The Adventures of Mr. Clackworthy. Christopher B. Booth
of the big living room, smiled. Tilting back in his chair, he lighted one of his expensive cigars, and waited for the outraged monologue which he knew was to follow. It was given without invitation.
“Eighteen seeds for these kicks yesterday—and look at ’em!” exploded James Early. “Cast an eye on ’em; look like they’d been in a battle royal with a couple of hayrakes. You’d think I’d been tryin’ to kick down th’ door of th’ sub-treasury.”
“Let me try my hand at deduction, James,” chuckled Mr. Clackworthy. “My first guess would be that you have ridden home on a surface car during the rush hour.”
“Yeah,” agreed The Early Bird sourly, “all th’ strap-hangers must wear iron cleats on their gunboats; a sardine can is a forty-acre field alongside them street snails.”
Mr. Clackworthy nodded gravely.
“Sit down, James. You will be pleased to know that we are about to capitalize the city’s transportation shortcomings.”
The Early Bird’s gloom disappeared in the sunshine of a spacious smile, as he realized that the master confidence man had designs upon some improperly chaperoned bank account; that they were about to plunge into the exciting whirl of another of Mr. Clackworthy’s delectable adventures.
“Maybe I don’t getcha, but th’ old bean gets th’ notion that you’re gonna grab some coin from th’ sandbag artists what makes th’ long sufferin’ public dig down for eight Lincolns for th’ priv’lege of havin’ their shoes massaged by their fellow passengers. Do I go to th’ head of th’ class?”
“I regret to say that you have guessed wrong, James. Nothing would, I assure you, give me more undiluted pleasure than to coat my fingers with glue, and dip them into the treasure chest of the so-called street-car barons. Possibly we may at some future time devise ways and means of realizing that laudable ambition, but at present no plan presents itself.”
The Early Bird sighed regretfully and again gazed sadly at his mutilated shoes.
“It’s cheaper to ride in taxicabs,” he mourned. Mr. Clackworthy reproved him with a glance; he liked undivided attention when he was about to outline one of his schemes.
“Speak th’ piece, boss; don’t you see my ears quiverin’?” apologized The Early Bird.
“James, I do not believe that any one will deny that the city’s transportation is wholly inadequate. The surface and elevated lines themselves admit it; the population has grown beyond them. High costs of construction preclude any plans of extension, because the banks refuse to accept present inflated values as a fair basis.”
“Shoot lower,” pleaded The Early Bird. “You are three syllables beyond my range.”
“There has been considerable agitation for a subway,” pursued Mr. Clackworthy, “but a ‘tube’ is expensive even in normal times; and now, with labor and material costs sky-high, no popular-priced fare would permit a subway company to pay the interest on its bonds. The subway plan has been rejected as financially unfeasible.”
“You mean th’ nickel-grabbers couldn’t drag in enough jack t’ keep th’ subway out of hock?” paraphrased The Early Bird.
“Precisely, James. The popular demand, as you know, is for a five-cent fare. The city administration has been struggling with all sorts of schemes, municipal ownership being most prominently mentioned, to keep the fare within a nickel.
“Several months ago, you may recall, there was considerable publicity given to the proposed monotrack system which is used in some of the European cities.”
“I gotcha,” agreed The Early Bird. “I seen th’ pictures in th’ papers. A car hangin’ up in th’ air on a wire rope—sort of reminded me of th’ stunt we used to play when I was a kid in Allen’s Alley. We used to give th’ cat a ride by slidin’ a basket along ma’s clothesline.”
Mr. Clackworthy chuckled.
“A bit like that, perhaps, James,” he admitted. “But to get to the point, the strong feature of the monotrack system was the small cost of construction. The single track would be suspended by the support of an iron framework, the power being supplied by the third-rail system. It would mean much less expense in securing right of way, as much less space would be needed. The heavy roadbed required by the elevated would be unnecessary, and the streets would not be darkened by overhead track structure, simply iron posts at the curbing to support the overhanging rail.”
“Why don’t they go ahead and build it?” demanded The Early Bird. “With shoes costing eighteen beanos and—”
“The city administration was much in favor of the plan, and even went so far as to grant a franchise to the Monotrack Transit Company,” interrupted Mr. Clackworthy. “The company was incorporated for two hundred thousand dollars—just for preliminary organization, you know, and its prospects were so bright that the stock sold for par, and went quite readily, too.
“But you can’t float a company on optimism and a franchise, James; when the big bankers turned down the scheme, the price of Monotrack tumbled to ten dollars a share and no takers.
“James, I propose that you and I revive poor, dying Monotrack, as it lies at the door of the stock market, gasping its last.”
The Early Bird’s eyes bulged.
“Great Goshen!” he exclaimed. “You mean your gonna build a car line!”
“How you do jump at conclusions, James. I didn’t say that I intended to build a monotrack system—I am merely going to revive the stock.”
“I getcha,” grinned The Early Bird. “You ain’t gonna build it, you’re just gonna make some of these rich birds think you’re gonna build it.”
“Yes, that’s what I propose to have them think—about one hundred thousand dollars worth,” said Mr. Clackworthy.
II.
Mrs. Clara Cartwright was a sweet but not nearly so trusting a woman as she had been six months before. The reason for her recently developed skepticism regarding the sincerity of mankind reposed carelessly in a bureau drawer of her modest home. Four highly engraved and very prosperous looking stock certificates showed her to be the possessor of two thousand shares of stock in the Monotrack Transit Company.
She had come into possession of this stock upon the payment of sixty thousand dollars in cash, which was every cent that her deeply lamented husband had left her through the medium of a life insurance policy, to smooth the rocky road of otherwise impoverished widowhood. She had purchased the stock upon the advice of Cyrus Prindivale, president of the Suburban Trust Company, who had been her husband’s banker and who, naturally enough, became her trusted business adviser.
Cyrus Prindivale was a moneymaker, attesting to the soundness of his business judgment; but, the vital point which Mrs. Cartwright overlooked was that Mr. Prindivale was quite in the habit of counting his gain, while some one else was tabulating corresponding loss. The suburban banker, to be extremely charitable, was not governed by any exalted rules of ethics, and, except for the rich cloak of respectability that he had wrapped about him, one might have been tempted to charge, in the plainest of words, that he was a crook. Other bankers and business men were accustomed to scrutinize carefully the commas, semicolons, and periods of all papers and documents which involved them in any sort of transaction with Mr. Prindivale.
The financial genius of the somewhat fashionable suburb had been one of the prime movers in the organization of the Monotrack Transit Company. As new corporations are allowed twenty percent of their capital for the floating of their stock and organization purposes, Mr. Prindivale had purchased two thousand shares at a generous discount. It had, in fact, cost him only twenty dollars per share, while others not in on the ground floor, were forced to write their checks for its par value of a hundred dollars.
For a time Mr. Prindivale shared the optimism of the scheme’s other promoters, that Monotrack was going to be a bonanza,