At Kinsley’s that day, in a private room on the second floor, Cressler met not only Crookes, but his associate Sweeny, and another gentleman by the name of Freye, the latter one of his oldest and best-liked friends.
Sweeny was an Irishman, florid, flamboyant, talkative, who spoke with a faint brogue, and who tagged every observation, argument, or remark with the phrase, “Do you understand me, gen’lemen?” Freye, a German-American, was a quiet fellow, very handsome, with black side whiskers and a humourous, twinkling eye. The three were members of the Board of Trade, and were always associated with the Bear forces. Indeed, they could be said to be its leaders. Between them, as Cressler afterwards was accustomed to say, “They could have bought pretty much all of the West Side.”
And during the course of the luncheon these three, with a simplicity and a directness that for the moment left Cressler breathless, announced that they were preparing to drive the Unknown Bull out of the Pit, and asked him to become one of the clique.
Crookes, whom Cressler intuitively singled out as the leader, did not so much as open his mouth till Sweeny had talked himself breathless, and all the preliminaries were out of the way. Then he remarked, his eye as lifeless as the eye of a fish, his voice as expressionless as the voice of Fate itself:
“I don’t know who the big Bull is, and I don’t care a curse. But he don’t suit my book. I want him out of the market. We’ve let him have his way now for three or four months. We figured we’d let him run to the dollar mark. The May option closed this morning at a dollar and an eighth. … Now we take hold.
“But,” Cressler hastened to object, “you forget—I’m not a speculator.”
Freye smiled, and tapped his friend on the arm.
“I guess, Charlie,” he said, “that there won’t be much speculating about this.”
“Why, gen’lemen,” cried Sweeny, brandishing a fork, “we’re going to sell him right out o’ the market, so we are. Simply flood out the son-of-a-gun—you understand me, gen’lemen?”
Cressler shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “No, you must count me out. I quit speculating years ago. And, besides, to sell short on this kind of market—I don’t need to tell you what you risk.”
“Risk hell!” muttered Crookes.
“Well, now, I’ll explain to you, Charlie,” began Freye.
The other two withdrew a little from the conversation. Crookes, as ever monosyllabic, took himself on in a little while, and Sweeny, his chair tipped back against the wall, his hands clasped behind his head, listened to Freye explaining to Cressler the plans of the proposed clique and the lines of their attack.
He talked for nearly an hour and a half, at the end of which time the lunch table was one litter of papers—letters, contracts, warehouse receipts, tabulated statistics, and the like.
“Well,” said Freye, at length, “well, Charlie, do you see the game? What do you think of it?”
“It’s about as ingenious a scheme as I ever heard of, Billy,” answered Cressler. “You can’t lose, with Crookes back of it.”
“Well, then, we can count you in, hey?”
“Count nothing,” declared Cressler, stoutly. “I don’t speculate.”
“But have you thought of this?” urged Freye, and went over the entire proposition, from a fresh point of view, winding up with the exclamation: “Why, Charlie, we’re going to make our everlasting fortunes.”
“I don’t want any everlasting fortune, Billy Freye,” protested Cressler. “Look here, Billy. You must remember I’m a pretty old cock. You boys are all youngsters. I’ve got a little money left and a little business, and I want to grow old quiet-like. I had my fling, you know, when you boys were in knickerbockers. Now you let me keep out of all this. You get someone else.”
“No, we’ll be jiggered if we do,” exclaimed Sweeny. “Say, are ye scared we can’t buy that trade journal? Why, we have it in our pocket, so we have. D’ye think Crookes, now, couldn’t make Bear sentiment with the public, with just the lift o’ one forefinger? Why, he owns most of the commercial columns of the dailies already. D’ye think he couldn’t swamp that market with sellin’ orders in the shorter end o’ two days? D’ye think we won’t all hold together, now? Is that the bug in the butter? Sure, now, listen. Let me tell you—”
“You can’t tell me anything about this scheme that you’ve not told me before,” declared Cressler. “You’ll win, of course. Crookes & Co. are like Rothschild—earthquakes couldn’t budge ’em. But I promised myself years ago to keep out of the speculative market, and I mean to stick by it.”
“Oh, get on with you, Charlie,” said Freye, good-humouredly, “you’re scared.”
“Of what,” asked Cressler, “speculating? You bet I am, and when you’re as old as I am, and have been through three panics, and have known what it meant to have a corner bust under you, you’ll be scared of speculating too.”
“But suppose we can prove to you,” said Sweeny, all at once, “that we’re not speculating—that the other fellow, this fool Bull is doing the speculating?”
“I’ll go into anything in the way of legitimate trading,” answered Cressler, getting up from the table. “You convince me that your clique is not a speculative clique, and I’ll come in. But I don’t see how your deal can be anything else.”
“Will you meet us here tomorrow?” asked Sweeny, as they got into their overcoats.
“It won’t do you any good,” persisted Cressler.
“Well, will you meet us just the same?” the other insisted. And in the end Cressler accepted.
On the steps of the restaurant they parted, and the two leaders watched Cressler’s broad, stooped shoulders disappear down the street.
“He’s as good as in already,” Sweeny declared. “I’ll fix him tomorrow. Once a speculator, always a speculator. He was the cock of the cow-yard in his day, and the thing is in the blood. He gave himself clean, clean
