“It’s up to us to do something new; and it has struck me that a ten-story flat, with every comfort and luxury provided, located away from the heat and dirt of the city, but accessible by car-line—not more than twenty minutes from the monument—is the thing we’re looking for. Instead of gazing out on smoke-stacks our tenants will look down on trees! Does it sound good to you?”
His audience smoked on quietly and Balcomb continued. They liked to hear him talk. He was an attractive figure as he leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets.
“We can afford to give them some green grass to look at by going out of town. Babies, pianos and dogs are excluded from all well-regulated flats, but if we should be a little tolerant toward babies an acre of God’s green earth would be a great thing for them. Just see how it grows on you, gentlemen! Now, in the same connection we’d run an ideal dairy a little farther out, to give the tenants real cream and butter like their mothers used to make. Say, I don’t see how the down-town flats will do any business after we get going! If anybody asks questions about the milk we can prove it was good by the cows!”
He laughed and they all grinned in sympathy with his plan and in admiration of his genius.
“But where are you going to get all this?” asked Van Cleve, his attorney, who frequently acted as interlocutor at such meetings.
“That’s not so easy. You’ve got to get on the best street and on a good car-line, and you’ve got to go north. Remember, there’s a park system going out that way right up the creek. A park system and a boulevard would be worth millions to us. There are only two or three sites possible and the best of all is the corner where High Street crosses Ripple Creek. It looks awful good to me anywhere along there. Twenty minutes from Jefferson Street, gentlemen; all the comforts of the city; all the joys of the country. Now—” with a change of tone, “this is all strictly inter nos, as Doc Bridges used to say at college. This is our scheme and we don’t want a lot of little real estate fakirs crossing our trail. If I may be a bit confidential and philosophical, I’ll warn you against three classes of men—plumbers, real estate agents and preachers in plug hats and shining alpaca coats who handle a line of Arizona mining stock on the side.”
They all laughed and he sat down to give them a chance to ask him questions. Up to a certain point he always did all the talking; but he knew when to quit. He submitted himself to their cross-examination graciously. They were simple, hard-headed men, and he answered them patiently and carefully. He had accumulated a great fund of data relating to the life of such structures as he proposed building: the cost of maintenance; the heating and lighting questions and the matter of service. Much of this was wholly new to the country capitalists; it was novel and it was interesting and there was a glamour about it that charmed them.
“You’ll go over to the club for luncheon, gentlemen,” he said, when the whistles blew at twelve o’clock and several of his syndicate drew out their watches,—“with me,” he added. “We’ll go about one.”
Most of them were used to dinner at twelve at home and they were hungry; but luncheon at the club was in keeping with their new development, and they waited patiently until young Midas should be ready to lead them.
After seeing them fed at the Commercial Club he parted with them, with the understanding that he was to search for a proper site for the Patoka Flats, as the apartment house was to be called, and report on a day fixed. He returned to his office for a further conference with Van Cleve, his lawyer. The flat project was uppermost in Balcomb’s mind, and he was bent on pushing it through. His interurbanites had already subscribed for considerable stock and he was reasonably sure of getting all the money he needed. Times were good; there was plenty of capital seeking investment, and the incorporators of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company were men of considerable influence in their several communities.