladdin started. The icy tone of the speaker's voice chilled him, and it was so peremptory that he felt for the moment as if he had been stung by the lash.
"How much what?" he said, finally, summoning up all his courage to face the apparently angry millionaire.
"Don't try to evade the point," retorted the Major, coldly. "Let's get through with the business as quickly as we can. It is plain as a pikestaff to anybody having half an eye that, taking advantage of our mishap, you have lured my daughter and myself in here for your own profit. No man keeps such a villainous-looking gang of niggers on hand with an honest purpose. So what are your demands?"
Aladdin laughed in spite of his disturbed frame of mind at the Major's suspicions. It was such an absurd idea that he could be at the head of a badger-gang, and yet, after all, he could not deny a certain sort of reasonableness in the notion from Major Bondifeller's point of view. Again taking the lamp casually in his hand, more as an outlet for his embarrassment than for any other reason, he gave it a second rub and started to answer the Major's question, but, as before, the mist again appeared, and from its musty depths the blackamoor took shape and salaamed before him.
"Well, what is it now, Sambo?" demanded Aladdin, frowning at the intruder.
"Your orders, sir," said the blackamoor. "You rubbed the lamp, I believe?"
Aladdin's heart leaped into his mouth. He had rubbed the lamp twice, and twice had it brought him aid! Surely, there must be some magic about this.
"What if I did rub the lamp?" he queried, in a tremulous voice. "What's that got to do with you?"
"I and my comrades are slaves of the lamp, as your Highness very well knows," replied the blackamoor. "Whatever your commands, the United Order of Amalgamated Genii must obey."
"Hooray!" cried Aladdin, dancing a wild fandango about the room. "Who wants the handsome waiter?"
As the full import of his new-found treasure dawned upon his mind, the lad's ecstasy bade fair to surpass all bounds, but the chilling voice of Bondifeller served to calm his effervescing spirit.
"I want nothing but your proposition, so that I may get out of this den as speedily as possible," he was saying. "I am not a man to beat about the bush, and I realize that you have got me. What is it you demand?"
"First and foremost, civility," said Aladdin, boldly, a sense of his own power sweeping over him and giving him confidence. "I guess you'll find that harder to negotiate than a check for a considerable sum, Major Bondifeller, cash being a commoner commodity with you than civility. Now, as a matter of fact, sir," the lad went on, "I had your daughter carried in here out of that raging blizzard so that my mother could give her the attention she needed. You I brought in also with no more knowledge of who you were, and with no more idea of financially profiting by your accident, than if you had been one of those unfortunate tramps out on the Bowery there. But now that you have put the idea in my mind that, perhaps, after all, nobody ever does anything unselfishly in this world, I will make certain demands of you. To begin with, you may pay me two hundred and fifty dollars for those eggs, and as a mere act of ordinary generosity, you may tip the handsome waiter fifty dollars. I understand, too, sir, that you are the proprietor of these ten city blocks in which I and about twenty thousand of my neighbors are housed?"
"I believe I do own considerable property hereabouts," said the millionaire, sullenly, "though I can't say offhand whether I do or not. My agents look after my smaller investments."
"Well," said Aladdin, "it don't make any difference to me whether you remember what you own or not. The results so far as you are concerned will be the same. You will have these ten blocks of houses torn down and replaced by model tenements, turning the alternate blocks into city parks for the children to play in."