“Thank you very much. I will,” observed Stackpole, restoring his undesired stocks to his bag.
Cowperwood, with an admirable show of courtesy, called a stenographer, and pretended to secure for his guest the home addresses of these gentlemen. He then bade Mr. Stackpole an encouraging farewell. The distrait promoter at once decided to try not only Bailey and Kaffrath, but Videra; but even as he drove toward the office of the first-mentioned Cowperwood was personally busy reaching him by telephone.
“I say, Bailey,” he called, when he had secured the wealthy lumberman on the wire, “Benoni Stackpole, of Hull & Stackpole, was here to see me just now.”
“Yes.”
“He has with him fifteen thousand shares of American Match—par value one hundred, market value today two-twenty.”
“Yes.”
“He is trying to hypothecate the lot or any part of it at one-fifty.”
“Yes.”
“You know what the trouble with American Match is, don’t you?”
“No. I only know it’s being driven up to where it is now by a bull campaign.”
“Well, listen to me. It’s going to break. American Match is going to bust.”
“Yes.”
“But I want you to loan this man five hundred thousand dollars at one-twenty or less and then recommend that he go to Edwin Kaffrath or Anton Videra for the balance.”
“But, Frank, I haven’t any five hundred thousand to spare. You say American Match is going to bust.”
“I know you haven’t, but draw the check on the Chicago Trust, and Addison will honor it. Send the stock to me and forget all about it. I will do the rest. But under no circumstances mention my name, and don’t appear too eager. Not more than one-twenty at the outside, do you hear? and less if you can get it. You recognize my voice, do you?”
“Perfectly.”
“Drive over afterward if you have time and let me know what happens.”
“Very good,” commented Mr. Bailey, in a businesslike way.
Cowperwood next called for Mr. Kaffrath. Conversing to similar effect with that individual and with Videra, before three-quarters of an hour Cowperwood had arranged completely for Mr. Stackpole’s tour. He was to have his total loan at one-twenty or less. Checks were to be forthcoming at once. Different banks were to be drawn on—banks other than the Chicago Trust Company. Cowperwood would see, in some roundabout way, that these checks were promptly honored, whether the cash was there or not. In each case the hypothecated stocks were to be sent to him. Then, having seen to the perfecting of this little programme, and that the banks to be drawn upon in this connection understood perfectly that the checks in question were guaranteed by him or others, he sat down to await the arrival of his henchmen and the turning of the stock into his private safe.
XLVIII
Panic
On August 4, 1896, the city of Chicago, and for that matter the entire financial world, was startled and amazed by the collapse of American Match, one of the strongest of market securities, and the coincident failure of Messrs. Hull and Stackpole, its ostensible promoters, for twenty millions. As early as eleven o’clock of the preceding day the banking and brokerage world of Chicago, trading in this stock, was fully aware that something untoward was on foot in connection with it. Owing to the high price at which the stock was “protected,” and the need of money to liquidate, blocks of this stock from all parts of the country were being rushed to the market with the hope of realizing before the ultimate break. About the stock-exchange, which frowned like a gray fortress at the foot of La Salle Street, all was excitement—as though a giant anthill had been ruthlessly disturbed. Clerks and messengers hurried to and fro in confused and apparently aimless directions. Brokers whose supply of American Match had been apparently exhausted on the previous day now appeared on ’change bright and early, and at the clang of the gong began to offer the stock in sizable lots of from two hundred to five hundred shares. The agents of Hull & Stackpole were in the market, of course, in the front rank of the scrambling, yelling throng, taking up whatever stock appeared at the price they were hoping to maintain. The two promoters were in touch by phone and wire not only with those various important personages whom they had induced to enter upon this bull campaign, but with their various clerks and agents on ’change. Naturally, under the circumstances both were in a gloomy frame of mind. This game was no longer moving in those large, easy sweeps which characterize the more favorable aspects of high finance. Sad to relate, as in all the troubled flumes of life where vast currents are compressed in narrow, tortuous spaces, these two men were now concerned chiefly with the momentary care of small but none the less heartbreaking burdens. Where to find fifty thousand to take care of this or that burden of stock which was momentarily falling upon them? They were as two men called upon, with their limited hands and strength, to seal up the ever-increasing crevices of a dike beyond which raged a mountainous and destructive sea.
At eleven o’clock Mr. Phineas Hull rose from the chair which sat before his solid mahogany desk, and confronted his partner.
“I’ll tell you, Ben,” he said, “I’m afraid we can’t make this. We’ve hypothecated so much of this stock around town that we can’t possibly tell who’s doing what. I know as well as I’m standing on this floor that someone, I can’t say which one, is selling us out. You don’t suppose it could be Cowperwood or any of those people he sent to us, do you?”
Stackpole, worn by his experiences
