On Monday, the day before the case was to have been called, the Gas Company, humbled and made penitent with a stern paucity of “permits,” dismissed its petition for an injunction against Mulberry Traction, and young Morton returned to his career, unchecked of a court's decree.
“Father,” said young Morton, as we came from our interview with Big Kennedy, “I'm not sure that the so-called Boss System for the Government of Cities is wholly without its advantages, don't y' know!” And here young Morton puffed a complacent, not to say superior, cigarette.
“Humph!” retorted the reputable old gentleman angrily. “Every Esau, selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, would speak the same.”
“Esau with a cigarette—really!” murmured young Morton, giving a ruminative puff. “But I say, father, it isn't a mess of pottage, don't y' know, it's a street railway.”
As Mulberry Traction approached completion, the common stock reached forty. At that point Big Kennedy closed out his interest. Snapping the catchlock behind us, to the end that we be alone, he tossed a dropsical gray envelope on the table.
“There's two hundred thousand dollars' worth of Uncle Sam's bonds,” said he. “That's your end of Mulberry Traction.”
“You've sold out?”
“Sold out an' got one million two hundred thousand.”
“The stock would have gone higher,” said I. “You would have gotten more if you'd held on.”
“Wall Street,” returned Big Kennedy, with a cautious shake of the head, “is off my beat. I'm afraid of them stock sharps; I feel like a come-on th' minute I begin to talk with one, an' I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw a dog by th' tail. I break away as fast as ever I can, an' chase back to Fourteenth Street, where I'm wise to th' game. I've seen suckers like me who took a million dollars into Wall Street, an' came out in a week with nothin' but a pocket full of canceled postage stamps.”