“Old man Remington has caused the present break,” said a rich young stock-broker with an air of much importance.
“The deacon and I are kind o’ out,” said Tamms. “The fact is, I’m afraid the deacon may have been selling too many stocks.”
“Remington has sold nothing but Allegheny,” said every man to himself; and felt that they were well repaid their ferry-trips to Brooklyn. But after this, Mr. Tamms obstinately refused to talk any more stocks, but only Shakespeare and the music-glasses, that is, of Mr. Beecher and the Coney Island races.
Charlie outstayed them all, and then went home alone. “It can’t be done,” he said to himself; “the Governor knows it and he’s desperate. I don’t believe that we can borrow fifty thousand more.” He was sitting alone in the ladies’ room of the ferry-boat, his fur collar pulled well up about his face, smoking one of his own cigars; for Tamms’s were too strong. There was only one other passenger upon the boat; a drunken working-man; and he was cursing Townley for a swell. “Confound him, they wouldn’t let me smoke there, though it is late at night. But I ain’t got no fine cigar, perhaps.”
Tamms’s fertility of invention was miraculous; but still it seemed to Townley that he was hard pressed now. Their profit on that last summer’s operation had been large—on paper; but it was this devilish tightness of money that made things bad.
Suddenly, there was a peal of joyous bells, ringing loud all at once, chimes, church-bells, factories, and schools, from both sides of the river. Townley started nervously, and then remembered with a laugh that it was New Year’s day. “What damned rot it is,” said he; and then betook himself again to thinking. It seemed as if that merry music brought him new ideas; for he slapped his thigh, and said aloud, “By Jove, I have it.”—“What’s the swell a-chuckling over now?” said our friend Simpson, looking in the window from outside.
“The deacon must have sold about all the stock there is,” Charlie went on to himself; “and if we can only carry ours, and those rich lambs go in to buy—the deacon can’t deliver. Why, it’s making them do the cornering for us—doesn’t cost us a cent—and if we get a little short of money, we can even drop a few shares to them ourselves, and no one be the wiser. Provided only some devilish panic or strike or war of rates does not come in just now,” he added, as the boat jarred heavily against the dock.
The bells were silent now, and Charlie, wrapping his fur about him, walked up the snowy and deserted street along the wharves. There was a foul dampness coming from the tired water that still splashed beneath the piles; but the city’s faults were charitably covered up in snow. For once in his life, Townley had an instinct of economy, and took no carriage; a fact which Simpson, slouching along behind him, had noticed. There was no horse-car waiting, so he walked briskly up a narrow cross-street into the city, still smoking his cigar. “Damn him,” thought Simpson, “I wonder how much he’s got? I’d scrag him for a hundred.” And he drew a long knife from its sheath, and hid it with his right hand, in his breast. Simpson has been unlucky lately, with his pools, even as has Mr. Tamms.
But Charlie is still thinking; of Mamie Livingstone and of the ball to-morrow night. The evening’s talk has had one consequence, not wholly material, at least; it has won for little Mamie the cavalier she loves. Townley feels now that all his future hangs upon this slender thread: curse it, he may have waited too long. He has had a dozen chances to marry girls before this; Pussie Duval, herself, who gives the ball to-morrow night—
He is stopped by a man at the corner of the street. “Got a light, boss?”