The Deluge. David Graham Phillips
He knew how to get, without sweat or snatching, all the good there was in whatever fate threw in his way—and he was one of those men into whose way fate seems to strive to put everything worth having. His business judgment was shrewd, but he cared nothing for the big game he was playing except as a game. Like myself, he was simply a sportsman—and, I think, that is why we liked each other. He could have trusted almost any one that came into contact with him; but he trusted nobody, and frankly warned every one not to trust him—a safe frankness, for his charm caused it to be forgotten or ignored. He would do anything to gain an object, however trivial, which chanced to attract him; once it was his, he would throw it aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting collar.
His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical amusement, as if he were saying to himself: “Our friend Blacklock has caught the swollen head at last.” Not a suggestion of ill humor, of resentment at my impertinence—for, in the circumstances, I had been guilty of an impertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty of a friend. “I see,” said he, “that you have got Textile up to eighty-five.”
He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by his brother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following his brother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for his share in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push Textile up toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand shares—he, of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits and Textile had dropped back to its normal fifty.
“I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month,” said I. “And there I think we'd better stop.”
“Stop at about ninety,” said he. “That will give me all I find I'll need for this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up an investment.”
I shook my head. “I must put it up to within a point or two of par,” I declared. “In my public letter I've been saying it would go above ninety-five, and I never deceive my public.”
He smiled—my notion of honesty always amused him. “As you please,” he said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look—just a fleeting flash of warning—behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: “Be careful about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher.”
It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making the impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: “Something doing? Something new?”
But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. So he replied: “Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays.”
My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I now said: “Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own account?”
“Yes,” he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning came to me only when it was too late. “I think, Blacklock, you'd better turn them over to me.”
“I can't,” I answered. “I gave my word.”
“As you please,” said he.
Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty minutes or so, he drifted away. “I envy you your enthusiasm,” he said, pausing in my doorway. “Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else. Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?”
He didn't wait for a reply.
I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching, searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me—what the lack was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful, had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terraced pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped my thigh. “A woman!” I exclaimed. “That's what I need. A woman—the right sort of woman—a wife!”
IV. A CANDIDATE FOR “RESPECTABILITY”
To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position to look the whole field over. I must get in line and in touch with “respectability.” When Sam Ellersly came in for his “rations,” I said: “Sam, I want you to put me up at the Travelers Club.”
“The Travelers!” echoed he, with a blank look.
“The Travelers,” said I. “It's about the best of the big clubs, isn't it? And it has as members most of the men I do business with and most of those I want to get into touch with.”
He laughed. “It can't be done.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Oh—I don't know. You see—the fact is—well, they're a lot of old fogies up there. You don't want to bother with that push, Matt. Take my advice. Do business with them, but avoid them socially.”
“I want to go in there,” I insisted. “I have my own reasons. You put me up.”
“I tell you, it'd be no use,” he replied, in a tone that implied he wished to hear no more of the matter.
“You put me up,” I repeated. “And if you do your best, I'll get in all right. I've got lots of friends there. And you've got three relatives in the committee on membership.”
At this he gave me a queer, sharp glance—a little fright in it.
I laughed. “You see, I've been looking into it, Sam. I never take a jump till I've measured it.”
“You'd better wait a few years, until—” he began, then stopped and turned red.
“Until what?” said I. “I want you to speak frankly.”
“Well, you've got a lot of enemies—a lot of fellows who've lost money in deals you've engineered. And they'd say all sorts of things.”
“I'll take care of that,” said I, quite easy in mind. “Mowbray Langdon's president, isn't he? Well, he's my closest friend.” I spoke quite honestly. It shows how simple-minded I was in certain ways that I had never once noted the important circumstance that this “closest friend” had never invited me to his house, or anywhere where I'd meet his up-town associates at introducing distance.
Sam looked surprised. “Oh, in that case,” he said, “I'll see what can be done.” But his tone was not quite cordial enough to satisfy me.
To stimulate him and to give him an earnest of what I intended to do for him, when our little social deal had been put through, I showed him how he could win ten thousand dollars in the next three days. “And you needn't bother about putting up margins,” said I, as I often had before. “I'll take care of that.”
He stammered a refusal and went out; but he came back within an hour, and, in a strained sort of way, accepted my tip and my offer.
“That's sensible,” said I. “When will you attend to the matter at the Travelers? I want to be warned so I can pull my own set of wires in concert.”
“I'll let you know,” he answered, hanging his head.
I didn't understand his queer actions then. Though I was an expert in finance, I hadn't yet made a study of that other game—the game of “gentleman.” And I didn't know how seriously the frauds and fakirs who play it take it and themselves. I attributed his confusion to a ridiculous mock modesty he had about accepting favors; it struck me as being particularly silly on this occasion, because for once he was to give as well as to take.
He