“What’s the use? We’d have to buy it ourselves,” answered Tamms. “It’s been the old deacon, right through—damn him,” he added. Charlie had never heard him swear before; and it struck him, all at once, that Tamms was growing careless with his mask.
“Never mind,” said Tamms, as if he had read his thoughts, “let’s go to dinner—then we’ll feel more like tackling the assets. You’ll have to go in and buy the whole market in the morning, anyhow.”
This bold speech restored a little of Townley’s courage; and they went and had a somewhat grim banquet, with plenty of champagne, however, at the Astor House. Then they went back to Wall Street in the evening; and worked together until midnight. And Mr. Tamms showed Townley a list of securities that almost gave him strength to face the morrow. “These,” said he, showing the paper, “are my own; and these other,” showing a still longer list, “are Mr. Townley’s.”
“Had I better see him?”
“What’s the use of bothering the old man? He won’t be down to-morrow.” Now Charlie had never heard Tamms call Mr. Townley “the old man” before.
“How much shall I buy?”
“Buy Allegheny and Starbuck Oil until you’re black in the face. I can get two millions on this stuff easy. And those young fellows who were at my dinner will be buying too, I guess. I’ll catch old Remington, by God, and this time I’ll bleed him white.” And Tamms’s bleared eyes glared, and his beard bristled, and his straight red mustache shut down over his thin lips like a wire trap. He was not a pleasant sight, as he said these words. “If you get frightened, send around for me,” he concluded, more quietly; and they locked the offices and separated on the corner of the street.
That night Charlie did not sleep at all. He lay broad awake, thinking now of the business, now of Mamie Livingstone, his lady-love. He angrily wished that he had put his courtship to its climax sooner. A pretty mood he was now to woo in—at the ball to-morrow night! Sleep was impossible; and he got up and smoked cigars and paced the room impatiently.
In the morning, however, his hopes were higher. After all, they might probably weather this squall, if only for a few weeks; and on that evening, by all that was holy, he would win the hand of pretty little Mamie—and her millions. Then Tamms might split his wicked head for all he cared. Mr. Tamms had not got to the office when Charlie arrived; but he went off to the board, and began his bidding boldly.
But that last night had come the news of the great Allegheny Central strike, no longer to be suppressed by the telegraph or the company, born of that riotous meeting which our friend Derwent had so vainly tried to check and James Starbuck had fomented, coming from the races and his sister’s pretty pony-carriage that emulated Mrs. Gower’s own. The stock had dropped a fraction actually before his own first bid was heard; and he knew that the message had flashed all over the country, “opening weak.” There was a very maelstrom about the Allegheny Central sign—he found it easy to keep in the centre of the whirl, however, and bought it manfully. But soon he found the reason of this; he was the only broker that was buying. Some of the young men that had been at Tamms’s dinner he saw, upon the outskirts of the crowd, and tried to wink at them encouragingly; but evidently the news of the strike, or some other warning, had frightened them, for they held aloof. He could hardly pretend to keep account of the stock that he was buying, though he jotted as rapidly as he could on his bit of paper. A telegram was thrust into his hand; he read it hurriedly; it was from Tamms—“Keep it up—strikers reported starving.”—“Confound ’em, they can’t starve before to-morrow, though,” thought he; but he went on taking all stock they offered; and it seemed as if all the world was offering stock.