Edwin Lefevre

“ I mean to be a very rich man, Mr. Dawson. Of course, I could live comfortably on the income of forty or fifty millions; but I am going to do more than live comfortably. Man owes certain duties to his fellow-men which are neglected too often. Why,” enthusiastically, “the possession of unlimited wealth in worthy hands would mean the realization of the beautiful dreams of those unselfish men whom you, doubtless, call Utopians, and Socialists, and visionaries. They are the men who believe that mankind, at heart, is good. They are the men who will revolutionize the world!” ”

“ A deluge of gold; a deluge of ruin, devastation, and misery! financial anarchy; commercial chaos! thought the richest man in the world. He leaned back in his chair and breathed a bit quickly.
“Mr. Grinnell,” said Mr. Dawson, “your fortune already makes you independent. But I think Mr. Mellen will join with me in saying that if you care to consider a working alliance with us, commercial or financial, we should be glad to have your co-operation.” ”

“ Fancy a man who suddenly announces—and proves it conclusively—that he has an unknown number of millions of bushels of excellent wheat; imagine the effect not only on unfortunate bull gamblers on the Board of Trade, but also on thousands of hard-working farmers. But the young man’s case was far worse. It was not alone his possession of much money; it was his having the gold itself! Money is only money, but gold is more: it is the measure of value. To disturb that was to disturb finance, commerce, and industry. The working-world would cease to labour, cease to breathe. ”

“ Mellen intend to give all his money to the poor?”
“This is——” began Mellen, in a rebuking voice.
“Mr. Grinnell,” said the president, still with much dignity, “we have no desire to pry into your private affairs. But great wealth means great responsibilities, and what is permissible to a pauper is not permissible to you. You must admit that there is no limit to the harm that can be done from a too rapid increase in the gold supply of the world.” ”

“ Mellen has made five hundred millions of dollars in thirty years, what he can do, I can do. Do you see him doing it? I tell you the man has the gold. He isn’t trying to sell us any secret. All he asks is to be let alone. That is the alarming thing.
“It must be a mine. Where else could so much gold come from?” Mellen’s thoughts were on the source of the gold.
“My dear William, we can account for every ounce of gold produced in the world. There is no mine capable of producing such a quantity secretly.” ”

“ She is really a remarkable woman. If she too should die suddenly, Mr. Dawson,” looking unflinchingly at the bank president, “my secret and my history would be given to the world. It would make interesting reading; particularly to financiers, Mr. Dawson. I have written full instructions. The average man could not be trusted with such an opportunity to become enormously wealthy, but I have a friend who is above the temptation of sudden riches, who would be my literary executor”—with a faint smile, as at the hidden humour of the phrase—“He is a real socialist. He’d give you trouble, Mr. Dawson. ”

“ The house is guarded day and night. Costello himself went into the cellar with a load of coal. There is no doubt that Grinnell takes no gold into the house, and that the gold comes out of the electrical furnace. He has fifty millions now, and he won’t rest until he has a billion. That is his minimum. And, in the meantime, if somebody learns his secret—”
“We must find out,” shouted the richest man in the world, shaking his fist wildly in the air. “A billion in gold. What will become—” He checked himself as he caught Dawson’s half-frightened look. ”

“ George knew his brother. He said grimly: “The public doesn’t love the International Distributing Syndicate; nor us.”
“They’ll love Grinnell less. We are his victims, too; don’t you see? That will comfort the public. Bloated bondholder will be a synonym for pauper. They’ll pity us.” He said this with gentle dolefulness.
“William, but our friends? They’ll be ruined,” said George Mellen doubtfully. ”

“ Is it not so?”
“There are many things I should like to do if I had a thousand millions,” said Grinnell, very earnestly.
“Precisely. That’s what you told them. Ah, William Mellen! William Mellen!” and the little old man shook his head and raised his hands ceilingward, as though he saw the richest man in the world there and were apostrophizing him. “You have imagination, but only one pair of eyes. I see!”
“You know him?” Grinnell asked.
The Hebrew banker, at this question, instantly became merely a banker. He said, briskly: “If bonds are too low, stocks are too high; much too high. ”

“ Mel-len, with impressive solemnity.
“Infinite possibilities for good also, Mr. Mellen,” said the young man, a trifle sternly. “A bank designed, not so much to pay big dividends to its stockholders, but to protect the public and to help business men and the entire community in time of distress. An income of a quarter of a million a year is sufficient to gratify the most luxurious tastes of any man. It’s much more than enough for me. The rest might be devoted to the good of humanity.”
“Is that one of your plans?” asked Mr. Dawson very quietly. ”

“ Mellen did not come from inability to change his lifetime’s plans in the twinkling of an eye, but from unwillingness to accept at second-hand the inevitableness of something unspeakably disagreeable. All great business generals are opportunists. But at times the greatest minds work femininely.
“The question of whether he makes his gold or not, or how he gets it, now has merely an academic interest, William. The thing is, that he has the gold.” Dawson said it in a playfully exaggerated pedagogical air, yet ready to become deadly earnest in a twinkling. ”

“ I suppose there will be a smash.”
“It is more than likely,” assented Mellen gravely. Had not Mr. Dawson been a bank president, with a professional lack of the sense of humour, he would have winked surreptitiously at his friend.
“Well, if it is only the stock gamblers who suffer, I won’t worry. But, possibly, small investors may become frightened by the decline in bonds and sell out. They would be foolish, of course. But I have sympathy for foolish people; a fellow-feeling, I suppose.” He smiled. Then, seriously: “Why, do you suppose, there’s been such a slump in bonds?” ”

“ He will flood the world with gold, and think he is doing good. Yes. Sell the bonds.”
“Very well,” Dawson sighed. It came easier to him to believe the worst; he had seen more of Grinnell. But he knew the bonds would have to be sold at grievous sacrifices.
“It’s the only thing we can do,” the richest man said, almost consolingly; he knew Dawson’s thoughts. “But,” he added, “you must keep on trying to find out where he gets the gold. Send Costello to me. And you must buy stocks.”
Bonds are payable, principal and interest, in gold coin of the present standard of weight and fineness. ”

“ The richest man in the world stared at his friend; his head was bent forward as if to listen better. At Dawson’s last words he resumed his pacing. The pattern of the big Oriental rug consisted of ornate squares surrounded by a profusion of arabesques. Mel-len, his gaze fixed on the rug, stepped on alternate squares as he walked up and down the room. The president began to read his mail. From time to time he looked up and saw the richest man in the world striding up and down the room, carefully stepping on alternate squares in the rug. ”

“ Your friend, Mr. William Mellen, of the International Distributing Syndicate, is supposed to have five hundred at least. Why should a fortune of even a billion dollars raise a rumpus these days? It was inconceivable a few years ago, but it does not seem out of the way now. I realize perfectly how the sudden increase in the gold supply of this country could produce an inflation that might, in the end, prove highly detrimental to general business. ”

“ Its only impurity is a little platinum, and it isn’t always present. We know, within a negligible quantity, where almost every ounce of gold in the world is, and who holds it. There is not a bank or a bullion dealer anywhere whose supply is not known, approximately, to us. It’s my business to know. There’s no mystery about that. The mystery is Grinnell’s gold supply. He cannot store vast quantities in his house. Our men have been in every room in it. Costello, disguised as a driver from the dealers from whom Grinnell buys his chemical supplies, says there is no place for vaults. ”

“ Dawson shook his head and smiled, as at a favourite son who is in error, but is young.
“Oh, I know what you mean. It isn’t profitable for the banks with money to lend; it makes the supply greater than the demand, and you get lower interest rates on your loans; and then it is apt to be a sign that business is slack, and people have no need to borrow. But just now, unless all the newspapers lie, business is quite active in all lines and—” Grinnell’s speech savoured slightly of the pedagogical, like a school-boy enunciating obvious truths, but using his teacher’s professional solemnity. ”

“ I am going to be more generous in the future.”
“Good!” said Grinnell; he would take the president at his word when his month was up. “Now, if I should want drafts on London and Paris in a day or two—”
“Mr. Williams will be at your service, at any time,” the president assured him, as though Mr. Grinnell were an ordinary depositor transacting ordinary business. “No notice is required in this bank,” with a curious suggestion of bravado. He pushed one of a row of electric buttons on his desk. The assistant cashier, his fat face distorted dismally into an anticipatory excuse, appeared. ”

“ In his Monday morning article, Philip King, of The Sun, compared the bond-market to the old story of the great psychologist who, dressed as a pedlar, offered on a Broadway sidewalk to sell five-dollar gold-pieces, warranted genuine, to the passers-by at $3.98. Never a fool so foolish, in the passing thousands, as to shake hands with fortune on the psychologist’s coin-laden tray. Now they would not buy bonds.
Of the millions of dollars of bonds that were sold, some were registered in the name of William Mellen or Richard Dawson, or of known stool-pigeons—clerks in their offices, etc. ”

“ As at that time so many of our financial institutions were unsafe because their officers were gambling in stocks and underwriting ventures, we concluded to lose the interest on it and turn it into gold. Once we had accumulated fifty millions in gold, the existence of which was unsuspected by bankers or brokers or newspapers, it was obvious that there were various ways in which the gold and the secret of it could be made valuable. ”

“ Mellen, as he walked into the president’s office.
“Almost there,” answered Dawson. “I have sold most of your semi-speculative issues, and we are working off the last better than I expected. You got the memorandum of stocks bought to-day?”
Mellen nodded. Then he walked to the busy ticker in the corner, and regarded the tape.
“The newspapers have warned the public against buying inflated stocks, or selling bonds at unreasonably low prices. A free press, Richard, is the best safeguard of the liberties of a nation. We should be grateful for this boon.” ”

“ After all, the public had but ceased to fear to buy bonds. It must be made to fear not to buy them; for bonds still were much too low and stocks very much too high. Wherefore, the Evening Scold, which had been importuning Mr. Isaac L. Herzog for an expression of his views, was at last able to publish an interview, double leaded, in its front page, in which the great financier strongly urged investors not to sell bonds but rather to buy. As for stocks, it was not wise to buy them but rather to sell. Investors need not be anxious over fundamental business conditions. ”

“ Or, he could mistakenly lend it at such low rates of interest as would “break” the money-market, and help fools or gamblers, but grievously reduce the bank’s profits. Or, he could so misuse it as to foil some stock-market plan of Mr. Dawson’s, or of his associates. There was no limit to the possibilities of mischief from an unknown but even greater supply. Money is a commodity, governed, like all other commodities, by certain conditions. ”

“ Mellen’s face had lost its tense look. He said, very quietly: “I see!”
“I deposited the gold, as Assay Office checks, in Mr. Dawson’s bank, and stopped calling on my fiancée. Later, I bought the bonds. I didn’t see Mr. Herzog until they were cheap.”
The president, his voice husky with anger, said: “Then you deliberately—”
“Don’t!” commanded the young man sharply. “Of course, I assumed that business training and Wall Street practices did not kill the imaginative faculty. That is what I had to work on. No financier can be great that has not great imagination. ”

“ On the whole, the public bought more bonds than it sold, and sold more stocks than it bought. Yet, bonds fell, and fell, and stocks rose and rose. And there still remained the pet investments of George B. Mellen’s intimate friends; men who, accustomed to risking much on the turn of the wheel of the ticker, yet kept a portion of their fortune safe beyond peradventure by buying bonds which were unassailable by demagogues and socialistic legislatures, unaffected by hard times or strikes, or crop failures ”