He did know that Judge Endicott’s nephew, Noel, was the cashier of the new firm, now in full blast, and that he alone received the orders of the Queen of the Street from the private wires in the Hanover Bank Building.
And he knew, too, that Mr. Frederick Hathorn’s office boasted no longer the “inside tip” on Sugar from the woman who was carrying a social war “into Africa” and had already staggered even the audacious Mrs. Alida.
The checks of the new firm on the “Chemical Bank” were already recognized as those of people “who could swing the Street,” and some daring “deals” had opened the game.
It was Vreeland’s duty to confer once daily with his strangely-found benefactress, and yet, he felt even now that he was but half within the door.
But one bitter hatred followed his rising star, and he soon heard the sneer of Frederick Hathorn: “So he lied to me, and has sneaked into business behind a woman’s petticoats.
“Wait! Set a beggar on horseback—he will ride to the devil.” For all that, “they never spoke as they passed by.” The war was now on in earnest.
CHAPTER V.
TOWARD THE ZENITH.
It had been the one haunting dream of Harold Vreeland’s fevered young manhood to finally reach a financial position wherein “the solid ground” would not fail beneath his feet. Before the Christmas snows had whitened the roofs of old Trinity his star was crawling surely toward its zenith. He was, figuratively speaking, “on velvet.”
Though he realized the cogent truth of Jimmy Potter’s maxim that the desire of one’s heart would always finally come around to the patient man, he was yet filled with a vague uneasiness. He was entrenched at the Waldorf en permanence, and his personal bank account had reached the snug sum of twenty thousand dollars.