Near the end of the great arena where the chief point of onslaught seemed to be, stood the standard of the Allegheny Centrals—Allegheny Central, the great railroad that made their houses and their yachts and carriages for hundreds of the rich, and to which some ten thousand of the poor looked for their daily bread. No great corporation had a better name than this: none was surer, none more favored by widows with their mites, by shrewd lawyers, by banks, and by trustees. A greater power, almost, than the people, in the States through which it ran, it was well and honestly managed, and little in favor with speculators and those who like best of all to win by other people’s losses; perhaps the easiest way. This stock had therefore been chosen by the flower of the “bull” army, and was the very wedge of their attack. A great crop had been sown upon its line that year; and about the sign of Allegheny the maddest fight of all was fought. A dense crowd encircled it, a small sea of high hats—some already crushed in the conflict—and a babel of hoarse voices; and even on its outskirts were others madly pushing, pressing to get in. The figures cried went up by leaps at a time—Ninety! Ninety-one! a half! three quarters! Ninety-two for any part of ten thousand! And the smaller men, who had no thought of purchase at such a time, were drawn in as by a whirlpool, such was the excitement of seeing others get what all were there to make, such was the resistless attraction of success.
Among the men who took no part, but stood curiously, on the outskirts of the fight, were two whose faces and figures would attract you even in that crowd. They were apparently friends; at least, they had come in together. The older was a young man of twenty-four or five, very handsome in his way; that is, he was lithe, graceful, tall, with dark hair neatly cut, a small black moustache, shaped like a gentleman’s—it was not the moustache of a gambler, nor yet of an elegant of the dry-goods counter—and, above all, with an indescribable air of high finish and high living. His clothes were beautifully cut; his hands white, his cheeks red, his nervous system evidently in perfect order, and his digestion unimpaired. He came in sauntering, carelessly pointing out the people of interest to his friend; his manner was perfectly indifferent, as he drifted from one sign-post to another, chewing between his lips the green stem of some flower,—as a countryman puts a straw in his mouth when making a horse-trade. He passed by the Allegheny Central and stopped in front of the Louisville and Nashville sign; and no one suspected that he, Charlie Townley, of Townley & Tamms, had just sent brokers into the heat of the fight, by order of headquarters, to sell twenty thousand shares of the Allegheny Central itself. He cast no glance behind him, but was engaged in pointing out to his friend three well-known brokers—one famed for his wit, the other for his wife, and the third, to continue the alliteration, for his wiles. The companion was of different build; but we need not describe him. Arthur Holyoke had arrived in New York the very night before. He had come on from the country with his cousin and her aunt, Mrs. Livingstone, with whom in future Gracie was to live. He had been with Gracie all those weeks since her father’s death; but his quick perception had prevented him from speaking to her again of their engagement. Gracie was a girl whose standard of conduct was placed above the plain and obvious right; who would go out of her way to seek duties that were almost romantic, justice more than poetical, motives ethereal, and benefits to others that their better angels might have overlooked. And Arthur was enough of a poet himself to feel that he would not wisely mention love to her for many months at least; not because her father had not approved it, but because he was no longer there to approve.
When Judge Holyoke had written to his sister-in-law about Arthur, Mrs. Livingstone had spoken at once to Mr. Townley, who was an old friend of hers; and he had promptly offered to let Arthur serve an apprenticeship in his own business. Mr. Townley, the old gentleman, that is; for Charlie, despite all his finish and importance, was but a line-officer, representing them actively in the field. He was only a far-off orphan cousin of Mr. Townley’s, and a clerk in the firm of Townley & Tamms, on a salary of $2500 a year. But his alertness and his wide-awake air had gained for him the pleasanter duty of representing the firm in its seat in the Stock Exchange; said seat being, as we have seen, a privilege to get standing-room therein if possible.
No one knew all this of Townley. Most of his merely society acquaintances supposed him to be the senior partner’s son; even his intimate friends thought of him as the probable heir, in a fair way to be a partner, an impression which Charlie artfully heightened by his extravagant mode of life when away from his boarding-place, his late hours, and his general inattention to all but the showy work of the firm. It was evident that he took far more interest in keeping his dress correct than in the books of the firm; and, the Stock Exchange once closed, no young man of fashion could be more safely relied upon for an afternoon of sport, or a ride and dinner at the Hill-and-Dale Club.
But all this Arthur had yet to learn; for the present, he was interested in the battle around him, the conflict of the two spirits, hope and despair, affirmation and negation, enterprise and nihilism, in this safety-valve of traffic, where alone the two forces meet directly, each at touch and test with the other. For the Stock Exchange is a kind of gauge, testing the force of the national store and the national need of money; and the bears, too, have their healthy function, keeping down the fever in the body politic.
In the shriek and roar of all the crowd about them, the young men could hardly converse intelligibly; but that might come after; meantime, Arthur was fully employed in seeing. Few of the men showed evidence of much mental anxiety; opposite them, to be sure, a pale-faced little Jew stood in a corner, nervously biting his lips; but most of the crowd were red-faced, and panting with the physical excitement alone, as if it were a foot-ball match. As they looked on, a fat, good-natured-looking broker with an impudent face and a white hat cocked on one side of his head, came out of the Lake Shore crowd, and with the slightest perceptible wink to Townley as he passed, joined the madder fight about Allegheny Central.
“Ninety-one,” said he, “a thousand!”
“Come out of the floor,” said Townley to Arthur; “come up-stairs; there’s going to be some fun.” At first, no one paid any attention to the new-comer; and when our friends got to the gallery, the fat broker was still offering his stock at ninety-one to an unheeding world, and the state of affairs was much the same as before. Only, that at this distance the noise had something in it less human; it was inarticulate, monstrous, and the sight of half a thousand men, struggling, every eye fixed on his neighbor’s, made a something awful in the experience, as if they two on-lookers were unseen Valkyrs, looking down upon some battle of the Huns.
“Ninety-one,” they heard the new-comer say again; and this time he was answered; for there was a howl of derision, and then a sudden sway in the crowd, and a rush to where he stood. “Ninety and three quarters,” said he; “a half,” and there was another howl; but by this time the leaders of the inner defence had heard of this flank movement, and their tactics changed. “Ninety!” “Nine and a half!” “Eighty-nine!” “Eight and three quarters!” “A half!”
“Seven, for ten thousand,” said the solitary broker, coolly; and the roar doubled in volume, if such a thing were possible; and the rush to sell began, at rapidly dropping figures. The fat, good-natured broker turned away, and started to go, having sold the stock down five points in hardly fifty seconds; when crash! a small soft orange went through the centre of the impudent white hat. With a yell of derision, the crowd turned their fury upon this; whack! crack! flew the unlucky hat, from one fist to another, amid the cheers of the multitude, until a well-directed kick landed it beside Arthur in the gallery. This gave a new object to their humor; and with one accord the assemblage began singing in regular well-tempered cadence, evidently referring to Arthur: