“But the things they object to are, unfortunately, my 'strong hold,'” I explained. “You other big fellows gather in the big investors by simply announcing your projects in a dignified way. I haven't got the ear of that class of people. I have to send out my letters, have to advertise in all the cities and towns, have to catch the little fellows. You can afford to send out engraved invitations; I have to gather in my people with brass bands and megaphones. Don't forget that my people count in the totals bigger than yours. And what's my chief value to you? Why, when you want to unload, I furnish the crowd to unload on, the crowd that gives you and your big customers cash for your water and wind. I don't see my way to letting go of what I've got until I get hold of what I'm reaching for.” All this with not a suspicion in my mind that he was at the same game that had caused Roebuck to “hint” that same proposal. What a “con man” high finance got when Mowbray Langdon became active down town!
“That's true,” he admitted, with a great air of frankness. “But the cry that you're not a financier, but a bucket-shop man, might be fatal at the Travelers. Of course, the sacrifice would be large for such a small object. Still, you might have to make it—if you really want to get in.”
“I'll think it over,” said I. He thought I meant that I'd think over dropping my power—thought I was as big a snob as he and his friends of the Travelers, willing to make any sacrifice to be “in the push.” But, while Matthew Blacklock has the streak of snob in him that's natural to all human beings and to most animals, he is not quite insane. No, the thing I intended to think over was how to stay in the “bucket-shop” business, but wash myself of its odium. Bucket-shop! What snobbery! Yet it's human nature, too. The wholesale merchant looks down on the retailer, the big retailer on the little; the burglar despises the pickpocket; the financier, the small promoter; the man who works with his brain, the man who works with his hands. A silly lot we are—silly to look down, sillier to feel badly when we're looked down upon.
VI. OF “GENTLEMEN”
When I got back to my office and was settling in to the proofs of the “Letter to Investors,” which I published in sixty newspapers throughout the country and which daily reached upward of five million people, Sam Ellersly came in. His manner was certainly different from what it had ever been before; a difference so subtle that I couldn't describe it more nearly than to say it made me feel as if he had not until then been treating me as of the same class with himself. I smiled to myself and made an entry in my mental ledger to the credit of Mowbray Langdon.
“That club business is going nicely,” said Sam. “Langdon is enthusiastic, and I find you've got good friends on the committee.”
I knew that well enough. Hadn't I been carrying them on my books at a good round loss for two years?
“If it wasn't for—for some features of this business of yours,” he went on, “I'd say there wouldn't be the slightest trouble.”
“Bucket-shop?” said I with an easy laugh, though this nagging was beginning to get on my nerves.