The Cost [102]
and seven, more than two hundred thousand shares which he had contracted to sell; and to get them for delivery he would have to pay one hundred and thirty-eight dollars a share. A net loss of more than six millions!
"You must get that price down--you must! You MUST!" quavered James.
"Hell!" exclaimed Zabriskie--he was the youngest member of the firm, a son of James' oldest sister. "Tell me how, and I'll do it."
"You're there--you know what to do," pleaded James. "And I order you to get that price down!"
"Don't keep me here, talking rot. I've been fighting--and I'm going to keep on."
James shivered. Fighting! There was no fight in him--all his life he had got everything without fighting. "Do your best," he said. "I'm very ill to-day. I'm--"
"Good-by--" Zabriskie had hung up the receiver.
James sat staring at the tape like a paralytic staring at death. The minutes lengthened into an hour--into two hours. No one disturbed him--when the battle is on who thinks of the "honorary commander"? At one o'clock he shook himself, brushed his hand over his eyes--quotations of Woolens were reeling off the tape, alternating with quotations of Great Lakes.
"Zabriskie is selling our Woolens," he thought. Then, with a blinding flash the truth struck through his brain. He gave a loud cry between a sob and a shriek and, flinging his arms at full length upon his desk, buried his face between them and burst into tears.
"Ruined! Ruined! Ruined!" And his shoulders, his whole body, shook like a child in a paroxysm.
A long, long ring at the telephone. Fanning-Smith, irritated by the insistent jingling so close to his ear, lifted himself and answered--the tears were guttering his swollen face; his lips and eyelids were twitching.
"Well?" he said feebly.
"We've got 'em on the run," came the reply in Zabriskie's voice, jubilant now.
"Who?"
"Don't know who--whoever was trying to squeeze us. I had to throw over some Woolens--but I'll pick it up again--maybe to-day."
Fanning-Smith could hear the roar of the Exchange--wilder, fiercer than three hours before, but music to him now. He looked sheepishly at the portrait of his grandfather. When its eyes met his he flushed and shifted his gaze guiltily. "Must have been something I ate for breakfast," he muttered to the portrait and to himself in apologetic explanation of his breakdown.
In a distant part of the field all this time was posted the commander-in-chief of the army of attack. Like all wise commanders in all well-conducted battles, he was far removed from the blinding smoke, from the distracting confusion. He had placed himself where he could hear, see, instantly direct, without being disturbed by trifling reverse or success, by unimportant rumors to vast proportions blown.
To play his game for dominion or destruction John Dumont had had himself arrayed in a wine-colored, wadded silk dressing-gown over his white silk pajamas and had stretched himself on a divan in his sitting-room in his palace. A telephone and a stock-ticker within easy reach were his field-glasses and his aides--the stock-ticker would show him second by second the precise posture of the battle; the telephone would enable him to direct it to the minutest manoeuver.
The telephone led to the ear of his chief of staff, Tavistock, who was at his desk in his privatest office in the Mills Building, about him telephones straight to the ears of the division commanders. None of these knew who was his commander; indeed, none knew that there was to be a battle or, after the battle was on, that they were part of one of its two contending armies. They would blindly obey orders, ignorant who was aiming the guns they fired and at whom those guns were aimed. Such conditions would have been fatal to the barbaric struggles for supremacy which ambition has waged through all the past; they are ideal conditions for these modern conflicts of the market which more and more absorb the ambitions of men. Instead of shot and shell and regiments of "cannon food," there are battalions
"You must get that price down--you must! You MUST!" quavered James.
"Hell!" exclaimed Zabriskie--he was the youngest member of the firm, a son of James' oldest sister. "Tell me how, and I'll do it."
"You're there--you know what to do," pleaded James. "And I order you to get that price down!"
"Don't keep me here, talking rot. I've been fighting--and I'm going to keep on."
James shivered. Fighting! There was no fight in him--all his life he had got everything without fighting. "Do your best," he said. "I'm very ill to-day. I'm--"
"Good-by--" Zabriskie had hung up the receiver.
James sat staring at the tape like a paralytic staring at death. The minutes lengthened into an hour--into two hours. No one disturbed him--when the battle is on who thinks of the "honorary commander"? At one o'clock he shook himself, brushed his hand over his eyes--quotations of Woolens were reeling off the tape, alternating with quotations of Great Lakes.
"Zabriskie is selling our Woolens," he thought. Then, with a blinding flash the truth struck through his brain. He gave a loud cry between a sob and a shriek and, flinging his arms at full length upon his desk, buried his face between them and burst into tears.
"Ruined! Ruined! Ruined!" And his shoulders, his whole body, shook like a child in a paroxysm.
A long, long ring at the telephone. Fanning-Smith, irritated by the insistent jingling so close to his ear, lifted himself and answered--the tears were guttering his swollen face; his lips and eyelids were twitching.
"Well?" he said feebly.
"We've got 'em on the run," came the reply in Zabriskie's voice, jubilant now.
"Who?"
"Don't know who--whoever was trying to squeeze us. I had to throw over some Woolens--but I'll pick it up again--maybe to-day."
Fanning-Smith could hear the roar of the Exchange--wilder, fiercer than three hours before, but music to him now. He looked sheepishly at the portrait of his grandfather. When its eyes met his he flushed and shifted his gaze guiltily. "Must have been something I ate for breakfast," he muttered to the portrait and to himself in apologetic explanation of his breakdown.
In a distant part of the field all this time was posted the commander-in-chief of the army of attack. Like all wise commanders in all well-conducted battles, he was far removed from the blinding smoke, from the distracting confusion. He had placed himself where he could hear, see, instantly direct, without being disturbed by trifling reverse or success, by unimportant rumors to vast proportions blown.
To play his game for dominion or destruction John Dumont had had himself arrayed in a wine-colored, wadded silk dressing-gown over his white silk pajamas and had stretched himself on a divan in his sitting-room in his palace. A telephone and a stock-ticker within easy reach were his field-glasses and his aides--the stock-ticker would show him second by second the precise posture of the battle; the telephone would enable him to direct it to the minutest manoeuver.
The telephone led to the ear of his chief of staff, Tavistock, who was at his desk in his privatest office in the Mills Building, about him telephones straight to the ears of the division commanders. None of these knew who was his commander; indeed, none knew that there was to be a battle or, after the battle was on, that they were part of one of its two contending armies. They would blindly obey orders, ignorant who was aiming the guns they fired and at whom those guns were aimed. Such conditions would have been fatal to the barbaric struggles for supremacy which ambition has waged through all the past; they are ideal conditions for these modern conflicts of the market which more and more absorb the ambitions of men. Instead of shot and shell and regiments of "cannon food," there are battalions