Chapter 15

“It's astonishing what high and lofty ideas some stockholders have about properties they're interested in. In financial matters the poorest conclusion a man can draw is that a stock will always continue to pay dividends simply because it always has done so. I had to set off a pretty loud firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates. Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value notions.” Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. “I don't want to praise my own humble efforts too much,” he went on, “but I truly believe that inside another thirty days the Sound crowd would have been ready to cash in at fifty, in spite of that minority bunch that was hollering for par. That was only a big yawp from a few folks.”

“Fifty was a fair price in view of what's ahead in the way of competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our boys around with the check.”

Mr. Fogg beamed. He used his purple handkerchief on his cheeks once more. He allowed to himself a few words of praise: “They'll understand some day that I saved 'em from a bigger bump. But it's hard to show some people.”

“Now, Mr. Fogg, we come to the matter of the Vose line. What's the outlook?”

Mr. Fogg looked sad. “After weeks of chasing 'em, I can only say that they're ugly and stubborn, simply blind to their best interests.”

“Insist on par, do they?”

“Worse than that. Old Vose and his sons and those old hornbeam directors--retired sea-captains, you know, as hard as old turtles--they have taken a stand against consolidation. They belong in the dark ages of business. Old Vose had the impudence to tell me that forming this steamboat combine was a crime, and that he wouldn't be a party to a betrayal of the public. He won't come in; he won't sell; he's going to compete.”

Mr. Marston stroked his strip of beard. “In order for our stock to be what we intend it to be, the Paramount Coast Transportation has got to operate as a complete monopoly, as you understand, Mr. Fogg. A beneficent monopoly--consolidation benefiting all--but nevertheless a monopoly. With one line holding out on us, we've got only a limping proposition.”

“Exactly!”

“What are we going to do about the Vose line?”

“Let it compete, sir. We can kill it in the end.”

“Possibly--probably. But that plan will not serve, Mr. Fogg.”

“It's business.”

“But it is not finance. I'm looking at this proposition solely as a financier, Mr. Fogg. I hardly know one end of a steamboat from the other. I'm not interested in rate-cutting problems. I don't know how long it would take to put the Vose line under. But I do know this, as a financier, handling a big deal, that the Paramount stock will not appeal to investors or the bonds to banks unless we can launch our project as a clean, perfect combination, every transportation charter locked up. I handle money, and I know all of money's timidity and all of money's courage. You think the Vose directors are able to hold their stockholders in line, do you?”

Mr. Fogg uncrossed his legs, put both feet on the floor, hooked his hands across his paunch, and gazed up at the ceiling, evidently pondering profoundly.

“I repeat, I'm not viewing this thing as a steamboating proposition, not figuring what kind of tariffs will kill competition,” stated Mr. Marston. “I'm not estimating what kind of tariffs will make a profit for the Paramount. I'd as soon sell sugar over the counter. My associates expect me to make money for them in another way--make it in big lumps and on a quick turn. The Vose line, competing, kills us from the financial viewpoint.”

“Exactly.”

There was silence in the room for some time.

“There's never any telling what stockholders will do,” remarked Mr. Fogg, his eyes still studying the panels of the ceiling.

Mr. Marston did not dispute that dictum.

His field-marshal slowly tipped down his head and gave his superior another of those bland stares.

“So I'll go right ahead and see what they'll do, sir.”

He rose and kicked the legs of his trousers into place.

“You understand that in this affair, as in all matters where you have been employed, there must be absolutely clean work. There must be no come-back. Of course, I have instructed you to this effect regularly, but I wish to have you remember that I have repeated the instructions, sir.”

“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg's eyes did not blink.

“You will be prepared to testify to that effect in case the need ever arises.”

“Exactly!”

Mr. Fogg delivered that word like a countersign. Into it, in his interviews with Julius Marston, he put understanding, humility, promise.

“May we expect quick action?” asked the financier. “The thing mustn't hang fire. We have a lot of our nimble money tied up as it is.”

“Exactly!” returned Mr. Fogg, on his way to the door. “Quick action it is!”

“This is probably the craziest idea that ever popped into a man's head when that man was sitting in Julius Marston's office,” reflected Mr. Fogg, marching through the anteroom of this temple of finance. “There's one thing about it that's comforting--it's so wild-eyed it will never be blamed on to Julius Marston as any of his getting up. And that's his principal lookout when a deal is on. It seems to be up to me to deliver the goods.”

He sat down on a bench in the waiting-room and rubbed his knuckles over his forehead.

“Just let me get this thing right end to,” he told himself. “How did the idea happen to hit me, anyway? Oh, yes! Old Vose bragging to me that every stockholder in the Vose line was behind him, and that the annual meeting was about to come off, and then I would see what a condemned poor show I stood to get even the toe of my boot into the crack of the company door. He's a Maine corporation. I've known of cases where that fact helped a lot. There are plenty of ifs and buts in this thing, but here goes!”

He applied himself to one of the office telephones, asked for several numbers, one after the other, and put questions with eagerness and rapidity.

The information he received seemed to disturb him considerably. He came out of the booth and scrubbed his cheeks with his purple handkerchief.

“Their annual meeting at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, four hundred miles from here! Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful that it's not being held right now,” Mr. Fogg informed himself, determined to fan that one flicker of hope with both wings of his optimism. “But I've got to admit that twenty-four hours is almighty scant time for a job of this sort, even when the operator is the little Fogg boy himself. Damme, I haven't come to a full, realizing sense yet of all I've got to do and how I'm going to do it.”

He hurried out, dove into an elevator, and was shot down to the street.

He was lucky enough to find a taxi at the curb.

“Grand Central,” he told the driver. “I've got five dollars that says you can beat the Subway express and land me in season for the ten-o'clock limited for Boston.”

As soon as it became evident to Mr. Fogg that his driver had seen his duty and was going to do it, traffic squad be blowed, the promoter settled back, and his thoughts began to revolve faster than the taxi's wheels.

“It's going to be like the mining-camp 'lulu hand,'” was his mental preface to his plans. “It can be played only once in a sitting-in; it has got to be backed with good bluff, but it's a peach when it works. And what am I a promoter for? What have I studied foreign corporation laws for?”

Mr. Fogg took off his hat and mopped his bald spot, wrinkling his eyelids in deep reflection.

“The idea is,” he mused, “I'm a candidate for the presidency of the Vose line at to-morrow's meeting. But I haven't been elected yet!”

However, Mr. Fogg's preliminary sniffing at the affairs of the Vose line had informed him where he could pick up at least ten scattered shares of their stock. He figured that before midnight he would have them in his possession. As to the next day and the next steps, well, the nerve of a real American plunger clings to life until the sunset of all hopes, even as the snake's tail, though the serpent's head be bruised beyond repair, is supposed to wriggle until sunset.

He despatched a telegram at New Haven. He received a reply at Providence, and he read it and felt like a gambler who has drawn a card to fill his bobtail hand. When a design is brazen and the game is largely a bluff, plain, lucky chance must be appealed to.

The telegram had been addressed to Attorney Sawyer Franklin, in a Maine city. It had requested an appointment with Mr. Franklin on the following morning.

The reply had stated that Mr. Franklin was critically ill in a hospital, but that all matters of business would be attended to by his office force, as far as was possible.

Attorney Sawyer Franklin, as Mr. Fogg, of course, was fully aware, was clerk of the Vose line corporation, organized according to the Maine law as a “foreign corporation,” under the more liberal regulations which have attracted so many metropolitan promoters into the states of Maine and New Jersey.

XVIII ~ HOW AN ANNUAL MEETING WAS HELD--ONCE!

O, a ship she was rigged and ready for sea, And all of her sailors were fishes to be! Windy-y-weather, Stormy-y-weather! When the wind blows we're all together! --The Fishes.

Fletcher Fogg, suave, dignified, radiating business importance, freshened by a barber's ministrations, walked into the Franklin law-offices the next morning at nine-thirty.

He announced himself to a girl typist, and she referred him to a young man who came forth from a private room.

“I have power of attorney from Mr. Franklin to transact his routine business,” explained the young man. “Of course, if it's a new case or a question of law--”

“Neither, neither, my dear sir! Simply a matter of routine. But,” he leaned close to the young man's ear, “strictly private.”

Mr. Fogg himself closed the door of the inner office when the two had retired there.

“One of your matters to-day, I believe, is the annual meeting of the Vose line. I am a stockholder.”

Fogg produced a packet of certificates and laid them on the desk.

“Are there to be any officers or other stockholders present?” he asked, showing just a bit of solicitude, in spite of himself.

“I think not,” returned the young man. “Nothing has been said about it. The proxies and instructions have been sent in, as usual, by registered mail.” He indicated documents stacked on the desk. “I was just about to begin on the matter.”

“I suppose our proxies run to the clerk of the corporation, as usual, with full power of substitution, clerk to follow instructions,” said Mr. Fogg, a bit pompously, using his complete knowledge of corporation routine.

“Yes, sir. We handle most of the corporation meetings that way when it's all cut and dried. In this case, it's simply a re-election of the old officers.”

“Exactly!”

Mr. Fogg pulled his chair closer, dabbed his purple handkerchief on each side of his nose, and inquired, kindly and confidentially: “My son, what's your name?”

“David Boyne.”

“Law student here--secretary, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Exactly--and a long, hard pull ahead of you. It's too bad you're not in New York, where a young man doesn't have to travel the whole way around, but can cut a corner or two. I could give you a lot of examples of bright young chaps who have grabbed in when the grabbing was good.

“But I haven't the time. You take my word for it. I'm a plain, outspoken business man, and I'm in with the biggest financial interests in New York. And I'm going to offer you the grandest opportunity of your life right now, David.”

He picked up his certificates and arranged them in one hand, as a player arranges his cards.

“I have here ten shares, say, and each share is owned by a different individual--all good men. You don't know them, but I do. They are connected with our big interests. And I'm right here as a stockholder. Do you realize, David, that instructing you to hold this meeting without a single stockholder present is really asking you to do something that's not strictly legal?”

“We usually do it this way,” faltered Boyne.

“Exactly! Men like those who are running the Vose line are always asking an innocent man to do something illegal. I'm going to come right to the point with you, David. Those old moss-backs who have sent those instructions are trying to wreck the Vose line. I want you to disregard those instructions. I am anxious to be president and general manager of the line. I want you to elect as directors these stockholders.” He tapped his finger on the certificates.

The young man was both frightened and bewildered. He turned pale. “I can't do that,” he gasped.

“Yes, you can. There are the proxies. It's up to you to vote 'em as you want to. They allow full power of substitution, usual fashion!”

“But I can't disobey my instructions.”

“I say you can, if you've got grit enough to make a good thing for yourself.”

“Such a thing was never done here.”

“Probably not. It's a new idea. But new things are being done right along in high finance. You ought to be up where big things are happening every day. You stand in with me, and I'll put you there. You see, I'm getting right down to cases on this matter with you, David. Vote those proxies as I direct and I'll hand you five thousand dollars inside of two hours, and will plant you in a corking job with my people as soon as this thing calms down. I could have palavered a long time before coming to business in this way, but I see you're a bright young fellow and don't need a lot of hair-oil talk. I don't ask you to hurt anybody in especial. You can elect the old treasurer--we don't want to handle the money--this is no cheap brace game. But I want a board of directors who will put me in as general manager until certain reforms can be instituted so as to bring the line up to date. Five thousand dollars, mind you, and then you'll be taken care of.”

“But I'll be put into state prison.”

“Nonsense, my boy! Why would you vote those proxies according to your instructions? Why, because it would be for your interest to do so if I hadn't come in here with a better proposition. Now it's for your interest to vote 'em as I tell you. The most they can make out of it is a breach of trust, and that amounts to nothing. With five thousand dollars in your mitt, you wouldn't need to hang around here to take a lot of slurs. I'll slip you another thousand for your expenses on a little trip till the air is all clear.”

Boyne stared at this blunt and forceful tempter; his hand which clutched the chair-arms trembled; “I'm going to be still more frank with you, my boy. And, by the way, you must know that I'm no mere four-flusher. You've heard of Fletcher Fogg, eh? You knew who I was when you got that wire from me yesterday?”

“Why, yes, I know of you through our corporation work, sir.”

“Exactly!” Mr. Fogg assumed even more unctuously the manner of an old friend. “Now, as I say, I'm going to be frank--take you in on the ground floor. Of course, they can have another--a special meeting of the Vose line after a thirty days' notice to the stockholders. They will probably call that meeting, and I don't care if they do. But I have an ambition to be general manager of the line for those thirty days to make--well, I want to make a little investigation of general conditions,” declared Mr. Fogg, resorting to his purple handkerchief. “That's all I care to say. At the end of thirty days we may--I'm speaking of the big interests I represent--we may decide to buy the line and make it really worth something to the stockholders. You understand, I hope. It's strictly business--it's all right--it's good financiering. After it's all over and those old, hardshell directors wake up, I'll venture to say they'll be pleased all around that this little turn has been made. In the mean time, having been taken care of, you needn't mind whether they're pleased or not.”

Boyne looked at the sheaf of certificates in Fogg's hand; he bent frightened gaze on the documents stacked on the desk. They lay there representing his responsibility, but they also represented opportunity. The sight of them was a rebuke to the agitated thoughts of treason which assailed him. But the mere papers had no voice to make that rebuke pointed.

Mr. Fogg did have a voice. “Five thousand dollars in your fist, my boy, as soon as I can work the wire to New York--and there's no piker about the man who can have five thousand flashed in here when he asks for it. You can see what kind of men are behind me. What do you care about old man Vose and his crowd?”

“There's Mr. Franklin! I'll be doing a mighty mean trick, Mr. Fogg. No, I'll not do it.”

Mr. Fogg did not bluster. He was silent for some time. He pursed his lips and stared at Boyne, and then he shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

“It's too bad--too bad for a young fellow to turn down such an opportunity,” he sighed. “It can be done without you, Boyne, in another way. The same result will happen. But you might as well be in on it. Now let me tell you a few instances of how some of the big men in this country got their start.”

Mr. Fogg was an excellent raconteur with a vivid imagination, and it did not trouble his conscience because the narratives he imparted to this wide-eyed youth were largely apocryphal.

“You see,” he put in at the end of the first tale, “what a flying start will do for a man. Suppose that chap I've just told you about sat back and refused to jump when the road was all open to him! You don't hear anybody knocking that man nowadays, do you? And yet that's the trick he pulled to get his start.”

With a similar snapper did Mr. Fogg touch up each one of his stories of success.

“I--I didn't have any idea--I thought they managed it some other way,” murmured David Boyne.

“Your horizon has been limited; you haven't been out in the world enough to know, my son.”

“I have heard of all those men, of course. They're big men to-day.”

“You didn't think they got to be millionaires by saving the money out of clerks' salaries, did you? Of course, Boyne, I admit that in this affair you'll be up to a little sharp practice. But you're not stealing anything. Nobody can lug off steamships in a vest pocket. It's only a deal--and deals are being made every day.”

Fogg was a keen judge of his fellow-men. He knew weakness when he saw it. He could determine from a man's lower lip and the set of his nose whether that person were covetous. And he knew now what signified the flush on Boyne's cheeks and the light in his eyes. However, there was something else to reckon with.

“I will not betray Mr. Franklin's confidence in me. Positively, I will not,” said the young man. “He's sick, and that would make it worse.”

“How sick is he?”

“He is very, very ill. It was an operation, and he has had a relapse. But we hope he's coming out all right.”

“What hospital is he in?”

Boyne gave the name.

“I think I'll call up and ask when it is expected that he can see visitors,” announced Fogg, with business briskness. “I wish Franklin had been here on deck--Franklin, himself.”

“I don't believe Mr. Franklin would turn a trick of this sort,” asserted the clerk. “I'd hate to face him, after doing it myself.”

“Franklin would be able to see further into a financial deal than a young chap,” said Mr. Fogg, severely, and then he found his number and made his call. “Good heavens!” he blurted, after a question. “I am in his office. Yes, I'll tell Boyne.”

With a fine affectation of grief and surprise, he snapped the transmitter upon the hook and whirled on Boyne. His back had been toward the young man--he had spoken with hand across the receiver.

“He has just died--he's dead! Franklin has passed away.”

“I would have been notified,” gasped Boyne.

“They were just going to call you. You heard me say I'd inform you.”

“But I must call the hospital--offer my services. I must go up there.”

Mr. Fogg put out his hand and pressed the young man back into his chair. “A lulu must be played quick and the pot raked sudden,” he reflected.

“Just a moment, my son. Now you're standing on your own bottom. You won't have to explain to Mr. Franklin.”

He pointed to the clock. His stories had consumed time. The hour was ten-thirty-five.

“That annual meeting of the Vose line was called for ten of the clock to-day. Mr. Franklin was alive at that hour. He was the clerk of that corporation. What happens now will not embarrass you so far as he's concerned. Be sensible. Make a stroke for yourself. You're out of a job, anyway. Go to it, now.”

Fogg spoke sharply, imperiously. He exerted over the young man all the force of his personality.

“Five thousand dollars--protected by my interests--slipped out of sight for a few months--it's easy. Sit down there and make up your records; vote those proxies. Vote 'em, I say. This meeting was held at ten o'clock. Make up your records.”

He stood over Boyne, arguing, promising, urging, and the young man, at last, sweating, flushed, trembling, bent over his documents, sorted them, and made up his records.

“We'll send on a copy to the office of the Vose line by registered mail,” commanded Fogg. “Attest it as a copy of the true record by notary. When it drops in on 'em I will be there, with my directors and my little story--and the face of Uncle Vose will be worth looking at, though his language may not be elevating. You come out with me, Boyne. I'm going to the telegraph office.”

“But I must get in touch at once with Mr. Franklin's family--offer my services,” pleaded the clerk.

“There isn't a thing you can do right now,” snapped the masterful gentleman from New York. “I suggest that you close the office. Send the girl home. You should do that much out of respect to your employer's memory.”

Ten minutes later the record had been mailed and the flustered Boyne was trotting around town with Mr. Fogg. The latter seemed to have a tremendous amount of business on his hands. He hired a cab and was hustled yon and thither, leaving the young man in the vehicle, with instructions to stay there, whenever a stop was made. But at last Mr. Fogg returned from an errand with some very tangible results. He put a packet of bank-notes into Boyne's shaking hands.

“Did you ever see as much real money before, my son?” asked Fogg, genially. “That's your five thousand. And here's five hundred toward that expense money we promised. I'm suggesting that you leave town to-night. Tuck that cash away on yourself and duck out of sight.”

Having secured the money and placed that powerful argument in the young man's hands, Mr. Fogg's hurry and anxiety seemed to be over. When he had seen the packet buttoned inside Boyne's coat he smiled.

“The trade is clinched and the job is done, son, and I feel sure that, being a healthy young American citizen with plenty of cash to pay your way, you're not going to let go that cash nor do any foolish squealing.”

“I've gone too far to back out,” admitted Boyne, patting the outside of his coat. “But it seems like a dream.”

“I've heard a little piece of good news while I've been running around--forgot to tell you,” said Fogg, in a matter-of-fact way. “That fool attendant at the hospital must have misunderstood me, or I misunderstood him. Franklin isn't dead.”

“He-isn't-dead?”