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Page 85
"Wall Street crooks!" he began, in a fine orative frenzy. "Dur-r-rinkin'
their champagne whilst th' honest poor's lucky t' git a shell av hops!
Ruh-hobbin' th' tax-pay'r f'r' t' buy floozie gowns an' joold bresslets
f'r their fancy wives an' such. I know th' kind well; not wan cud do a
day's bakin' or windy-washin'!"
He held the noisy sheet before Bean and accusingly pointed a blunt
forefinger. "Burly Blonde Divorc�e, Routed Society Burglar," across the
first two columns, but the proceeding was rather tamely typed and the
Burly Blonde's portrait in evening dress was inconspicuous beside the
headlines "Flurry in Federal Express! Wild Scenes on Stock Exchange.
Millions made by Gentlemen's Agreement."
"Gentlemin!" hissed Cassidy. "The sem agreemint that two gentlemin
porch-climbers has whin wan climbs whilst th' other watches t' see is
th' cop at th' upper ind av th' beat! Millions med whilst I'm wur-r-kin'
f'r twinty per month an' what's slipped me--th' sem not buyin' manny
jools ner private steamboats! Millions med! I know th' kind well!" Bean
felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy's. He was seeing why they had
feared to have him on the board of directors. Apparently they were bent
on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance. The substance of
what he gleaned from Cassidy's newspaper was that those directors had
declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100
per cent.
They were madly wrecking the company in which he had invested his
savings. Such was his first thought. And they were crooks, as Cassidy
said, because for two years they had been quietly, through discreet
agents, buying in the stock from unsuspecting holders.
"Rascals," agreed Bean with Cassidy, leaving but slight gifts for
character analysis.
"Tellin' th' poor dubs th' stock was goin' down with one hand an' buyin'
it in with th' other," said the janitor, lucidly.
Bean was suddenly troubled by a cross-current of thought. When you
wrecked a company you didn't buy in the stock--you _sold_. He viewed the
headlines from a new angle. Those directors were undoubtedly rascals,
but was he not a rascal himself? What about his own shares?
"Maybe there's something we don't understand about it," he ventured to
Cassidy.
"I know th' kind well," persisted Cassidy. "Th' idle rich! Small use
have they f'r th' wur-r-r-kin' man! Souls no wider than th' black av y'r
nail!"
"Might have had good reasons," said Bean, cautiously.
"Millions av thim," assented Cassidy with a pointed cynicism. "An' me
own father dyin' twinty-three years ago fr'm ixposure contracted in
County Mayo!"
Bean returned the paper to its owner and went slowly in to Ram-tah. One
of the idle rich! Well, that is what kings mostly were, if you came down
to it. At least they had to be rich to buy all those palaces. But not
necessarily idle. The renewed Ram-tah would not be idle. It was not
idleness to own a major-league club.
For the first time in their intercourse he felt that he faced the dead
king almost as an equal. He was confronted by problems of
administration, as Ram-tah must often have been. He must think.
If the flapper quite madly brought about an immediate marriage they
would, for their honeymoon, follow the home club on its Western trip,
and the groom would not be idle. He would be "looking over the ground."
Then he would buy one of the clubs. If he proved to be not rich enough
for that, not quite as rich as one of the idle rich, he would buy stock
and become a director. He was feeling now that he knew how to be a
director; that his experience with the express company had qualified
him. He wondered how rich he would prove to be. Maybe he would have as
much as thirty thousand dollars.
And he was a puzzle to Breede. He looked knowingly at Ram-tah when he
remembered this. Ram-tah had probably puzzled people, too.
* * * * *
He went to the office in the morning still wondering how rich he might
be. The newspaper he read did not enlighten him, though it spoke frankly
of "Federal Express Scandal." If the thing was _very_ scandalous,
perhaps he had made a lot of money. But he could not be sure of this. It
might be merely "newspaper vituperation," which was something he knew to
be not uncommon. The paper had declared that those directors had juggled
a twenty-million dollar surplus for years, lending it to one another at
a low rate of interest, until, alarmed by clamouring stockholders, they
had declared this enormous dividend, taking first, however, the
precaution to buy for a low price all the stock they could. But the
newspaper did not say how rich any one would be that had a whole lot of
margins on that stock at Kennedy & Balch's. Maybe you had to hire a
lawyer in those cases.
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