The little financier, with an expressionless, sallow face, confronted his chief confidential broker. Their relations were unsuspected by the Street. Everybody thought Coolidge was a pleasant and honorable man.
“Coolidge, go to the Board at once. Ormiston is going to sell 6,000 shares of Iowa Midland. Get it as cheap as you can. Don’t be in a hurry, though.”
“How much shall I buy?” asked the broker, jotting down a few figures in his order book.
“As much as you can; all that is offered below 37,” squeaked the Napoleon of the Street. It was a Napoleonic order. “And, Coolidge, I don’t want this known by any one. Clear the stock yourself.” It meant that Mr. Coolidge was to put the stock through the Clearing House in his own name. As there is a charge for this service, in addition to the usual buying or selling commission, such steps are not resorted to unless it is desired to conceal the identity of the broker’s principal, should the latter be a fellow-member of the Exchange.
“Very well, Mr. Greener. Good-morning.” And the broker went out on a run. “Whew!” he whistled when he was in the Street on his way to the Stock Exchange, a few doors below. “Brown & Greener must be short at least 50,000 or 60,000 shares.” This was five times too much. But it showed that Mr. Greener was impartial in his distribution of erroneous impressions. He wanted to accumulate the stock rather than “cover” a short line; but there was no reason why even his most trusted broker should know it.
Ormiston’s 6,000 shares found their way to Mr. Coolidge’s office at from 34⅞ to 35¾. Mr. Brown in the meantime had succeeded in forcing down the prices by the usual tricks. The man who once had done Greener a good turn now did him another—the gift of $40,000!
In addition, Coolidge, employing several brokers, purchased 23,000 shares in all, which meant that Mr. Greener, after “covering” Brown’s early “short sales,” was in possession of fully 14,000 shares of the common stock of the Iowa Midland Railway Company, at a price averaging nearly 6 points lower than they could have been bought on the preceding day, which is to say $75,000 cheaper.
But Brown & Greener had made as much on their short sales, which was actually equivalent to having the lambs pay a man for the privilege of being shorn by him!
Such was the first of a series of skirmishes by means of which the diminutive Napoleon of the Street captured the floating supply of Iowa Midland stock, until he had no less than 65,000 shares safe in his clutches.
All the old tricks that he knew and new devices he invented were used to hide from the Street the fact that Mr. Greener was buying the stock on every opportunity. But beyond a certain limit extensive purchases of a particular stock cannot be concealed from the thousand shrewd men who make their living—a very good living, indeed—by not being blind. First one thing, then another, told these men that some powerful financier or group of financiers had bought enormously of Iowa Midland, “absorbing” unostentatiously all the stock shaken out by the violent fluctuations of the past few months. This fact and the remarkable improvement of business along the line of the road caused a “substantial rise” in the price of the company’s securities. But no one suspected the little Napoleon with the shifty eyes and the squeak and the genius, who had bought in the open market, through unsuspected brokers, and in Iowa from the local holders, by means of secret agents, until he had accumulated 78,600 shares.