Kitabı oku: «The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XIV – THE MULBERRY FRANCHISE

THAT’S my purpose in a nutshell,” lisped young Morton; “I’ve decided to make some money; and I’ve come for millions.” Here he waved a delicate hand, and bestowed upon Big Kennedy and myself his look of amiable inanity.

“Millions, eh?” returned Big Kennedy, with his metallic grin. “I’ve seen whole fam’lies taken the same way. However, I’m glad you’re no piker.”

“If by ‘piker,’” drawled young Morton, “you mean one of those cheap persons who play for minimum stakes, I assure you that I should scorn to be so described; I should, really! No, indeed; it requires no more of thought or effort to play for millions than for ten-dollar bills.”

“An’ dead right you are!” observed Big Kennedy with hearty emphasis. “A sport can buck faro bank for a million as easily as for a white chip. That is, if he can find a game that’ll turn for such a bundle, an’ has th’ money to back his nerve. What’s true of faro is true of business. So you’re out for millions! I thought your old gent, who’s into fifty enterprises an’ has been for as many years, had long ago shaken down mankind for a whole mountain of dough. The papers call him a multimillionaire.”

Young Morton, still with the empty smile, brought forth a cigarette case. The case, gold, was adorned with a ruby whereon to press when one would open it, and wore besides the owner’s monogram in diamonds. Having lighted a cigarette, he polished his eyeglass with a filmy handkerchief. Re-establishing the eyeglass on his high patrician nose, he again shone vacuously upon Big Kennedy.

That personage had watched these manifestations of fastidious culture in a spirit of high delight. Big Kennedy liked young Morton; he had long ago made out how those dandyisms were no more than a cover for what fund of force and cunning dwelt beneath. In truth, Big Kennedy regarded young Morton’s imbecilities as a most fortunate disguise. His remark would show as much. As young Morton – cigarette just clinging between his lips, eye of shallow good humor – bent towards him, he said, addressing me:

“Say! get onto that front! That look of not knowin’ nothin’ ought by itself to cash in for half a million! Did you ever see such a throw-off?” and here Big Kennedy quite lost himself in a maze of admiration. Recovering, however, and again facing our caller, he repeated: “Yes, I thought your old gent had millions.”

“Both he and the press,” responded young Morton, “concede that he has; they do, really! Moreover, he possesses, I think, the evidence of it in a cord or two of bonds and stocks, don’t y’ know! But in what fashion, pray, does that bear upon my present intentions as I’ve briefly laid them bare?”

“No fashion,” said Big Kennedy, “only I’d naturally s’ppose that when you went shy on th’ long green, you’d touch th’ old gentleman.”

“Undoubtedly,” returned young Morton, “I could approach my father with a request for money – that is if my proposal were framed in a spirit of moderation, don’t y’ know! – say one hundred thousand dollars. But such a sum, in my present temper, would be but the shadow of a trifle. I owe five times the amount; I do, really! I’ve no doubt I’m on Tiffany’s books for more than one hundred thousand, while my bill at the florist’s should be at least ten thousand dollars, if the pen of that brigand of nosegays has kept half pace with his rapacity. However,” concluded young Morton, breaking into a soft, engaging laugh, “since I intend, with your aid, to become the master of millions, such bagatelles are unimportant, don’t y’ know.”

“Certainly!” observed Big Kennedy in a consolatory tone; “they don’t amount to a deuce in a bum deck. Still, I must say you went in up to your neck on sparks an’ voylets. I never saw such a plunger on gewgaws an’ garlands since a yard of cloth made a coat for me.”

“Those bills arose through my efforts to make grand opera beautiful. I set the prima donna ablaze with gems; and as for the stage, why, it was like singing in a conservatory; it was really!”

“Well, let that go!” said Big Kennedy, after a pause. “I shall be glad if through my help you make them millions. If you do, d’ye see, I’ll make an armful just as big; it’s ag’inst my religion to let anybody grab off a bigger piece of pie than I do when him an’ me is pals. It would lower my opinion of myself. However, layin’ guff aside, s’ppose you butt in now an’ open up your little scheme. Let’s see what button you think you’re goin’ to push.”

“This is my thought,” responded young Morton, and as he spoke the eyeglass dropped from its aquiline perch, and under the heat of a real animation those mists of affectation were dissipated; “this is my thought: I want a street railway franchise along Mulberry Avenue, the length of the Island.”

“Go on,” said Big Kennedy.

“It’s my plan to form a corporation – Mulberry Traction. There’ll be eight millions of preferred stock at eight per cent. I can build and equip the road with that. In addition, there’ll be ten millions of common stock.”

“Have you th’ people ready to take th’ preferred?”

“Ready and waiting. If I had the franchise, I could float those eight millions within ten days.”

“What do you figger would be th’ road’s profits?”

“It would carry four hundred thousand passengers a day, and take in twenty thousand dollars. The operating expenses would not exceed an annual four millions and a half. That, after the eight per cent, on the preferred were paid, would leave over two millions a year on the common – a dividend of twenty per cent., or five per cent, every quarter. You can see where such returns would put the stock. You, for your ride, would go into the common on the ground floor.”

“We’ll get to how I go in, in a minute,” responded Big Kennedy dryly. He was impressed by young Morton’s proposal, and was threshing it out in his mind as they talked. “Now, see here,” he went on, lowering his brows and fixing his keen gray glance on young Morton, “you mustn’t get restless if I ask you questions. I like to tap every wheel an’ try every rivet on a scheme or a man before I hook up with either.”

“Ask what you please,” said young Morton, as brisk as a terrier.

“I’ll say this,” observed Big Kennedy. “That traction notion shows that you’re a hogshead of horse sense. But of course you understand that you’re going to need money, an’ plenty of it, before you get th’ franchise. I can take care of th’ Tammany push, perhaps; but there’s highbinders up to your end of th’ alley who’ll want to be greased.”

“How much do you argue that I’ll require as a preliminary to the grant of the franchise?” asked young Morton, interrupting Big Kennedy.

“Every splinter of four hundred thousand.”

“That was my estimate,” said young Morton; “but I’ve arranged for twice that sum.”

“Who is th’ Rothschild you will get it from?”

“My father,” replied young Morton, and now he lapsed anew into his manner of vapidity. “Really, he takes an eighth of the preferred at par – one million! I’ve got the money in the bank, don’t y’ know!”

“Good!” ejaculated Big Kennedy, with the gleam which never failed to sparkle in his eye at the mention of rotund riches.

“My father doesn’t know my plans,” continued young Morton, his indolence and his eyeglass both restored. “No; he wouldn’t let me tell him; he wouldn’t, really! I approached him in this wise:

“‘Father,’ said I, ‘you are aware of the New York alternative?’

“‘What is it?’ he asked.

“‘Get money or get out.’

“‘Well!’ said he.

“‘Father, I’ve decided not to move. Yes, father; after a full consideration of the situation, I’ve resolved to make, say twenty or thirty millions for myself; I have, really! It’s quite necessary, don’t y’ know; I am absolutely bankrupt. And I don’t like it; there’s nothing comfortable in being bankrupt, it so deucedly restricts a man. Besides, it’s not good form. I’ve evolved an idea, however; there’s a business I can go into.’

“‘Store?’ he inquired.

“‘No, no, father,’ I replied, for the odious supposition quite upset me; ‘it’s nothing so horribly vulgar as trade; it’s a speculation, don’t y’ know. There’ll be eight millions of preferred stock; you are to take a million. Also, you are to give me the million at once.’

“‘What is this speculation?’ he asked. ‘If I’m to go in for a million, I take it you can entrust me with the outlines.’

“‘Really, it was on my mind to do so,’ I replied.

“‘My scheme is this: I shall make an alliance with Mr. Kennedy.’

“‘Stop, stop!’ cried my father hastily. ‘On the whole, I don’t care to hear your scheme. You shall have the money; but I’ve decided that it will reflect more glory upon you should you bring things to an issue without advice from me. Therefore, you need tell me no more; positively, I will not hear you.’”

“It was my name made him leary,” observed Big Kennedy, with the gratified face of one who has been paid a compliment. “When you said ‘Kennedy,’ he just about figgered we were out to get a kit of tools an’ pry a shutter off th’ First National. It’s th’ mugwump notion of Tammany, d’ye see! You put him onto it some time, that now I’m Chief I’ve got center-bits an’ jimmies skinned to death when it comes to makin’ money.”

“I don’t think it was your name,” observed young Morton. “He’s beginning to learn, however, about my voting those three hundred wenches in overalls and jumpers, don’t y’ know, and it has taught him to distrust my methods as lacking that element of conservatism which he values so much. It was that which came uppermost in his memory, and it occurred to him that perhaps the less he knew about my enterprises the sounder he would sleep. Is it not remarkable, how fondly even an advanced man like my father will cling to the moss-grown and the obsolete?”

“That’s no dream neither!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, in earnest coincidence with young Morton. “It’s this old fogy business on th’ parts of people who ought to be leadin’ up th’ dance for progress, that sends me to bed tired in th’ middle of th’ day!” And here Big Kennedy shook his head reproachfully at gray ones whose sluggishness had wounded him.

“My father drew his check,” continued young Morton. “He couldn’t let it come to me, however, without a chiding. Wonderful, how the aged like to lord it over younger folk with rebukes for following in their footsteps – really!

“‘You speak of bankruptcy,’ said my father, sucking in his cheeks. ‘Would it violate confidence should you tell me how you come to be in such a disgraceful predicament?’ This last was asked in a spirit of sarcasm, don’t y’ know.

“‘It was by following your advice, sir,’ said I.

“‘Following my advice!’ exclaimed my father. ‘What do you mean, sir? Or are you mad?’

“‘Not at all,’ I returned. ‘Don’t you recall how, when I came from college, you gave me a world of advice, and laid particular stress on my establishing a perfect credit? “Nothing is done without credit,” you said on that occasion; “and it should be the care of a young man, as he enters upon life, to see to it that his credit is perfect in every quarter of trade. He should extend his credit with every opportunity.” This counsel made a deep impression upon me, it did, really! and so I’ve extended my credit wherever I saw a chance until I owe a half-million. I must say, father, that I think it would have saved me money, don’t y’ know, had you told me to destroy my credit as hard as I could. In fostering my credit, I but warmed a viper.’”

Young Morton paused to fire another cigarette, while the pucker about the corner of his eye indicated that he felt as though he had turned the laugh upon his father. Following a puff or two, he returned gravely to Mulberry Traction.

“Do you approve my proposition?” he asked of Big Kennedy, “and will you give me your aid?”

“The proposition’s all hunk,” said Big Kennedy. “As to my aid: that depends on whether we come to terms.”

“What share would you want?”

“Forty per cent, of th’ common stock,” responded Big Kennedy. “That’s always th’ Tammany end; forty per cent.”

Young Morton drew in his lips. The figure seemed a surprise. “Do you mean that you receive four millions of the common stock, you paying nothing?” he asked at last.

“I don’t pony for a sou markee. An’ I get th’ four millions, d’ye see! Who ever heard of Tammany payin’ for anything!” and Big Kennedy glared about the room, and sniffed through his nose, as though in the presence of all that might be called preposterous.

“But if you put in no money,” remonstrated young Morton, “why should you have the stock? I admit that you ought to be let in on lowest terms; but, after all, you should put in something.”

“I put in my pull,” retorted Big Kennedy grimly. “You get your franchise from me.”

“From the City,” corrected young Morton.

“I’m the City,” replied Big Kennedy; “an’ will be while I’m on top of Tammany, an’ Tammany’s on top of th’ town.” Then, with a friendliness of humor: “Here, I like you, an’ I’ll go out o’ my way to educate you on this point. You’re fly to some things, an’ a farmer on others. Now understand: The City’s a come-on – a sucker – an’ it belongs to whoever picks it up. That’s me this trip, d’ye see! Now notice: I’ve got no office; I’m a private citizen same as you, an’ I don’t owe no duty to th’ public. Every man has his pull – his influence. You’ve got your pull; I’ve got mine. When a man wants anything from th’ town, he gets his pull to work. In this case, my pull is bigger than all th’ other pulls clubbed together. You get that franchise or you don’t get it, just as I say. In short, you get it from me – get it by my pull, d’ye see! Now why shouldn’t I charge for th’ use of my pull, just as a lawyer asks his fee, or a bank demands interest when it lends? My pull’s my pull; it’s my property as much as a bank’s money is th’ bank’s, or a lawyer’s brains is the lawyer’s. I worked hard to get it, an’ there’s hundreds who’d take it from me if they could. There’s my doctrine: I’m a private citizen; my pull is my capital, an’ I’m as much entitled to get action on it in favor of myself as a bank has to shave a note. That’s why I take forty per cent. It’s little enough: The franchise will be four-fifths of th’ whole value of th’ road; an’ all I have for it is two-fifths of five-ninths, for you’ve got to take into account them eight millions of preferred.”

Young Morton was either convinced of the propriety of what Big Kennedy urged, or saw – the latter is the more likely surmise – that he must agree if he would attain success for his enterprise. He made no more objection, and those forty per cent, in favor of Big Kennedy were looked upon as the thing adjusted.

“You spoke of four hundred thousand dollars as precedent to the franchise,” said young Morton. “Where will that go?”

“There’s as many as thirty hungry ones who, here an’ there an’ each in our way, must be met an’ squared.”

“How much will go to your fellows?”

“Most of th’ Tammany crowd I can beat into line. But there’s twelve who won’t take orders. They were elected as ‘Fusion’ candidates, an’ they think that entitles ‘em to play a lone hand. Whenever Tammany gets th’ town to itself, you can gamble! I’ll knock their blocks off quick. You ask what it’ll take to hold down th’ Tammany people? I should say two hundred thousand dollars. We’ll make it this way: I’ll take thirty per cent, instead of forty of th’ common, an’ two hundred thousand in coin. That’ll be enough to give us th’ Tammany bunch as solid as a brick switch shanty.”

“That should do,” observed young Morton thoughtfully.

When young Morton was about to go, Big Kennedy detained him with a final query.

“This aint meant to stick pins into you,” said Big Kennedy, “but, on th’ dead! I’d like to learn how you moral an’ social high-rollers reconcile yourselves to things. How do you agree with yourself to buy them votes needed to get th’ franchise? Not th’ ones I’ll bring in, an’ which you can pretend you don’t know about; but them you’ll have to deal with personally, d’ye see!”

“There’ll be none I’ll deal with personally, don’t y’ know,” returned young Morton, getting behind his lisp and eyeglass, finding them a refuge in what was plainly an embarrassed moment, “no; I wouldn’t do anything with the vulgar creatures in person. They talk such awful English, it gets upon my nerves – really! But I’ve retained Caucus & Club; they’re lawyers, only they don’t practice law, they practice politics. They’ll attend to those low details of which you speak. For me to do so wouldn’t be good form. It would shock my set to death, don’t y’ know!”

“That’s a crawl-out,” observed Big Kennedy reproachfully, “an’ it aint worthy of you. Why don’t you come to th’ center? You’re goin’ to give up four hundred thousand dollars to get this franchise. You don’t think it’s funny – you don’t do it because you like it, an’ are swept down in a gust of generosity. An’ you do think it’s wrong.”

“Really, now you’re in error,” replied young Morton earnestly, but still clinging to his lisp and his languors. “As you urge, one has scant pleasure in paying this money. On the contrary, I shall find it extremely dull, don’t y’ know! But I don’t call it wrong. I’m entitled, under the law, and the town’s practice – a highly idiotic one, this latter, I concede! – of giving these franchises away, to come forward with my proposition. Since I offer to build a perfect road, and to run it in a perfect manner, I ought, as a matter of right – always bearing in mind the town’s witless practice aforesaid – to be granted this franchise. But those officers of the city who, acting for the city, should make the grant, refuse to do their duty by either the city or myself, unless I pay to each of them, say ten thousand dollars; they do, really! What am I to do? I didn’t select those officers; the public picked them out. Must I suffer loss, and go defeated of my rights, because the public was so careless or so ignorant as to pitch upon those improper, or, if you will, dishonest officials? I say, No. The fault is not mine; surely the loss should not be mine. I come off badly enough when I submit to the extortion. No, it is no more bribery, so far as I am involved, than it is bribery when I surrender my watch to that footpad who has a pistol at my ear. In each instance, the public should have saved me and has failed, don’t y’ know. The public, thus derelict, must not denounce me when, under conditions which its own neglect has created, I take the one path left open to insure myself; it mustn’t, really!”

Young Morton wiped the drops from his brow, and I could tell how he was deeply in earnest in what he thus put forward. Big Kennedy clapped him lustily on the back.

“Put it there!” he cried, extending his hand. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, an’ I aint been doin’ nothin’ but buy aldermen since I cut my wisdom teeth. There’s one last suggestion, however: I take it, you’re onto the’ fact that Blackberry Traction will lock horns with us over this franchise. We parallel their road, d’ye see, an’ they’ll try to do us up.” Then to me: “Who are th’ Blackberry’s pets in th’ Board?”

“McGinty and Doloran,” I replied.

“Keep your peepers on them babies. You can tell by th’ way they go to bat, whether th’ Blackberry has signed up to them to kill our franchise.”

“I can tell on the instant,” I said.

“That has all been anticipated,” observed young Morton. “The president of Blackberry Traction is a member of my club; we belong in the same social set. I foresaw his opposition, and I’ve provided for it; I have, really! McGinty and Doloran, you say? The names sound like the enemy. Please post me if those interesting individuals move for our disfavor.”

And now we went to work. Whatever was demanded of the situation as it unfolded found prompt reply, and in the course of time Mulberry Traction was given its franchise. The Blackberry at one crisis came forward to work an interruption; the sudden hot enmity of McGinty and Doloran was displayed. I gave notice of it to young Morton.

“I’ll arrange the matter,” he said. “At the next meeting of the Board I think they will be with us, don’t y’ know.”

It was even so; and since Big Kennedy, with my aid, discharged every responsibility that was his, the ordinance granting the franchise went through, McGinty and Doloran voting loudly with the affirmative. They were stubborn caitiffs, capable of much destructive effort, and their final tameness won upon my surprise. I put the question of it to young Morton.

“This is the secret of that miracle,” said he. “The president of Blackberry has been a Wall Street loser, don’t y’ know, for more than a year – has lost more than he could honestly pay. And yet he paid! Where did he get the money? At first I asked myself the question in a feeling of lazy curiosity. When I decided to organize our Mulberry Traction, I asked it in earnest; I did, really! I foresaw my friend’s opposition, and was seeking a weapon against him. Wherefore I looked him over with care, trying to determine where he got his loans. Now, he was the president, and incidentally a director, of the Confidence Trust Company. I bought stock in the Confidence. Then I drew into my interest that employee who had charge of the company’s loans. I discovered that our Blackberry president had borrowed seven millions from the Trust Company, giving as security a collection of dogs and cats and chips and whetstones, don’t y’ know! That was wrong; considering his position as an officer of the company, it was criminal. I made myself master of every proof required to establish his guilt in court. Then I waited. When you told me of those evil symptoms manifested by McGinty and Doloran, I took our president into the Fifth Avenue window of the club and showed him those evidences of his sins. He looked them over, lighted a cigar, and after musing for a moment, asked if the help of McGinty and Doloran for our franchise would make towards my gratification. I told him I would be charmed – really! You know the rest. Oh, no; I did not do so rude a thing as threaten an arrest. It wasn’t required. Our president is a highly intellectual man. Besides, it wouldn’t have been clubby; and it would have been bad form. And,” concluded young Morton, twirling his little cane, and putting on that look of radiant idiocy, “I’ve an absolute mania for everything that’s form, don’t y’ know.”