For the moment, however, Mr. Mix was querulous rather than defensive. He was trying to place the blame for the past two seasons of misfortune, and when he observed that Pacific Refining was twelve points up from Saturday’s close, he sighed wearily and told himself that it was all a matter of luck. He had had an appointment, last Saturday at nine o’clock, with his friend John Starkweather, and he had meant to borrow something from him, if 26 possible, and to risk a few hundred shares of Pacific Refining on margin; but he had overslept, and Mr. Starkweather had left his office at nine fifteen and hadn’t come back again that day, so that the profit which might so easily have come to rest in Mr. Mix’s pockets was now in other quarters.
Luck! The most intangible of assets and the most unescapable of liabilities. On Saturday, Mr. Mix had arrived too late because he had overslept because his alarm-clock had been tinkered by a watchmaker who had inherited a taste for alcohol from a parent who had been ruined by the Chicago fire––and almost before he knew it, Mr. Mix had trailed the blame to Adam and Eve, and was feeling personally resentful. It was plain to him that his failure wasn’t in any sense his own fault.
As he resumed his paper, however, his querulousness yielded to a broad sunny optimism, and he turned to the sporting page and hunted out the news from the Bowie track. He had a friend at Bowie, and the friend owned a horse which he swore was the darkest three-year-old in captivity; he had wired Mr. Mix to 27 hypothecate his shirt, and bet the proceeds on the fourth race, this coming Saturday. The odds would be at least 10 to 1, he said, and he could place all the money that Mr. Mix might send him.
Mr. Mix leaned back and built a stable in the air. Suppose he could borrow a couple of thousand. Twenty thousand clear profit. Then a quick dash into the cotton-market (the price was certainly going to break wide open in another month) and the twenty would unfold, and expand, and become fifty. And if a shrewd, cold-blooded man went down to Wall Street with fifty thousand dollars, and played close to his chest, he ought to double his capital in four months. To be sure, Mr. Mix had been losing steadily for a dozen years, but he was confident that he had it in him to be a great and successful plunger. He felt it. Heretofore, he had been handicapped by operating on a shoestring; but with fifty thousand dollars to put his back against––
His stenographer announced a caller, and on the instant, Mr. Mix, put on his other personality, and prepared to silver his tongue. 28 The caller, however, came straight to Mr. Mix’s desk, and flipped out one sheet from a large portfolio. “Say,” he remarked brusquely. “What’s the matter with this bill? Ziegler and Company. Two ninety two sixty––dated November.”
Mr. Mix laughed genially, and offered a cigar. “Why, nothing’s the matter with it.”
“What’s the matter with Ziegler and Company? Aren’t they solvent?”
The visitor lighted his cigar, and mellowed. “Well it ain’t any of my funeral, but Ziegler he says if you don’t settle by the fifteenth, he’ll give it to his attorney.”
For the third time in a week, an attorney had been lugged into the conversation; more than that, Mr. Mix had received four letters from two different collection agencies. “In the words of the Good Book,” he said soothingly, “have patience and I will pay thee all.”
“What say? Will I come in next week sometime?”