As one seasoned financier to another these two masters of commerce foregathered gravely upon matters of investment and profit. The Honorable G. W. Battles was a man who believed in his own enthusiasm and had command of many, many words, a gift which had been enhanced by much public speechmaking, and now, in a monologue that fairly scintillated and coruscated, he laid before J. Rufus Wallingford the manifold advantages of investment in the historic town that had been founded by his historic grandfather. Before he was entirely through all that he could, would or might have said, there came another knock at the door. Judge Lampton, who had retired immediately upon introducing the Honorable G. W. Battles, had returned, and with him was Max Geldenstein, proprietor of the Rock Bottom clothing stores, not only in Battlesburg, but also in Paris, London, Dublin, Berlin and Rome, all six cities being in or adjacent to Battles County. He was also a director in the Battles County Bank and in the Battles & Son Canning Company, a city councilman and a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He, too, extended a welcoming hand to the chance millionaire and invited him most cordially to become one of them. Came shortly after, in tow of the indefatigable Judge Lampton, the Honorable Timothy Battles, mayor of Battlesburg and illustrious son of the Honorable G. W. Battles, bearing with him the keys of the city. Came, too, Lampton-led, Mr. Henry Quig, coal and ice magnate, and the largest stockholder, except the Honorable G. W. Battles, in the Battlesburg Gas and Electric Light Plant; also a member of the City Council and of the Chamber of Commerce.
It became necessary to subsidize the dining room after eight o'clock, and until far into the night Mr. Wallingford and Mr. Daw entertained the leading gentlemen of the city, who, under the efficient marshalship of Judge Lampton, came to help the Judge sell a building lot and to present their respects to these gentlemen of boundless capital. What need is there to tell how J. Rufus Wallingford, he of the broad chest and the massive dignity, arose to the opportunity of presiding as informal host over Battlesburg's entire supply of twenty-one bottles of champagne? Suffice it to say that, when the last callers had gone, he mopped his perspiring brow and turned to Blackie Daw with a chuckle in which his entire body participated.
"They will do it, eh, Blackie?" he commented. "Just come and beg to be skinned! What will you give me for one side of Main Street?"
"It would be a shame to split it," declared Mr. Daw. "Keep it all, J. Rufus. I'm only a piker. If I make ten thousand on a clean-up I think I'm John W. Gates, and if I made more I'd start mumbling and making funny signs. I can't trot in your class."
But J. Rufus was in no humor for banter. He looked at the array of empty bottles and glasses upon the long dining-room table and nodded his head in satisfaction.
"It's been a good night's work, Blackie," he concluded, "and, when I come back here, I'm going to jam a chestnut burr under the tail of this one-horse town. To-morrow morning I'm going to be an investor in Battlesburg real estate, and the traction line idea must be kept under cover for a while. Don't breathe a word of it."
The next morning, in pursuance of this idea, Mr. Wallingford went forth with Judge Lampton and looked at property. Between the Palace Hotel and the depot was an entire vacant block, used at present for mere grazing purposes by Doc Gunther, and Mr. Wallingford agreed that this would be an admirable site for an up-to-date, six-story, pressed-brick hotel. He even went so far as to sketch out his idea of the two-story marble lobby—a fountain in the center—balcony at the height of the first floor ceiling—arched orchestra bridge! On the other side of the street, a little above the bank and on a block occupied at present by a blacksmith shop and a prehistoric junk heap, he gave a glowing word picture of the new Grand Opera House that should be erected there. Farther up the street was another cow pasture, over which he thought deeply; but his thoughts he carefully kept to himself, and both Clint Richards and Judge Lampton dreamed great, puzzling dreams by reason of that very silence. Up in the residence district Mr. Wallingford picked out three splendid lots, one of which he did not hesitate to say would make an admirable site for an up-to-date apartment house, and one of the others—he had not decided which—would make an admirable location for a private residence.
He bought none of this property, but he took ninety-day options on all seven pieces, paying therefor from ten to fifty dollars upon each one, and leaving in the town of Battlesburg, aside from his hotel and livery bill and other expenses, not less than two hundred and fifty dollars of real money, each dollar of which glowed with a promise of many more to come. It is needless to say that the Battlesburg Blade that evening did full honor to these wholesale transactions. It took all of the first page and part of the last to do that; even the telegraphic account of the absorbing and scandalous Estelle Lightfoot murder romance, clipped from the Chicago morning papers, had to be condensed for that day to half-a-dozen lines.