Percival watched Consolidated Copper go back to 110, and bought again—ten thousand shares. The price went up two points the day after his orders were placed, and two days later dropped back to 110. The conservatives began to agree with the younger set of speculators, in so far as both now believed that the stock was behaving in an unnatural manner, indicating that "something was doing"—that manipulation behind the scenes was under way to a definite end. The conservatives and the radicals differed as to what this end was. But then, Wall Street is nourished almost exclusively upon differences of opinion.
Percival now had accounts with five firms of brokers.
"Relpin," he explained to Uncle Peter, "is a foxy boy. He's foxier than a fox. He not only tried to hedge on what he told me,—said he'd been drinking absinthe frappé that day, and it always gets him dreamy,—but he actually had the nerve to give me the opposite steer. Of course he knows the deal clear to the centre, and Shepler knows that he knows, and he must have been afraid Shepler would suspect he'd been talking. So I only traded a few thousand shares with him. I didn't want to embarrass him. Funny about him, too. I never heard before of his drinking anything to speak of. And there isn't a man in the Street comes so near to knowing what the big boys are up to. But we're on the winning cards all right. I get exactly the same information from a dozen confidential sources; some of it I can trace to Relpin, and some of it right to Shepler himself." "Course I'm leavin' it all to you," answered Uncle Peter; "and I must say I do admire the way you take hold and get things on the move. You don't let any grass grow under your heels. You got a good head fur them things. I can tell by the way you start out—just like your pa fur all the world. I'll feel safe enough about my money as long as you keep your health. If only you got the nerve. I've known men would play a big proposition half-through and then get scared and pull out. Your pa wa'n't that way. He could get a proposition right by its handle every time, and they never come any too big fur him; the bigger they was, better he liked 'em. That's the kind of genius I think you got. You ain't afraid to take a chance."
Percival beamed modestly under praise of this sort which now came to him daily.
"It's good discipline for me, too, Uncle Peter. It's what I needed, something to put my mind on. I needed a new interest in life. You had me down right. I wasn't doing myself a bit of good with nothing to occupy my mind."
"Well, I'm mighty glad you thought up this stock deal. It'll give you good business habits and experience, say nothing of doubling your capital."
"And I've gone in with Burman on his corn deal. He's begun to buy, and he has it cinched this time. He'll be the corn king all right by June 1st; don't make any mistake on that. I thought as long as we were plunging so heavy in Western Trolley and Union Cordage, along with the copper, we might as well take the side line of corn. Then we won't have our eggs all in one basket."
"All right, son, all right! I'm trustin' you. A corner in corn is better'n a corner in wild-oats any day; anything to keep you straight, and doin' something. I don't care how many millions you pile up! I hear the Federal Oil people's back of the copper deal."
"That's right; the oil crowd and Shepler. I had it straight from Relpin that night. They're negotiating now with the Rothschilds to limit the output of the Rio Tinto mines. They'll end by controlling them, and then—well, we'll have a roll of the yellow boys—say, we'll have to lay quiet for a year just to count it."
"Do it good while you're doin' it," urged Uncle Peter, cheerfully. "I rely so much on your judgment, I want you to get action on my stuff, too. I got a couple millions that ought to be workin' harder than they are."