Kitabı oku: «The Making of Bobby Burnit», sayfa 18
CHAPTER XXIX
JIMMY PLATT ENJOYS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE
The straightening out of the waterworks matter left Bobby free to turn his attention to the local gas and electric situation. The Bulletin, since Bobby had defeated his political enemies, had been put upon a paying basis and was rapidly earning its way out of the debt that he had been compelled to incur for it; but the Brightlight Electric Company was a thorn in his side. Its only business now was the street illumination of twelve blocks, under a municipal contract which lost him money every month, and it had been a terrific task to keep it going.
The Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company, however, Bobby discovered by careful inquiry, was in even worse financial straits than the Brightlight. To its thirty millions of stock, mostly water, twenty more millions of water had been added, making a total organization of fifty million dollars; and the twenty million dollars’ stock had been sold to the public for ten million dollars, each purchaser of one share of preferred being given one share of common. As the preferred was to draw five per cent., this meant that two and one-half million dollars a year must be paid out in dividends. The salary roll of the company was enormous, and the number of non-working officers who drew extravagant stipends would have swamped any company. Comparing the two concerns, Bobby felt that in the Brightlight he had vastly the better property of the two, in that there was no water in it at its present, half-million-dollar capitalization.
It was while pondering these matters that Bobby, dropping in at the Idlers’ Club one dull night, found no one there but Silas Trimmer’s son-in-law, the vapid and dissolute Clarence Smythe, which was a trifle worse than finding the place entirely deserted. To-night Clarence was in possession of what was known at the Idlers’ as “one of Smythe’s soggy buns,” and despite countless snubs in the past he seized upon Bobby as a receptacle for his woes.
“I’m going to leave this town for good, Burnit!” he declared without any preliminaries, having waited so long to convey this startling and important information that salutations were entirely forgotten.
“For good! For whose good?” inquired Bobby.
“Mine,” responded Clarence. “This town’s gone to the bow-wows. It’s in the hands of a lot of pikers. There’s no chance to make big money any more.”
“Yes, I know,” said Bobby dryly; “I had something to do with that, myself.”
“It was a fine lot of muck-raking you did,” charged Clarence. “Well, I’ll give you another item for your paper. I have resigned from the Consolidated.”
“It was cruel of you.”
“It was time,” said Clarence, ignoring the flippancy. “Something’s going to drop over there.”
Bobby smiled.
“It’s always dropping,” he agreed.
“This is the big drop,” the other went on, with a wine-laden man’s pride in the fact of possessing valuable secrets. “They’re going to make a million-dollar bond issue.”
“What for?” inquired Bobby.
“They need the money,” chuckled Mr. Smythe. “Those city bonds, you know.”
“What bonds?” demanded Bobby eagerly, but trying to speak nonchalantly.
Mr. Smythe suddenly realized the solemn gravity of his folly. Once more he was talking too much. Once more! It was a thing to weep over. “I’m a fool,” he confessed in awe-stricken tones; “a rotten fool, Burnit. I’m ashamed to look anybody in the face. I’m ashamed – ”
“It’s highly commendable of you, I’m sure,” Bobby agreed, and took his hasty leave before Clarence should begin to sob.
Immediately he called up Chalmers at his home.
“Chalmers,” he demanded, “why must the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company purchase city bonds?”
Chalmers laughed.
“Originally so Sam Stone could lend money to the Consumers’ Electric. It is a part of their franchise, which is renewable at their option in ten-year periods, and which became a part of the Consolidated’s property when the combine was effected. To insure ‘faithful performance of contract,’ for which clause every crooked municipality has a particular affection, they were to purchase a million dollars’ worth of city bonds. Each year one hundred thousand dollars’ worth were retired. In the tenth year, in renewing their franchise for the next ten years, they were compelled to renew also their million dollars of city bonds. These bonds they then used as collateral. Stone carried all that he could, at enormous usury, I understand, and let some of his banker friends in on the rest; and I suppose the banks paid him a rake-off. The ten-year period is up this fall, and their bonds are naturally retired; but, of course, they will renew.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Bobby. “Look up everything connected with it in the morning, and I’ll see you at noon.”
When they met the next day at noon, however, before Bobby could talk about the business in hand, Chalmers, with a suppressed smile, handed him a folded slip of paper.
Bobby examined that legal document – a dissolution of the injunction which had tied up a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in his bank for more than two years – with a sigh of relief.
“It seems,” said Chalmers dryly, “that at the time you laid yourself liable to Madam Villenauve’s breach-of-promise suit she had an undivorced husband living, Monsieur Villenauve complacently hiding himself in France and waiting for his share of the money. Let this be a lesson to you, young man.”
Bobby hotly resented that grin.
“I’ll swear to you, Chalmers,” he asserted, “I never so much as thought of the woman except as a nuisance.”
“I apologize, old man,” said Chalmers. “But at least this will teach you not to back any more grand opera companies.”
“I prefer to talk about the electric situation,” said Bobby severely. “What have you found out about it?”
“That the Ebony Jewel Coal Company, a former Stone enterprise, has threatened suit against the Consolidated for their bill. The Consolidated is in a pinch and must raise money, not only to buy that allotment of the new waterworks bonds, but to meet the Ebony’s and other pressing accounts. It must also float this bond issue, for it is likely to fall behind even on its salary list.”
“Fine!” said Bobby. “I can see a lot of good citizens in this town holding stock in a bankrupt illuminating concern. Just watch this thing, will you, Chalmers? About this nice, lucky hundred and fifty thousand, we may count it as spent.”
“What in?” asked Chalmers, smiling. “Do you think you can trust yourself with all that money?”
“Hush,” said Bobby. “Don’t breathe it aloud. I’m going to buy up all the Brightlight Electric stock I can find. It’s too bad, Chalmers,” he added with a grin, “that as mayor of the city you could not, with propriety, hold stock in this company,” and although Chalmers tried to call him back Bobby did not wait. He was too busy, he said.
His business was to meet Agnes and Mrs. Elliston for luncheon down-town, and during the meal he happened to remark that Clarence Smythe had determined to shake the dust of the city from his feet.
“I thought so,” declared Agnes. “Aunt Constance, I’m afraid you’ll have to finish your shopping without me. I must call upon Mrs. Smythe.”
Mrs. Elliston frowned her disapproval, but she knew better than to protest. Before Agnes called upon Mrs. Smythe, however, she dropped in at the manufacturing concern of D. A. Elliston and Company.
“Uncle Dan, how much money of mine have you in charge just now?” she demanded to know.
“Cash? About five or six thousand.”
“And how much more could you raise on my property?”
“Right away? About fifteen, on bonds and such securities. This is no time to sacrifice real estate.”
“It isn’t enough,” said Agnes, frowning, and was silent for a time. “You’ll just have to loan me about ten thousand more.”
“Oh, will I?” he retorted. “What for?”
“I want to make an investment.”
“So I judged,” he dryly responded. “Well, young lady, as your steward I reckon I’ll have to know something more about this investment before I turn over any money.”
With sparkling eyes and blushes that would come in spite of her, she told him what she intended to do. When she had concluded, Dan Elliston slapped his knees in huge joy.
“You shall have all the money you want,” he declared.
Upon that same afternoon Bobby started to buy up, here and there, nearly the entire stock of the Brightlight, purchasing it at an absurdly low price. Then he went to De Graff, to Dan Elliston, and to others to whose discretion he could trust. His own plans were well under way when the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company announced, with a great flourish of trumpets, its new bond issue. The Bulletin made no comment upon this. It merely published the news fact briefly and concisely – an unexpected attitude, which brought surprise, then wonder, then suspicion to the office of the Chronicle. The Chronicle had been a Stone organ during the heydey of Stone’s prosperity; the Bulletin had fought the Consolidated tooth and toe-nail; the already criminally overcapitalized Consolidated was about to float a new bond issue; the Bulletin did not fight this issue; ergo, the Bulletin must have something to gain by the issue.
The Chronicle waited three days, then began to fight the bond issue itself, which was precisely the effect for which Bobby had planned. Grown astute, Bobby realized that if the bond issue failed the Consolidated would go bankrupt at once instead of a year or so later. The newspaper, however, which would force that bankruptcy would, by that act, be the apparent means of losing a vast amount of money to the poor investors of the town, and Bobby left that ungrateful task to the Chronicle. He even went so far as to defend the Consolidated in a mild sort of manner, a proceeding which fanned the Chronicle into fresh fury.
For three months desperate attempts were made by the Consolidated to make the new bonds attractive to the public, but less than one hundred thousand dollars was subscribed. Bobby was tabulating the known results of this subscription with much satisfaction one morning when Ferris walked into his office.
“I hope you didn’t come into town to dig up another scandal, old man,” said Bobby, greeting his contractor-friend with keen pleasure.
“No,” said Ferris; “came in to give you a bit of news. The Great Eastern and Western Railroad wants to locate its shop here, and is building by private bid. I have secured the contract, subject to certain alterations of price for distance of hauling and difficulty of excavation; but the thing is liable to fall through for lack of a location. They can’t get the piece of property they are after, and there is only one other one large enough and near enough to the city. The chief engineer and I are going out to look at it again to-day. Come with us. If we decide that the property will do, and if we can secure it, you may have an exclusive news-item that would be very pretty, I should judge.” And Ferris smiled at some secret joke.
“I’ll go with pleasure,” said Bobby, “and not by any means just for the news. When do you want to go?”
“Oh, right away, I guess. I’ll telephone to Shepherd and have him order a rig.”
“What’s the use?” demanded Bobby, much interested. “My car’s right within call. I’ll have it brought up.”
Shepherd, the chief engineer of the G. E. and W., when they picked him up at the hotel, proved to be an entire human being with red whiskers and not a care in the world. Bobby was enjoying a lot of preliminary persiflage when Shepherd incidentally mentioned their destination.
“It is known as Westmarsh,” he observed. “I suppose you know where it is.”
Bobby, who had already started the machine and had placed his hand on the steering wheel, gave a jerk so violent that he almost sent the machine diagonally across the street, and Ferris laughed aloud. His little joke was no longer a secret.
“Westmarsh!” Bobby repeated. “Why, I own that undrainable swamp.”
“Swamp?” exclaimed Shepherd. “It’s as dry as a bone. I looked it over last night and am going out to-day to study the possible approaches to it.”
“But you say it is dry!” protested Bobby, unable to believe it.
“Dry as powder,” asserted Shepherd. “There has been an immense amount of water out there, but it has been well taken care of by the splendid drainage system that has been put in.”
“It cost a lot of money to put in that drainage system,” commented Bobby; “but we found it impracticable to drain an entire river.”
It was Shepherd’s turn to be puzzled, a process in which he stopped to laugh.
“This is the first time I ever heard an owner belittle his own property,” he declared. “I suppose that next you’ll only accept half the price we offer.”
Bobby kept up his part of the conversation but feebly as they whirled out to the site of the old Applerod Addition. He was lost in speculation upon what could possibly have happened to that unfortunate swamp area. When they arrived, however, he was surprised to find that Shepherd had been correct. The ground, though sunken in places and black with the residue of one-time stagnant water, was firm enough to walk upon, and after many tests he even ran the machine across and across it. Moreover, grass and weeds, forcing their way here and there, were already beginning to hide and redeem the ugly earthen surface.
Bobby surveyed the miracle in amazement. It was the first time he had seen the place in a year. Even in his trips to the waterworks site, which was just north, beyond the hill, he had chosen the longer and less solid river road rather than to come past this spot of humiliating memories.
“I can’t understand it,” he said again and again to the two men. “Why, Mr. Shepherd, I spent thousands of dollars in filling this swamp and draining it, with the idea of making a city subdivision here. Silas Trimmer, the man from whom I bought the place, imagined it to be fed by underground springs, but he let me spend a fortune to attract people out to see my new building lots so that he could, without cost, sell his own. That is his addition up there on the hills, and I’m glad to say he has recently mortgaged it for all that it will carry.”
“How about the springs?” asked Shepherd with a frown. “Did you find them? You must have stopped them. Are they liable to break out again?”
“That’s the worst of it,” replied Bobby, still groping. “It wasn’t springs at all. It was a peculiar geological formation, some disarranged strata leading beneath the hill from the river and emptying into the bottom of this pond. All through the year it seeped in faster than our extensive drainings could carry it away, and in the spring and fall, when the river was high, it poured in. I don’t see what could have happened. Suppose we run over and see the engineer who worked on this with me. He is now in charge of the new waterworks.”
In five minutes they were over there. Jimmy Platt, out in his shirt-sleeves under a broad-brimmed straw hat, greeted them most cordially, but when Bobby explained to him the miracle that had happened to the old Applerod Addition, Platt laughed until the tears came into his eyes; and even after he stopped laughing there were traces of them there.
“Come down here and I’ll show you,” said he.
Leading south from the pumping station, diagonally down the steep bank to the river, had been built a splendid road, flanked on both sides by very solid, substantial-looking retaining walls.
“You see this wall?” asked Jimmy, pointing to the inside one. “It runs twenty feet below low-water level, and is solidly cemented. You remember when I got permission to move this road from the north side to the south side of the pumping station? I did that after an examination of the subsoil. This wall cuts off the natural siphon that fed the water to your Applerod Addition. I have been going past there in huge joy twice a day, watching that swamp dry up.”
“In other words,” said Bobby, “you have been doing a little private grafting on my account. How many additional dollars did that extra-deep wall cost?”
“I’m not going to tell you,” asserted Jimmy stoutly. “It isn’t very much, but whatever it is the city good and plenty owes you for saving it over a million on this job. But if I’d had to pay for it myself I would have done it to correct the mistake I made when I started to drain that swamp for you. I guess this is about the most satisfactory minute of my life,” and he looked it.
“A fine piece of work,” agreed Shepherd, casting a swift eye over the immense and busy waterworks site, and then glancing at the hill across which lay Bobby’s property. “You’re lucky to have had this chance, Mr. Platt,” and he shook hands cordially with Jimmy. “I’m perfectly satisfied, Mr. Burnit. Do you want to sell that property?”
“If I can get out at a profit,” replied Bobby. “Otherwise I’ll regrade the thing and split it up into building lots as I originally intended.”
“Let’s go back down to the hotel and talk ‘turkey,’” offered Shepherd briskly. “What do you think of the place, Ferris? Will it do?”
“Fine!” said Ferris. “The property lies so low that we won’t have to cart away a single load of our excavation. If we can only get a right-of-way through that natural approach to the northeast – ”
“I think I can guarantee a right-of-way,” interrupted Bobby, smiling, with his mind upon the city council which had been created by his own efforts.
“All right,” said Shepherd. “We’ll talk price until I have browbeaten you as low as you will go. Then I’ll prepare a plat of the place and send it on to headquarters. You’ll have an answer from them in three days.”
As they whirred away Bobby’s eyes happened to rest upon a young man and a young woman rowing idly down-stream in a skiff, and he smiled as he recognized Biff Bates and Nellie Platt.
On the day Bobby got the money for his Westmarsh property old Applerod came up from the office of the Brightlight Electric Company, where he held a lazy, sleepy afternoon job as “manager,” and with an ingratiating smile handed Bobby a check for five thousand dollars.
“What’s this for?” asked Bobby, puzzled.
“I have decided to give you back the money and take up again my approximate one-fifth share in the Applerod Addition,” announced that gentleman complacently.
Bobby was entirely too much surprised at this to be amused.
“You’re just a trifle too late, Mr. Applerod,” said he. “Had you come to me two weeks ago, when I thought the land was worthless, out of common decency I would not have let you buy in again. Since then, however, I have sold the tract at a profit of forty thousand dollars.”
“You have?” exclaimed Applerod. “I heard you were going to do something of the kind. I’m entitled to one-fifth of that profit, Mr. Burnit – eight thousand dollars.”
“You’re entitled to a good, swift poke in the neck!” exclaimed the voice of wizened old Johnson, who stood in the doorway, and who, since his friendship with Biff Bates, had absorbed some of that gentleman’s vigorous vernacular. “Applerod, I’ll give you just one minute to get out of this office. If you don’t I’ll throw you downstairs!”
“Mr. Johnson,” said Applerod with great dignity, “this office does not belong to you. I have as much right here – ”
Mr. Johnson, taking a trot around Bobby’s desk so as to get Mr. Applerod between him and the door, made a threatening demonstration toward the rear, and Applerod, suddenly deserting his dignity, rushed out. Bobby straightened his face as Johnson, still blazing, came in from watching Applerod’s ignominious retreat.
“Well, Johnson,” said he, ignoring the incident as closed, “what can I do for you to-day?”
“Nothing!” snapped Johnson. “I have forgotten what I came for!” and going out he slammed the door behind him.
In the course of an hour Bobby was through with his morning allotment of mail and his daily consultation with Jolter, and then he called Johnson to his office.
“Johnson,” said he, “I want you to do me a favor. There is one block of Brightlight stock that I have not yet bought up. It is in the hands of J. W. Williams, one of the old Stone crowd, who ought to be wanting money by this time. He holds one hundred shares, which you should be able to buy by now at fifty dollars a share. I want you to buy this stock in your own name, and I want to loan you five thousand dollars to do it with. I merely want voting power; so after you get it you may hold it if you like and still owe me the five thousand dollars, or I’ll take it off your hands at any time you are tired of the obligation. You’d better go to Barrister and have him buy the stock for you.”
“Yes, sir,” said Johnson.
Bobby immediately went to De Graff.
“I came to subscribe for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of additional stock in the New Brightlight. I have just deposited two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars in your bank.”
“You’re becoming an expert,” said De Graff with a quizzical smile. “With the million dollars’ valuation at which we are to buy in the present Brightlight, the two hundred and fifty thousand subscribed for by Dan Elliston, and the ten thousand held by Miss Elliston, this new subscription about gives you control of the New Brightlight, don’t it?”
“That’s what I want,” Bobby exulted. “You don’t object, do you?”
“Not on my own account,” De Graff assured him; “but you’d better have Barrister buy this in for you until we are organized. Then you can take it over.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Bobby. “I’ll send Barrister right over, and I think I shall make him take up the remaining ten thousand on his own account. A week from to-night is the council meeting at which the Consolidated must make good to renew their franchise, and we don’t want any hitch in getting our final incorporation papers by that time. The members of the Consolidated are singing swan songs in seven simultaneous keys at this very moment.”
Bobby’s description of the condition of the Consolidated was scarcely exaggerated. It was a trying and a hopeless period for them. The bond issue had failed miserably. It had not needed the Chronicle to remind the public of what a shaky proposition the Consolidated was, for Bobby had thoroughly exposed the corporation during the Bulletin’s campaign against Sam Stone. Bond-floating companies from other cities were brought in, and after an examination of the books threw up their hands in horror at the crudest muddle they had ever found in any investigation of municipal affairs.
On the night of the council meeting, Sharpe and Trimmer and Williams, representing the Consolidated, were compelled to come before the council and confess their inability to take up the bonds required to renew their franchise; but they begged that this clause, since it was an entirely unnecessary one and was not enjoined upon gas or electric companies in other cities, be not enforced. Council, however, was obdurate, and the committee thereupon begged for a further extension of time in which to raise the necessary amount of money. Council still was obdurate, and by that obduracy the franchise of the Consumers’ Electric Company, said franchise being controlled by the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company, became null and void.
Thereupon Bobby Burnit, President De Graff and Dan Elliston, representing the New Brightlight Electric Company, recently organized for three million dollars, came forward and prayed for a franchise for the electric lighting of the entire city, agreeing to take over the poles and wiring of the Consolidated at a fair valuation; and council was not at all obdurate, which was scarcely strange when one reflected that every member of that municipal body had been selected and put in place through the direct instrumentality of Bobby Burnit. It was practical politics, true enough, but Bobby had no qualms whatever about it.
“It may be quite true that I have not been actuated by any highly noble motives in this,” he confessed to a hot charge by Williams, “but so long as in municipal affairs I am not actuated by any ignoble motives I am doing pretty fairly in this town.”
There was just the bare trace of brutality in Bobby as he said this, and he suddenly recognized it in himself with dismay. What pity Bobby might have felt for these bankrupt men, however, was swept away in a gust of renewed aggressiveness when Trimmer, arousing himself from the ashen age which seemed all at once to be creeping over him, said, with a return of that old circular smile which had so often before aggravated Bobby:
“I am afraid I’ll have to draw out of my other ventures and retire on my salary as president and manager of Trimmer and Company.”
Vengefulness was in Bobby’s eyes as he followed Trimmer’s sprawling figure, so much like a bloated spider’s in its bigness of circumference and its attenuation of limbs, that suddenly he shuddered and turned away as when one finds oneself about to step upon a toad.
