“Ah, yes—like the public. You base your trades on gas and guess. Well, I don't! I'd play the Ant, but I don't see the Granary full in a week. Jay Gould had a perfect mania for it; it was an obsession with him. And yet he seldom won commensurately with his risks. In the Northwest corner he was tied up over a year and lost more than a million. I guess we'll dispense with the Ant, though it looks so safe for the Granger group.”
Robison seemed to be thinking aloud rather than asking for advice. But Richards, who was a Wall Street man to his finger-tips, said, gravely, “I think you are right.”
Robison nodded, to show he had heard, and went on: “The situation in the Pacific Coast, of course, suggests the Beaver at once. I can see the Dam in Union Pacific; but I don't like to try it so soon after the Rothschilds worked it so openly in Berlin over the Agadir excuse. Too many people who have access to the Menagerie remember it. I realize all this, but,” he finished, with profound regret, “it is such a cinch!”
“Yes. But—” Richards shook his head in sympathy. He felt that he ought to humor this man; moreover, business was quiet, and this man was saying incomprehensible things that would be repeated by Richards, with sensational success, at luncheons and dinners for weeks.
“Of course, the Spider is the oldest stand-by. Personally I never liked it. In the Governor Flower boom and, indeed, up to the Northern Pacific panic, its popularity was due to John W. Gates. But do you know, Mr. Richards, I have always believed that in the first two Steel and Wire coups and in the Louisville & Nashville affair, Gates hit upon it by accident. Else,” pursued Mr. Robison, controversially, “why was he pinched so badly in 1901 and again in 1907? He hit upon it, after he got out of Federal Steel, by accident, I tell you! He was a man of genius and courage, but it was all instinct with him. He was no student, sir—no student!”
“I've always said,” observed Mr. George B. Richards, “that Gates was not a student!” He glared, thereby successfully defying contradiction.
“It leaves the Lion!” muttered Robison. “Should I try it? And which Peg?”
“I'd try it!” counseled Richards, who was not only intelligent, but had a sense of humor.
“Would you, really?”
“Yes, I certainly would!” And the broker looked as if he certainly meant it.