CHAPTER XXVI.
Mr. Bullion was not without good natural impulses, but his education and experience had been such as to develop only the sharp and selfish traits of his character. An orphan at the age of eleven years, he was placed in a shop under the charge of a grasping, unscrupulous man, where he learned the rules of business which he followed afterwards with so much success. The old-fashioned notions about the Golden Rule he was speedily well rid of; for when his indiscreet frankness to customers was observed, the rod taught him the folly of untimely truth-telling, if not the propriety of smoothing the way to a bargain by a glib falsehood. With such training, he grew up an expert salesman; and before he was of age, after various changes in business, he became the confidential clerk in a large wholesale house. Owing to unexpected reverses, the house became embarrassed, and at length failed. The head of the firm went back to his native town a broken-hearted man, and not long afterwards died, leaving his family destitute. But Bullion, with a junior partner, settled with the creditors, kept on with the business, and prospered. Perhaps, if the widow had received what was rightfully hers, the juniors would have had a smaller capital to begin upon,—Bullion knew; but the account, if there was one, was past settlement by human tribunals, and had gone upon the docket in the great Court of Review.
Wealth grows like the banian, sending down branches that take root on all sides in the thrifty soil, and then become trunks themselves, and the parents of ever-increasing boughs,—a sturdy forest in breadth, a tree in unity. So Bullion grew and flourished. At the time of our story he was rich enough to satisfy any moderate ambition; but he wished to rear a colossal fortune, and the operations he was now concerned in were fortunate beyond his expectations. But he was not satisfied. He conceived the idea of carrying on the same stock-speculation in New York on a larger scale, and made an arrangement with one of the leading "bears" of that city; but he was careful to keep this a secret, most of all from Fletcher and others of his associates at home. Fortune favored him, as usual, and he promised himself a success that would make him a monarch in the financial world. Under the excitement of the moment, he had filled the baby hands of Fletcher's child with gold pieces. It was as Fletcher said; his head was fairly turned by the glittering prospect before him.
The associate in New York proposed to Bullion the purchase of a controlling interest in a railroad; and Bullion, believing that the depression had nearly reached its limit, and that affairs would soon take a turn, agreed that it was best now to change their policy, and to buy all the shares in this stock that should be offered while the price was low, and keep them as an investment. He felt sure that he with the New York capitalist had now money enough to "swing" all the shares in market, and they each agreed to purchase all that should be brought to the hammer in their respective cities. Following up his promise faithfully, Bullion bought all the stock of the railroad that came into State Street, and in this way rapidly exhausted his ready money. Then he raised loans upon his other property, and still kept the market clear. But he wondered that so many shares came to Boston for sale; for the railroad was in a Western State, and few of the original holders were New England men.
Bullion now met the first check in his career. Kerbstone, whose appeals for help he had disregarded, and whose property had been wofully depreciated by the course of the "bears," of whom Bullion was chief, failed for a large sum. As he was treasurer of the Neversink Mills, the stockholders and creditors of that corporation made an immediate investigation of its accounts. Kerbstone was found to be a defaulter to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars; the property was gone,—undermined like a snow-bank in spring. The largest owner was Bullion. He was overreached by his own shrewdness; and the hitherto unlucky "bulls," who had had small cause to laugh, thought that it was
"sport to see the engineer Hoist with his own petard,"—
better even than to have tossed him on their own horns.
Bullion made some wry faces; but the loss, though great, was not ruinous. He was obliged, however, to take back the shares of the factory-stock on which he had obtained loans for his New York operations, and to substitute an equal amount of other securities,—thus cramping his resources at a time when he needed every dollar to carry out his vast plans.
In the multiplicity of his affairs, Bullion had almost forgotten Fletcher, and left him to pursue his own course. But there was a man who had not forgotten him, and who followed all his movements with vigilant eyes. Sandford was convinced that Fletcher had in some way become prosperous, and he now advanced to use the peculiar note as a draft on the miserable debtor's funds. There was the same wily approach, the same covert allusion to Fletcher's supposed resources, the same peremptory demand, and the same ugly threat which had so desperately maddened him when the subject was broached before. Fletcher felt the tightening of the lasso, but could not free himself from the fatal noose. He must pay whatever the cold-eyed creditor demanded. Two thousand dollars was the sum asked for the acknowledgment of having appropriated five hundred. Twopence for halfpenny has been accounted fair usury among the Jews; but in Christian communities it is only crime that accumulates interest like that.
As a measure of precaution, Sandford had made a copy of the paper and prepared an explanatory statement; these he now inclosed in an envelope, in Fletcher's presence, and directed it to Messrs. Foggarty, Danforth, and Dot. Then drawing out his watch, as if to make a careful computation of time, he said,—
"Nine, ten, eleven,—yes,—at eleven, to-morrow, I shall expect to receive the sum; otherwise I shall feel it my duty to send this letter by a trusty hand. In fact, I suppose I have hardly done right in not putting the gentlemen on their guard before."
A cold sweat covered Fletcher's shivering limbs, and for a moment he stood irresolute; but recollecting Bullion, he rallied himself, and, assenting to the proposition, bade Sandford good-bye; then, as the only revenge practicable, he cursed him with the heartiest emphasis, when his back was turned. Presently Tonsor came with the news of Kerbstone's failure.
"The street is full of rumors," he said;—"Bullion is a large owner in the Neversink."
"Bosh!" said Fletcher,—"Bullion is in there for fifty thousand, to be sure; but what is that? He has other property enough,—half a million, at least."
"Still, a pebble brought down Goliath. A house in New York, worth a million, failed yesterday for want of twenty-five thousand."
"Don't you be alarmed. Bullion knows. He isn't going to fail."
"I want to get ten thousand from him to take some shares I bought for him."
"How soon?"
"Now; and he is not at his office."
"I'll get you the money from our house. I haven't deposited the funds for to-day yet, and I'll put in a memorandum which Bullion will make good."
"Hadn't you better wait?"
"No; it doesn't matter. He's all right; and it isn't best to break his orders for any ten thousand dollars."
Fletcher handed the money to the broker, and, as bank-hours were then about over, he put his papers in order and went home.
"Lovey!" he exclaimed, upon meeting his wife, "I have been thinking over what you said about getting my notes cashed. I believe I'll take Bullion's offer and salt the money down. Probably, now, he will give me a better trade, for there is considerable more due."
"Oh, John! how glad I am! You will do it to-morrow,—won't you, now?"
"Yes, I'll settle with him to-morrow."
He was thinking of the fact that Tonsor had bought shares for Bullion, and he wondered what the move meant. A house divided against itself could not stand; and he said to himself, that a man must be uncommonly deep to be a "bull" and a "bear" at the same time. There was no doubt that Bullion had embarked in some speculation which he had not seen fit to make known to his agent.
"There you go,—off into one of your fogs again!" said the wife, noticing his suddenly abstracted air. "That's the way you have done for the last three months,—ever since you began with that hateful man."
"I get to thinking about affairs, my little woman, and I don't want to bother your simple head with them; so I go cruising off in the fog, as you call it, by myself."
"Oh, if you once get through with that man's affairs, we'll have no more fogs!"
"No, deary, we'll have summer weather and a smooth sea, I hope, for the rest of our voyage."
"You see, John, I have been dreadfully anxious, more than I could tell you. If anything goes wrong, I've always noticed that it isn't the big people that have to suffer; it's the smaller ones that get caught."
"Yes, it's an old story; the big flies break out of the spider's net; the little chaps hang there. But I'll settle up the business to-morrow. I shall have enough to buy us a little house in the country,—a snug box, with a garden; then I'll get a horse to drive about with, and we'll take some comfort. Come, little woman, sit on my knee! Come, baby, here is a knee for you, too!"
Holding them in his arms, he still mused upon the morrow, and once and again charged his mind to remember "two thousand for Sandford, ten thousand for Danforth and Dot!"