Self-made man

“ No one who saw Bradhurst lounging at times about the office door of the Grand Pacific Hotel would have suspected that impenetrable man had a dollar at stake in any precarious scheme.
Yet there were moments when he had reason to fear that even his eleven millions, now almost swallowed up in the insatiable maw of the corn market, would not be enough to stave off ultimate disaster.
But never for a moment did he lose confidence in the boy who was making such a shrewd fight against the combined bear interests of the Board of Trade. ”

“ I realized $9,000,000.”
“Nine millions!” gasped Vance, who was astonished at the sum, although he was accustomed to move in a business atmosphere where transactions involving millions were a common occurrence.
“Exactly—nine millions,” nodded Bradhurst, enjoying his young acquaintance’s amazement. “So you see you saved the life of a man actually worth $11,000,000 in cash and securities. If my head had been smashed by that truck those millions would have had no further interest for me. While every man’s life is presumed to be his most precious possession, mine has more than a usual value.” ”

“ A fellow that did not drink was decidedly something out of the common in Missouri.
Vance, however, was rescued from this disagreeable situation by the man whose life he had saved.
The big fellow stepped up, and linking his arm with the lad’s, drew him off down the street, saying, in a very pleasant and somewhat musical voice:
“Let us get away from this mob, my young friend; I fancy their well-meant intentions are not particularly agreeable to either of us. I can see that you don’t care to be made a hero of, though I never knew one who more deserved the honor.” ”

“ Why, I haven’t seen you ruffled a bit since you took hold of this thing.”
“Yet it takes every minute of my time,” replied Vance, with a smile that covered the weariness inseparable from the control of the tremendous forces latent in a line of fifty million bushels of corn.
“Necessarily,” admitted the millionaire, “but, boy, you are stronger, bigger and shrewder than the great bear clique pitted against you. You’ve overtopped the whole crowd—the biggest men of the Board of Trade. A few days more will show the world that you are really the new corn Monte Christo. ”

“ Jarboe, shaking his head dismally.
“I have authority to act for Mr. Whitemore,” said Vance, producing the paper which had been signed by the stricken corn operator.
“That’s all right as far as it goes,” said Mr. Jarboe. “It gives you the right to act for Mr. Whitemore, but what can you do without money, even supposing you to be capable of intelligent action on the big interests involved?”
“You are right, Mr. Jarboe; I’m afraid my hands are tied. Mr. Whitemore intended to transfer his Chicago National balance to me by check, but he lapsed into insensibility at the critical moment.” ”

“ If Guy Dudley and Mr. Taggart, the manager of the five elevators of Elevatorville, only suspected the injury they had inflicted on their cause by coming down to the water’s edge of that particular elevator under which Vance Thornton happened to be concealed at the time, and there telling all they knew to the winds, as they thought, there is not the least doubt that they would have felt like going to some quiet place and kicking themselves off the earth. ”

“ I have been studying Board of Trade methods ever since I entered Mr. Whitemore’s office. With the grasp on the market I have at this moment, through my employer’s holdings, I see my way clear, with your backing to corner the product and force the price to almost any figure within reason. In a week the Jarrett, Palmer & Carrington pool won’t have a leg to stand on.”
“All right; I’ll go over with you, Vance. But before we go we’re going to have dinner. You look as though you needed a square meal.” ”

“ You seem to be a born speculator, like your father. I have long wished to associate with me a young man of nerve and accurate foresight in whom I could thoroughly depend. You appear to combine all the qualities in question. On this trip you are bound to acquire knowledge of the most confidential nature—information that could not but seriously embarrass me if it became known to my business opponents. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Vance, with a serious face. ”

“ The upper floors were divided into supper rooms for ladies and their escorts, and it was quite a fad among the upper crust of Kansas City aristocracy to drop in there after the theater.
Mr. Bagley himself, rotund and red-faced, lounged in a big easy chair behind the cashier’s desk near the entrance.
The room was nearly crowded at that hour, and while Vance was surveying the place with much interest a waiter approached Dudley and handed him a card.
“We’ll go upstairs, Vance,” said the dapper gentleman gaily. “I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine.” ”

“ Whitemore’s office according to arrangements entered into the night before.
“Cool, I must say,” he remarked, as he handed it back. “Well, what are you going to do?”
“Get another broker,” replied Vance decidedly.
“Quite right. Have you selected one yet?”
“I have a firm in my eye. It’s young, but I know them both. They’re square as a die. This deal will be the making of them, and I’m glad to put it in their way. Come, let us go over to their office. We haven’t any time to lose to-day.”
Mr. Bradhurst and Vance went to a brokerage office on La Salle street. ”

“ How can we tell but that this infernal young monkey, Vance Thornton, may be at the end of his tether also? It has taken an enormous amount of money for him to swing this deal. What I want to know is where did he get it?”
“That is what has bothered us right along. With all our sagacity and our pet spy system we have not been able to find out.”
“No, we haven’t. Who would ever have supposed that boy would turn out such a hard proposition?”
“He’s a smart kid. He can’t be more than eighteen. Why, it’s my opinion he could give old Whitemore points in the business, as foxy as that old codger was.” ”

“ Bradhurst had come to be a frequent visitor at the Thornton home, where he had been introduced by Vance the evening following their partnership arrangement.
Mrs. Thornton and Elsie received him with all the courtesy that well-bred people are wont to extend to a warm personal friend of the son of the family.
To a man who for eight years had been debarred from the ideals of civilization the pleasant home picture was restful and refreshing. ”

“ Dudley had secured good seats in the orchestra, and as the performance was above the average Vance thoroughly enjoyed it.
“You don’t object to having a bite, do you?” asked Guy Dudley after the show.
“I don’t usually eat late at night,” replied Vance, “but I have no objection to joining you. Where will we go?”
“There’s a famous English chop-house on Blank street,” said the dapper young man, with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes; “we’ll take a cab and go there.”
“Why wouldn’t the place over the way do as well?” asked the boy. “It looks to be a first-class restaurant.” ”

“ Whitemore hasn’t accused him of any underhanded dealings, but the very fact that he has shut up tighter than a clam toward his confidential assistant, and has sent young Thornton—a mere boy, you might say—west to close up his corn options, is a sure sign that the old man is suspicious of Vyce. Ever since that boy left Chicago we have reason to suspect that Whitemore has been quietly buying every bushel of corn that is offered, though his regular brokers do not appear in these transactions. If this is a fact, he must own more than half of the visible supply on the market. ”

“ He did business for nobody but himself. Jarboe, Willicutt & Co., whose offices were on the ground floor of the Board of Trade Building, were his brokers.
The office clock chimed the hour of five as the bookkeeper, with a frown, laid down his pen, rested his elbow on the corner of his tall desk and glanced down into the busy thoroughfare.
At that moment the office door opened and a messenger boy entered.
Mr. Vyce came to the railing and received an envelope addressed to himself. ”

“ Well, eight years ago, a few years after I graduated from Yale College and was beginning the life of a business man in New York, my friends came to the conclusion that I was marked for an early grave. ”

“ They print only what we want on the corn question. They mold public opinion, as it were. The other papers copy our news, and there you are—see?”
Mr. Taggart thought he saw, for he rubbed his hands and laughed.
“But in dealing with such an artful old fox as Jared Whitemore we have to provide against the unusual and the unexpected. It was distinctly unusual for him to send a boy like Vance Thornton to close up his options—yet that is what he has done, and we should never have got on to it if it had not been for the uncommon shrewdness of our man Vyce. ”

“ Edgar Vyce, is a snake in the grass. I’ll have to lose no time in putting Mr. Whitemore next to all these important facts. When he learns the real state of affairs I guess Mr. Vyce will have to join the opposition in person as well as in spirit. I never did like him much, and now I certainly despise him. A sneak and a traitor ought always to be handled without gloves.”
By this time the road was clear for Vance to retire without attracting special attention to himself, and half an hour later he was seated at a table in the cottage writing a letter to his employer. ”

“ All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. If I didn’t take a run out of a night with the boys once in awhile I wouldn’t be worth shucks. You don’t know what you lose, old chap. Still, you’re young yet.”
“I believe in enjoying myself in a rational manner, Mr. Dudley,” said Vance. “Drinking and smoking and billiards and card-playing don’t quite fall in with my idea of a good time.”
“All right,” remarked Dudley carelessly; “every one to his taste. Well, here we are,” and he turned in at the entrance to Hyde & Beaman’s theater, followed by Vance. ”

“ In the fewest words possible the boy told him what he had seen as he entered the office; also how he had been attacked by Vyce, and but for Bessie’s arrival would probably have been fatally injured.
“The scoundrel! He must have been crazy!”
“Not at all,” replied Vance. “I can easily understand how it came about; but for the present it is better I should say nothing on the subject. Mr. Whitemore will know how to deal with him when he recovers.”
“The police ought to be notified. I don’t like the looks of Mr. Whitemore. He is a long time coming to.” ”

“ That would keep that lot from being moved to Chicago until we chose to have it put in motion. With scarcely any corn in transport the market would soar to—good gracious, I dare not think of it. I haven’t a moment to lose. I must see Mr. Bradhurst at once.”
And Vance, for the first time in his life utterly ignoring Bessie, rushed for his hat.
“Vance—Vance!” she cried, running after him. “You haven’t gone crazy, have you?”
“Crazy!” he cried almost fiercely, turning full upon her. “Yes, I have! I’m crazy—crazy with a scheme that means millions to us. Go home. I can’t see you to the car. ”

“ Whitemore may die before morning,” she said. “He has not recovered consciousness at any time since he was taken home. I left the check-book, after explaining matters to Mrs. Whitemore, and she said if he regains his senses she will try to get her husband to sign.”
“Thank you, Bessie,” replied Vance gratefully. “You have done all that I could have done myself under the circumstances. I have been studying the situation, and feel confident if I had enough money I could save Mr. Whitemore. Unless I get it before business opens on the Board of Trade in the morning I fear it will be too late.” ”

“ It’s better to be born lucky than rich.”
Next morning Vance left for a railway junction town in Missouri, the last point he had on his list.
It is unnecessary to go into the particulars of his business at this place.
It is enough to say that it had a direct bearing on his employer’s plans, and the boy managed to obtain all the necessary information to be got.
“Now for Chicago and home,” said Vance, in a happy frame of mind, after he had boiled down his statistics in a succinct letter to Mr. Whitemore and sent it off. ”

“ Whitemore wants you to report in his office at once, Thornton,” said the bookkeeper, in a surly kind of voice, [Pg 2] accompanied with a look which plainly showed that he was not particularly well disposed toward the boy.
“All right,” answered Vance, cheerily, turning toward the private office, on the door of which he knocked, and then entered on being told to come in.
“I hate him!” muttered Mr. Vyce, following the boy’s retreating figure with a dark scowl. “He’s a thorn in my path. He’s altogether too thick with Whitemore. I can’t understand what the old man sees in him. ”

“ Vance repeated the amount.
“Say, you’re not joking, are you?” said Fox with a smile.
“Never more serious in my life,” replied the boy earnestly. “This gentleman, William Bradhurst, is worth exactly that sum, and he is backing me. He is ready to give you a check on the Bankers’ National Bank now to cover my first transaction, which is an order to purchase any part of five million bushels of corn as soon as it is offered in the pit this morning.”
“Five million bushels!” exclaimed Fox, staring hard at Vance. ”

“ It is true that I’m not the same old Vance in some respects. I’m to-day the king of the corn market, and I’m worth several millions—just how many I can’t say as yet. I went into this thing because it was my duty to try and save Mr. Whitemore’s interests. ”