CHAPTER XIX.

In Which Events Resume their Usual Course--at a Somewhat Accelerated

Pace.

The death of Mr. Trescott was treated with that consideration which the

affairs of the locally prominent always receive in towns where local

papers are in close financial touch with the circle affected. Nothing

was said of suicide, or of the place where the body was found; and in

fact I doubt if the family ever knew the real facts; but the property

matters were looked upon as a legitimate subject for comment.

"Yesterday," said, in due time, the _Herald_, "the Trescott estate

passed into the hands of Will Lattimore, as administrator. He was

appointed upon the petition of Martha D. Trescott, the widow. His bond,

in the sum of $500,000, was signed by James R. Elkins, Albert F.

Barslow, J. Bedford Cornish, and Marion Tolliver, as sureties, and is

said to be the largest in amount ever filed in our local Probate Court.

"Mr. Lattimore is non-committal as to the value of the estate. The bond

is not to be taken as altogether indicative of this value, as additional

bonds may be called for at any time, and the individual responsibility

of the administrator is very large. He will at once enter upon the work

of settling up the estate, receiving and filing claims, and preparing

his report. He estimates the time necessary to a full understanding of

the extent and condition of his trust at weeks and even months.

"The petition states that the deceased died intestate, leaving surviving

him the petitioner and an only child, a daughter, Josephine. As Miss

Trescott has attained her majority, she will at once come into the

possession of the greater part of this estate, becoming thereby the

richest heiress in this part of the West. This fact of itself would

render her an interesting person, an interest to which her charming

personality adds zest. She is a very beautiful girl, petite in figure,

with splendid brown hair and eyes. She is possessed of a strong

individuality, has had the advantages of the best American and

Continental schools, and is said to be an artist of much ability. Mrs.

Trescott comes of the Dana family, prominent in central Illinois from

the earliest settlement of the state.

"President Elkins, of the L. & G. W., who, perhaps, knows more than any

other person as to the situation and value of the various Trescott

properties, could not be seen last night. He went to Chicago on

Wednesday, and yesterday wired his partner, Mr. Barslow, that business

had called him on to New York, where he would remain for some time."

In another column of the same issue was a double-leaded news-story,

based on certain rumors that Jim's trip to New York was taken for the

purpose of financing extensions of the L. & G. W. which would develop it

into a system of more than a thousand miles of line.

"Their past successes have shown," said the _Herald_ in editorial

comment on this, "that Mr. Elkins and his associates are resourceful

enough to bring such an undertaking, gigantic as it is, quite within

their abilities. The world has not seen the best that is in the power of

this most remarkable group of men to accomplish. Lattimore, already a

young giantess in stature and strength, has not begun to grow, in

comparison with what is in the future for her, if she is to be made the

center of such a vast railway system as is outlined in the news item

referred to."

From which one gathers that the young men left by Mr. Giddings in charge

of his paper were entirely competent to carry forward his policy.

Jim had gone to Chicago to see Halliday, hoping to rouse in him an

interest in the Belt Line and L. & G. W. properties; but on arriving

there had telegraphed to me that he must go to New York. This message

was followed by a letter of explanation and instructions.

"Halliday spends a good deal of his time in New York now," the letter

read, "and is there at present. His understudy here advised me to go on

East. I should rather see him there than here, on account of the greater

likelihood that Pendleton may detect us: so I'm going. I shall stay as

long as I can do any good by it. Lattimore won't get the condition of

the estate worked out for a month, and until we know about that, there

won't anything come up of the first magnitude, and even if there should,

you can handle it. I don't really expect to come back with the two

million dollars for the L. & G. W., but I do hope to have it in sight!

"In all your prayers let me be remembered; 'if it don't do no good, it

won't do no harm,' and I'll need all the help I can get. I'm going where

the lobster a la Newburg and the Welsh rabbit hunt in couples in the

interest of the Sure-Thing game; where the bird-and-bottle combine is

the stalking-horse for the Frame-up; and where the Flim-flam (I use the

word on the authority of Beaumont, Fletcher & Giddings) has its natural

habitat. I go to foster the entente cordiale between our friends

Pendleton and Halliday into what I may term a mutual cross-lift, of

which we shall be the beneficiaries--in trust, however, for the use and

behoof of the captives below decks.

"Giddings and Laura are here. I had them out to a box party last night.

They are most insufferably happy. Clifford is not sane yet, but is

rallying. He is rallying considerably; for he spoke of plans for pushing

the _Herald_ Addition harder than ever when he gets home. And you know

such a thing as business has never entered his mind for six

months--unless it was business to write that 'Apostrophe to the Heart,'

which he called a poem, and which, I don't mind admitting now, I hired

his foreman to pi after the copy was lost.

"Keep everything as near ship-shape as you can. Watch the papers, or

they may do us more harm in a single fool story than can be remedied by

wise counter-mendacity in a year. Especially watch the _Times_, although

there's mighty little choice between them. You and Alice ought to spend

as much time at the Trescotts' as you can spare. You'll hear from me

almost daily. Wire anything of importance fully. Keep the L. & G. W.

extension story before the people; it may make some impression even in

the East, but it's sure to do good in the local fake market. Don't miss

a chance to jolly our Eastern banks. I should declare a dividend--say

4%--on Cement stock. At Atlas Power Company meeting ask Cornish to move

passing earnings to surplus in lieu of dividend, on the theory of

building new factories--anyhow, consult with the fellows about it: that

money will be handy to have in the treasury before the year is out,

unless I am mistaken. Sorry I can't be at these meetings. Will be back

for those of Rapid Transit and Belt Line Companies.

"Yours,

"Jim.

"P. S.--Coming in, I saw a group of children dancing on a bridge, close

to a schoolhouse, down near the Mississippi. I guess no one but myself

knew what they were doing; but I recognized our old 'Weevilly Wheat'

dance. I could imagine the ancient Scotch air, which the noise of the

train kept me from hearing, and the old words you and I used to sing,

dancing on the Elk Creek bridge:

"'We want no more of your weevilly wheat,

We want no more your barley;

But we want some of your good old wheat,

To make a cake for Charley!'

"You remember it all! How we used to swing the little girls around, and

when we remembered it afterwards, how we would float off into realms of

blissful companionship with freckled, short-skirted, bare-legged angels!

Things were simpler then, Al, weren't they? And to emphasize that fact,

my mind ran along the trail of the 'Weevilly Wheat' into the domain of

tickers, margins, puts and calls, and all the cussedness of the Board of

Trade, and came bump against poor Bill's bucket-shop deals, and settled

down to the chronic wonder as to just how badly crippled he was when he

died. If Will gets it figured out soon, at all accurately, wire me.

"J."

The wedding tour came to an end, and the bride and groom returned long

before Mr. Elkins did. Giddings dropped into my office the day after

their return, and, quite in his old way, began to discuss affairs in

general.

"I'm going to close out the _Herald_ Addition," said he. "Real estate

and newspaper work don't mix, and I shall unload the real estate. What

do you say to an auction?"

"How can you be sure of anything like an adequate scale of prices?" said

I; "and won't you demoralize things?"

"It'll strengthen prices," he replied, "the way I'll manage it. This is

the age of the sensational--the yellow--and you people haven't been

yellow enough in your methods of selling dirt. If you say sensationalism

is immoral, I won't dispute it, but just simply ask how the fact happens

to be material?"

I saw that he was going out of his way to say this, and avoided

discussion by asking him to particularize as to his methods.

"We shall pursue a progressively startling course of advertising, to the

end that the interest shall just miss acute mania. I'll have the best

auctioneer in the world. On the day of the auction we'll have a series

of doings which will leave the people absolutely no way out of buying.

We'll have a scale of upset prices which will prevent loss. Why, I'll

make such a killing as never was known outside of the Fifteen Decisive

Battles. I sha'n't seem to do all this personally. I shall turn the work

over to Tolliver; but I'll be the power behind the movement. The

gestures and stage business will be those of Esau, but the word-painting

will be that of Jacob."

"Well," said I, "I see nothing wrong about your plan; and it may be

practicable."

"There being nothing wrong about it is no objection from my standpoint,"

said he. "In fact, I think I prefer to have it morally right rather than

otherwise, other things being equal, you know. As for its

practicability, you watch the Captain, and you'll see!"

This talk with Giddings convinced me that he was entirely himself again;

and also that the boom was going on apace. It had now long reached the

stage where the efforts of our syndicate were reinforced by those of

hundreds of men, who, following the lines of their own interests, were

powerfully and effectively striving to accomplish the same ends. I

pointed this out in a letter to Mr. Elkins in New York.

"I am glad to note," said he in reply, "that affairs are going on so

cheerfully at home. Don't imagine, however, that because a horde of

volunteers (most of them nine-spots) have taken hold, our old guard is

of any less importance. Do you remember what a Prince Rupert's drop is?

I absolutely know you don't, and to save you the trouble of looking it

up, I'll explain that it is a glass pollywog which holds together all

right until you snap off the tip of its tail. Then a job lot of

molecular stresses are thrown out of balance, and the thing develops the

surprising faculty of flying into innumerable fragments, with a very

pleasing explosion. Whether the name is a tribute of Prince Rupert's

propensity to fly off the handle, or whether he discovered the drop, or

first noted its peculiarities, I leave for the historian of the

Cromwellian epoch to decide. The point I make is this. Our syndicate is

the tail of the Lattimore Rupert's drop; and the Grain Belt Trust Co. is

the very slenderest and thinnest tip of the pollywog's propeller. Hence

the writer's tendency to count the strokes of the clock these nights."

Dating from the night of Trescott's death, and therefore covering the

period of Jim's absence, I could not fail to notice the renewed ardor

with which Cornish devoted himself to the Trescott family. Alice and I,

on our frequent visits, found him at their home so much that I was

forced to the conclusion that he must have had some encouragement.

During this period of their mourning his treatment of both mother and

daughter was at once so solicitously friendly, and so delicate, that no

one in their place could have failed to feel a sense of obligation. He

sent flowers to Mrs. Trescott, and found interesting things in books and

magazines for Josie. Having known him as a somewhat cold and formal man,

Mrs. Trescott was greatly pleased with this new view of his character.

He diverted her mind, and relieved the monotony of her grief. Cornish

was a diplomat (otherwise Jim would have had no use for him in the first

place), and he skilfully chose this sad and tender moment to bring about

a closer intimacy than had existed between him and the afflicted family.

It was clearly no affair of mine. Nevertheless, after several

experiences in finding Cornish talking with Josie by the Trescott grate,

I considered Jim's interests menaced.

"Well," said Alice, when I mentioned this feeling, "Mr. Cornish is

certainly a desirable match, and it can scarcely be expected that Josie

will remain permanently unattached."

There was a little resentment in her voice, for which I could see no

reason, and therefore protested that, under all circumstances, it was

scarcely fair to blame me for the lady's unappropriated state.

"Under other conditions," said I, "I assure you that I should not

permit such an anomaly to exist--if I could help it."

The incident was then declared closed.

During this absence of Jim's, which, I think, was the real cause of

Alice's displeasure, the _Herald_ Addition sale went forward, with all

the "yellow" features which the minds of Giddings and Tolliver could

invent. It began with flaring advertisements in both papers. Then, on a

certain day, the sale was declared open, and every bill-board and fence

bore posters puffing it. A great screen was built on a vacant lot on

Main Street, and across the street was placed, every night, the biggest

magic lantern procurable, from which pictures of all sorts were

projected on the screen, interlarded with which were statements of the

_Herald_ Addition sales for the day, and quotations showing the advance

in prices since yesterday. And at all times the coming auction was cried

abroad, until the interest grew to something wonderful. Every farmer and

country merchant within a hundred miles of the city was talking of it.

Tolliver was in his highest feather. On the day of the auction he

secured excursion rates on all of the railroads, and made it a holiday.

Porter's great military band, then touring the country, was secured for

the afternoon and evening. Thousands of people came in on the excursions

and it seemed like a carnival. Out at the piece of land platted as the

_Herald_ Addition, whither people were conveyed in street-cars and

carriages during the long afternoon the great band played about the

stands erected for the auctioneer, who went from stand to stand, crying

off the lots, the precise location of the particular parcel at any

moment under the hammer being indicated by the display of a flag, held

high by two strong fellows, who lowered the banner and walked to another

site in obedience to signals wigwagged by the enthusiastic Captain. The

throng bid excitedly, and the clerks who made out the papers worked

desperately to keep up with the demands for deeds. It was clear that the

sale was a success. As the sun sank, handbills were scattered informing

the crowd that in the evening Tolliver & Company, as a slight evidence

of their appreciation of the splendid business of the day, would throw

open to their friends the new Cornish Opera House, where Porter's

celebrated band would give its regular high-class concert. Tolliver &

Company, the bill went on, took pleasure in further informing the public

that, in view of the great success of the day's sale, and the very small

amount to which their holdings in the _Herald_ Addition were reduced,

the remainder of this choice piece of property would be sold from the

stage to the highest bidder, absolutely without any reservation or

restriction as to the price!

I had received a telegram from Jim saying that he would return on a

train arriving that evening, and asking that Cornish, Hinckley, and

Lattimore be at the office to meet him. I was on the street early in the

evening, looking with wonder at the crowds making merry after the dizzy

day of speculative delirium. At the opera house, filled to overflowing

with men admitted on tickets, the great band was discoursing its music,

in alternation with the insinuating oratory of the auctioneer, under

whose skilful management the odds and ends of the _Herald_ Addition were

changing owners at a rate which was simply bewildering.

"Don't you see," said Giddings delightedly, "that this is the only way

to sell town lots?"

Jim came into the office, fresh and buoyant after his long trip, his

laugh as hearty and mirth-provoking as ever. After shaking hands with

all, he threw himself into his own chair.

"Boys," said he, "I feel like a mouse just returning from a visit to a

cat convention. But what's this crowd for? It's nearly as bad as

Broadway."

We explained what Giddings and Tolliver had been doing.

"But," said he, "do you mean to tell me that he's sold that Addition to

this crowd of reubs?"

"He most certainly has," said Cornish.

"Well, fellows," replied Jim, "put away the accounts of this as

curiosities! You'll have some difficulty in making posterity believe

that there was ever a time or place where town lots were sold with magic

lanterns and a brass band! And don't advertise it too much with Dorr,

Wickersham and those fellows. They think us a little crazy now. But a

brass band! That comes pretty near being the limit."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lattimore, "I shall have to leave you soon; and

will you kindly make use of me as soon as you conveniently can, and let

me go?"

"Have you got the condition of the Trescott estate figured out?" said

Mr. Elkins.

"Yes," said the lawyer.

We all leaned forward in absorbed interest; for this was news.

"Have you told these gentlemen?" Jim went on.

"I have told no one."

"Please give us your conclusions."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lattimore, "I am sorry to report that the Trescott

estate is absolutely insolvent! It lacks a hundred thousand dollars of

being worth anything!"

There was a silence for some moments.

"My God!" said Hinckley, "and our trust company is on all that paper of

Trescott's scattered over the East!"

"What's become of the money he got on all his sales?" asked Jim.

"From the looks of the check-stubs, and other indications," said Mr.

Lattimore, "I should say the most of it went into Board of Trade deals."

Cornish was swearing in a repressed way, and above his black beard his

face was pale. Elkins sat drumming idly on the desk with his fingers.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I take it to be conceded that unless the Trescott

paper is cared for, things will go to pieces here. That's the same as

saying that it must be taken up at all hazards."

"Not exactly," said Cornish, "at _all_ hazards."

"Well," said Jim, "it amounts to that. Has any one any suggestions as to

the course to be followed?"

Mr. Cornish asked whether it would not be best to take time, allow the

probate proceedings to drag along, and see what would turn up.

"But the Trust Company's guaranties," said Mr. Hinckley, with a banker's

scent for the complications of commercial paper, "must be made good on

presentation, or it may as well close its doors."

"The thing won't 'drag along' successfully," said Jim. "Have you a

schedule of the assets?"

"Yes," said Mr. Lattimore. "The life-insurance money and the home are

exempt from liability for debts, and I've left them out; but the other

properties you'll find listed here."

And he threw down on the desk a folded document in a legal wrapper.

"The family," said Jim gravely, "must be told of the condition of

things. It is a hard thing to do, but it must be done. Then conveyances

must be obtained of all the property, subject to debts; and we must take

the property and pay the debts. That also will be a hard thing to do--in

several ways; but it must be done. It must be done--do you all agree?"

"Let me first ask," said Mr. Cornish, turning to Mr. Hinckley, "how long

would it be before there would have to be trouble on this paper?"

"It couldn't possibly be postponed more than sixty days," was the

answer.

"Is there any prospect," Cornish went on, addressing Mr. Elkins, "of

closing out the railway properties within sixty days?"

"A prospect, yes," said Jim.

"Anything like a certainty?"

"No, not in sixty days."

"Then," said Cornish reluctantly, "there seems to be no way out of it,

and I agree. But I feel as if I were being held up, and I assent on this

ground only: that Halliday and Pendleton will never deal on equal terms

with a set of financial cripples, and that any trouble here will seal

the fate of the railway transaction. But, lest this be taken as a

precedent, I wish it to be understood that I'm not jeopardizing my

fortune, or any part of it, out of any sentimental consideration for

these supposed claims of any one who holds Lattimore paper, in the East

or elsewhere!"

Jim sat drumming on the desk.

"As we are all agreed on what to do," said he drawlingly, "we can skip

the question why we do it. Prepare the necessary papers, Mr. Lattimore.

And perhaps you are the proper person to apprise the family as to the

true condition of things. We'll have to get together to-morrow and begin

to dig for the funds. I think we can do no more to-night."

We walked down the street and dropped into the opera house in time to

hear the grand finale of the last piece by the band. As the great

outburst of music died away, Captain Tolliver radiantly stepped to the

footlights, dividing the applause with the musicians.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "puhmit me to say, in bidding you-all

good-night, that I congratulate the republic on the possession of a

citizenship so awake to theiah true interests as you have shown

you'selves to-day! I congratulate the puhchasers of propahty in the

_Herald_ Addition upon the bahgains they have secuahed. Only five

minutes' walk from the cyahs, and well within the three-mile limit, the

time must soon come when these lots will be covahed with the mansions of

ouah richah citizens. Even since the sales of this afternoon, I am

infawmed that many of the pieces have been resold at an advance, netting

the puhchasers a nice profit without putting up a cent. Upon all this I

congratulate you. Lattimore, ladies and gentlemen, has nevah been cuhsed

by a boom, and I pray God she nevah may! This rathah brisk growth of

ouahs, based as it is on crying needs of ouah trade territory, is really

unaccountably slow, all things considered. But I may say right hyah that

things ah known to be in sto' foh us which will soon give ouah city an

impetus which will cyahy us fo'ward by leaps and bounds--by leaps and

bounds, ladies and gentlemen--to that highah and still mo' commandin'

place in the galaxy of American cities which is ouahs by right! And now

as you-all take youah leave, I propose that we rise and give three

cheers fo' Lattimore and prosperity."

The cheers were given thunderously, and the crowd bustled out, filling

the street.

"Well, wouldn't that jar you!" said Jim. "This is a case of 'Gaze first

upon this picture, then on that' sure enough, isn't it, Al?"

Captain Tolliver joined us, so full of excitement of the evening that he

forgot to give Mr. Elkins the greeting his return otherwise would have

evoked.

"Gentlemen," said he, "it was glorious! Nevah until this moment have I

felt true fawgiveness in my breast faw the crime of Appomattox! But

to-night we ah truly a reunited people!"

"Glad to know it," said Jim, "mighty glad, Captain. The news'll send

stocks up a-whooping, if it gets to New York!"