CHAPTER X
Dan left his home with the alacrity of one who seeks escape from a most uncomfortable situation. As a bachelor he was conscious of the fact that this morning there had been four women too many in his life. He cringed from the prospect of having Mrs. Pippy resign his service in a huff. He hoped she would, under Maisie’s cogent reasoning, consent to make allowances for Tamea until Maisie should have impressed upon the latter the fact that in a white democracy a South Sea Island queen was expected to be seen and not heard.
“Tamea is such a child,” Dan told himself. “And a spoiled child at that. Old Gaston has permitted her to do exactly as she pleased, and now the task of correcting that mistake is mine. It isn’t going to be an easy task, and what’s more I haven’t the slightest idea where to commence and where to stop. . . . What fragrant hair she has. . . such an appealing creature. When she weeps she’s just a broken-hearted little girl . . . makes me want to take her on my knee and soothe her. . . .
“Maisie’s nose went up a trifle the first time the child kissed me, and there was steel in her voice when she reproved Tamea. Fine state of affairs if she and Tamea fail to hit it off together and Tamea elects to use me as a club to hurt Maisie. I have a feeling it would be like her to try! Come to think of it, most women would! As soon as Tamea has adjusted herself to her new life, I’ll pack her off to some select school.”
He picked up the annunciator and ordered Graves to halt alongside the first newsstand he could find. Thus presently he found himself with half a dozen magazines, skimming through their advertising pages in search of some hint of the most advantageous school for girls of Tamea’s sort. Preferably the school should be situated in the center of a boundless prairie; as an additional safeguard, it should be surrounded by a very tall barbed-wire fence or a cactus hedge and sans communication with the outside world.
By the time Graves had deposited him on the sidewalk before his office building the problem of the right school was as far from solution as ever, and a growing resentment against Gaston of the Beard was rising in Dan’s heart. Down under the Southern Cross the problem of living was an easy one. Why, then, had Gaston transplanted this girl to a land where the problem was so complicated—where she was so certain to add to the complications?
“I feel tremendous events portending,” Dan soliloquized. “The very foundations of my life are tottering.”
On his desk he found a memorandum from his secretary to the effect that he was to call Miss Morrison at his home the moment he came in.
“Hello, Dan’l!” Maisie’s voice carried a triumphant note that cheered him wonderfully. “I merely wanted to relieve your mind of your domestic worries before you crossed swords with Uncle John. I have had a talk with Mrs. Pippy and she will remain—for the present at least.”
“I’ll raise her monthly stipend very materially,” he answered gratefully. “Have you talked to Tamea?”
“No, but I shall, Dan. I realize the precise proportions of the predicament your generous acceptance of a white man’s burden has placed you in. So, my dear, I dare say I shall have to stand at thy right hand and hold the bridge with thee.”
“God bless you for that, Maisie. I think Tamea is a wonderfully affectionate girl—fiery, but generous, loyal and grateful, but hard to handle. She must be appealed to through her heart rather than her head.”
“You don’t know anything about it, Dan.” Maisie rather bit that sentence off short. “That’s her plan for ruling you—via your soft heart and your softer head. The girl Tamea has brains, she can reason and she can understand, and the instant she realizes that your words of wisdom are about to undermine her opposition to your desires, she will make a flying leap for your manly breast——”
“Do you really think she might develop such a habit?”
“Dan, she’s a fully developed woman——”
“Don’t build me a mare’s nest, Maisie. She’s just a little girl.”
“Have it your way. But I warn you she’s the sort of little girl that a respectable bachelor cannot afford to have around his house a day longer than is quite necessary. That sounds catty, Dan, but I know whereof I speak.”
“Yes, I suppose I’ll have to do something radical and do it quickly,” he agreed. “Thank you, Maisie—a million thanks.”
“Happy to be of service to you, old boy.”
“Maisie! Will you accord me another favor?”
“Certainly. What is it?”
“Consider yourself duly and affectionately kissed.”
“Oh! Dan, you’re developing a habit. But don’t you think two kisses are quite sufficient to start the day with?”
“That was a little mean feminine jab, Maisie. Good-by. I’m going to hang up.”
He did, albeit smiling and much relieved. He could now turn to the task of standing old John Casson on the latter’s snowy head, so to speak, and see how much rice would run out of his pockets.
Experience had taught Dan that the best way to handle his partner was to rough him from the start, for, like all weak and pompous men, Casson was not superabundantly endowed with courage or the ability to think fast and clearly under fire. He would fight defensively but never offensively, and Dan had discovered the great fundamental truth that the offensive generally wins, the defensive never.
He summoned his secretary. “Miss Mather, please inform Mr. Casson that I desire to confer with him—in my office—immediately.”
As he had anticipated, old Casson obeyed him without question.
“Well, boy, what have you got on your mind this morning?” he began genially.
“Rice,” Dan answered curtly. “Sit down.”
Casson walked to the window, looked out over the vista of bay and commenced thinking as rapidly as he could under the circumstances.
“I told you to sit down,” Dan reminded him crisply. “I mean it. Sit down and face me. I want to look into your face and smoke the deception out of it.”
“By the gods of war, I’ll not stand such talk from any man!” Old Casson had decided to bluster.
Dan glowered at him. “You’ll stand it from me. You’ve got some rice deals on in this crazy market and you’ve kept the news of your operations from me. Have you speculated any in coffee or sugar?”
“No, no, Dan. Nothing but rice.”
“What sort of rice have you committed us to—California or Oriental?”
“Both.”
“Playing alone or in a pool?”
“Alone.”
“How much California rice have you purchased?”
“One million sacks.”
“Paid for any of it?”
“Half of it. Balance in sixty days.”
“Where is the rice?”
“Scattered in various warehouses throughout the upper Sacramento valley.”
“I didn’t notice that our bank account had been particularly depleted during the month I was in Hawaii. You bought the rice on open credit, hypothecated the warehouse receipts with various banks, paid for half the rice with the proceeds and used the remainder of the loan to pyramid with. I suppose you sunk that in a little jag of Philippine rice.”
“I did,” Casson admitted, flushed and anxious. He had seated himself, facing Dan.
“Holding your warehoused rice for a rising market, eh?”
“Exactly.”
“Suppose the bottom drops out?”
Casson shrugged and for the first time smiled. “I think, Pritchard, you’ll have to admit that I’ve put one over on you this time, and what’s more, you’re going to like it. I bought that California rice at prices ranging from nine and a quarter to ten and a half cents per pound, and today it is worth twenty. We stand to clean up a hundred thousand dollars on that lot alone.”
“We are engaged in legitimate business, not food profiteering. Can you dispose of that million sacks readily?”
“Had an offer of twenty cents for it this morning.”
“Reliable people?”
“Rated up to five million, A-A-A-one.”
“Cash?”
“No, ninety days.”
“Suspicious. Don’t like ninety-day paper. The banks are beginning to discriminate in their loans. All over the country there has been a wide expansion of credit in all lines, due to war-time prosperity, and my guess is that the demand for credit will soon result in the usual banking situation. The banks will discover that their loans have so increased as to be out of proportion to their reserves and deposits; and if the banks once get frightened, business will be crippled overnight.”
“Pooh, no danger of that for a couple of years yet, Pritchard.”
“On that subject I prefer sounder advice than yours, Mr. Casson. Call up the people who want that rice and tell them we’re willing to cut our price considerably if they will pay cash.”
“Sorry, but it can’t be done, my boy. I’ve already traded on a ninety-day basis. Don’t worry. We’re perfectly safe.”
“With you, the wish is father to the thought. How much Oriental rice have you bought?”
“We’ve got the British steamer Malayan loading a cargo of eight thousand tons in Manila, for Havana, Cuba. On or about the middle of next month the steamer Chinook will load four thousand tons at Shanghai, for delivery at Havana.”
“Our specialty, of which we have a good, safe, working knowledge, is South Sea products—mostly copra, and the operation of ships. The shoemaker should stick to his last. Now, then, listen to my ultimatum. If the sun sets today and leaves Casson and Pritchard the proprietors of rice stored anywhere except in our respective kitchens, you and I are going to dissolve partnership about an hour after the sun rises tomorrow. And, whether you realize it or not, the moment our partnership is dissolved, that moment you start tobogganing to ruin.”
Casson rose and stretched himself carelessly. “Oh, well, boy,” he replied, the patronizing quality of his words driving Dan into a silent fury, “suppose we leave the crossing of our bridges until we come to them.”
Dan’s fist smashed down on his desk with a thud that caused old Casson and the inkwell to jump simultaneously. “We’ll cross our bridges today,” he roared, “and we’ll start now. Sit down, you consummate old jackass!”
Casson trembled, paled and sat down very abruptly. “My dear Dan, control yourself,” he stammered.
“I’ll control myself, never fear. My chief job is controlling you. How dare you commit me to ruin without consulting me?”
“Ruin? Ridiculous! Only a fool would have neglected this golden opportunity—and I’m the senior member of this firm and a sixty percent owner in it.” Simulating righteous indignation, Casson too commenced to pound Dan’s desk.
“No bluffs!” Dan ordered, and took down the intercommunicating office telephone. The chief clerk responded. “Bring to me immediately all of the data pertaining to Mr. Casson’s rice operations,” he ordered. He hung up and faced Casson. “That will be all, Mr. Casson. From this moment you are out of the rice market and I’m in it. I’ll attend to the marketing of more rice than this firm is worth.”
“Pritchard, I forbid this!”
“Very well.” Dan reached for his hat. “I’m going up to our banker and tell him all about your rice deals. A business man should be as frank with his banker as with his lawyer. You’ll get your orders from the man higher up. If a loss threatens us, I prefer to have the blow fall now.”
The battle was over. “Oh, have it your own way, my boy!” Casson cried disgustedly and with a wave of his plump hand absolved himself from any and all disasters that might overtake the firm.
Half an hour later a well-known rice broker appeared in Dan’s office in response to the latter’s telephoned request.
“This firm,” Dan announced, “owns eight thousand tons of rice now loading for Havana, in Manila. It owns four thousand tons due to be loaded in thirty days at Shanghai. Is that rice quickly salable?”
“How soon do you want it sold?”
“Immediately.”
“Can do—at a price.”
“Do it!” Dan Pritchard commanded. “And if you can dig me up a cash customer—at a cent or two under the market—I’ll pay you an extra quarter of one per cent commission.”
“Cash, eh? Well, that’s a bit doubtful. However, that extra commission will make me work. I’ll report when I have something you can get your teeth into.”
“May I hope to hear from you today?”
“Scarcely. The market’s a bit off—somewhat sluggish. Trading has been pretty rapid of late, and the opinion prevails in some quarters that the market has about reached the point of saturation.”
“Many traders unloading?”
“Oh, no! Everybody is still holding on for a further rise in price, which I personally believe will come. We’re all optimists in the rice market.”
“Well, I’m a pessimist, but only because I do not care for rice. I have never dealt in it before and I don’t know anything about the rice market. Frankly, I’m closing out some trades of Mr. Casson’s under his protest. My instructions to you are practically to throw Casson’s trades overboard in order to get us out of the rice market.”
The broker eyed him keenly. “No necessity for getting stampeded and breaking the market,” he suggested.
The remainder of that day Dan devoted to Tamea’s business. First he went to the Appraisers’ Building and declared the pearls which Gaston had smuggled in on the Moorea. Having paid the duty on them, he called on the leading jewelers and had them appraised again, after which he added ten per cent to the appraisal value and sold the entire lot to a wholesale jeweler for cash. He reasoned, very wisely, that at the height of a period of such prosperity as the country had not hitherto known, the selected pearls of Gaston of the Beard would never bring a better price. He then deposited all of her funds to the credit of “Daniel Pritchard, guardian of Tamea Oluolu Larrieau, a minor,” in a number of savings banks. He next called upon his attorney, who drew up, at his request a formal petition to the Superior Court for letters of guardianship for Tamea.
Yes, Dan was a practical business man, a slave to the accepted forms. He was taking his office as Tamea’s guardian so very seriously that his position was analogous to that of the man who failed to see the woods because of the trees. It did not occur to him that the administration of an estate for a minor who knew nothing of the value of money and cared less, who had never known discipline and who yielded instantly to every elemental human desire and instinct, might be provocative of much distress and loss of sleep to him. On the contrary, what he did do was to return to his office hugely satisfied with the world as at that moment constituted.