The Titan [204]
to be done unless Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel were willing to risk much more money, but it grieved and angered him to think he and Hull should be thus left to sink without a sigh. He had tried Kaffrath, Videra, and Bailey, but they were adamant. Thus cogitating, Stackpole put on his wide-brimmed straw hat and went out. It was nearly ninety-six in the shade. The granite and asphalt pavements of the down-town district reflected a dry, Turkish-bath-room heat. There was no air to speak of. The sky was a burning, milky blue, with the sun gleaming feverishly upon the upper walls of the tall buildings.
Mr. Hand, in his seventh-story suite of offices in the Rookery Building, was suffering from the heat, but much more from mental perturbation. Though not a stingy or penurious man, it was still true that of all earthly things he suffered most from a financial loss. How often had he seen chance or miscalculation sweep apparently strong and valiant men into the limbo of the useless and forgotten! Since the alienation of his wife's affections by Cowperwood, he had scarcely any interest in the world outside his large financial holdings, which included profitable investments in a half-hundred companies. But they must pay, pay, pay heavily in interest--all of them--and the thought that one of them might become a failure or a drain on his resources was enough to give him an almost physical sensation of dissatisfaction and unrest, a sort of spiritual and mental nausea which would cling to him for days and days or until he had surmounted the difficulty. Mr. Hand had no least corner in his heart for failure.
As a matter of fact, the situation in regard to American Match had reached such proportions as to be almost numbing. Aside from the fifteen thousand shares which Messrs. Hull and Stackpole had originally set aside for themselves, Hand, Arneel, Schryhart, and Merrill had purchased five thousand shares each at forty, but had since been compelled to sustain the market to the extent of over five thousand shares more each, at prices ranging from one-twenty to two-twenty, the largest blocks of shares having been bought at the latter figure. Actually Hand was caught for nearly one million five hundred thousand dollars, and his soul was as gray as a bat's wing. At fifty-seven years of age men who are used only to the most successful financial calculations and the credit that goes with unerring judgment dread to be made a mark by chance or fate. It opens the way for comment on their possibly failing vitality or judgment. And so Mr. Hand sat on this hot August afternoon, ensconced in a large carved mahogany chair in the inner recesses of his inner offices, and brooded. Only this morning, in the face of a falling market, he would have sold out openly had he not been deterred by telephone messages from Arneel and Schryhart suggesting the advisability of a pool conference before any action was taken. Come what might on the morrow, he was determined to quit unless he saw some clear way out--to be shut of the whole thing unless the ingenuity of Stackpole and Hull should discover a way of sustaining the market without his aid. While he was meditating on how this was to be done Mr. Stackpole appeared, pale, gloomy, wet with perspiration.
"Well, Mr. Hand," he exclaimed, wearily, "I've done all I can. Hull and I have kept the market fairly stable so far. You saw what happened between ten and eleven this morning. The jig's up. We've borrowed our last dollar and hypothecated our last share. My personal fortune has gone into the balance, and so has Hull's. Some one of the outside stockholders, or all of them, are cutting the ground from under us. Fourteen thousand shares since ten o'clock this morning! That tells the story. It can't be done just now--not unless you gentlemen are prepared to go much further than you have yet gone. If we could organize a pool to take care of fifteen thousand more shares--"
Mr. Stackpole paused, for Mr. Hand was holding up a fat, pink digit.
"No more of that," he was saying,
Mr. Hand, in his seventh-story suite of offices in the Rookery Building, was suffering from the heat, but much more from mental perturbation. Though not a stingy or penurious man, it was still true that of all earthly things he suffered most from a financial loss. How often had he seen chance or miscalculation sweep apparently strong and valiant men into the limbo of the useless and forgotten! Since the alienation of his wife's affections by Cowperwood, he had scarcely any interest in the world outside his large financial holdings, which included profitable investments in a half-hundred companies. But they must pay, pay, pay heavily in interest--all of them--and the thought that one of them might become a failure or a drain on his resources was enough to give him an almost physical sensation of dissatisfaction and unrest, a sort of spiritual and mental nausea which would cling to him for days and days or until he had surmounted the difficulty. Mr. Hand had no least corner in his heart for failure.
As a matter of fact, the situation in regard to American Match had reached such proportions as to be almost numbing. Aside from the fifteen thousand shares which Messrs. Hull and Stackpole had originally set aside for themselves, Hand, Arneel, Schryhart, and Merrill had purchased five thousand shares each at forty, but had since been compelled to sustain the market to the extent of over five thousand shares more each, at prices ranging from one-twenty to two-twenty, the largest blocks of shares having been bought at the latter figure. Actually Hand was caught for nearly one million five hundred thousand dollars, and his soul was as gray as a bat's wing. At fifty-seven years of age men who are used only to the most successful financial calculations and the credit that goes with unerring judgment dread to be made a mark by chance or fate. It opens the way for comment on their possibly failing vitality or judgment. And so Mr. Hand sat on this hot August afternoon, ensconced in a large carved mahogany chair in the inner recesses of his inner offices, and brooded. Only this morning, in the face of a falling market, he would have sold out openly had he not been deterred by telephone messages from Arneel and Schryhart suggesting the advisability of a pool conference before any action was taken. Come what might on the morrow, he was determined to quit unless he saw some clear way out--to be shut of the whole thing unless the ingenuity of Stackpole and Hull should discover a way of sustaining the market without his aid. While he was meditating on how this was to be done Mr. Stackpole appeared, pale, gloomy, wet with perspiration.
"Well, Mr. Hand," he exclaimed, wearily, "I've done all I can. Hull and I have kept the market fairly stable so far. You saw what happened between ten and eleven this morning. The jig's up. We've borrowed our last dollar and hypothecated our last share. My personal fortune has gone into the balance, and so has Hull's. Some one of the outside stockholders, or all of them, are cutting the ground from under us. Fourteen thousand shares since ten o'clock this morning! That tells the story. It can't be done just now--not unless you gentlemen are prepared to go much further than you have yet gone. If we could organize a pool to take care of fifteen thousand more shares--"
Mr. Stackpole paused, for Mr. Hand was holding up a fat, pink digit.
"No more of that," he was saying,