“Lord! Lord!”
Bascom held the side of his face in the palm of one hand and grimaced as if he had a jumping toothache.
“Lord! Lord!” he reiterated. “The market’s gone to smash and Tampico Pet along with it. How she slumped! Who’d have dreamed it!”
Francis, puffing steadily away at a cigarette and quite oblivious that it was unlighted, sat with Bascom in the latter’s private office.
“It looks like a fire-sale,” he vouchsafed.
“That won’t last longer than this time to-morrow morning——then you’ll be sold out, and me with you,” his broker simplified, with a swift glance at the clock.
It marked twelve, as Francis’ swiftly automatic glance verified.
“Dump in the rest of Tampico Pet,” he said wearily. “That ought to hold back until to-morrow.”
“Then what to-morrow?” his broker demanded, “with the bottom out and everybody including the office boys selling short.”
Francis shrugged his shoulders. “You know I’ve mortgaged the house, Dreamwold, and the Adirondack Camp to the limit.”
“Have you any friends?”
“At such a time!” Francis countered bitterly.
“Well, it’s the very time,” Bascom retorted. “Look here, Morgan. I know the set you ran with at college. There’s Johnny Pathmore——”
“And he’s up to his eyes already. When I smash he smashes. And Dave Donaldson will have to readjust his life to about one hundred and sixty a month. And as for Chris Westhouse, he’ll have to take to the movies for a livelihood. He always was good at theatricals, and I happen to know he’s got the ideal ‘film’ face.”
“There’s Charley Tippery,” Bascom suggested, though it was patent that he was hopeless about it.
“Yes,” Francis agreed with equal hopelessness. “There’s only one thing the matter with him——his father still lives.”
“The old cuss never took a flyer in his life,” Bascom supplemented. “There’s never a time he can’t put his hand on millions. And he still lives, worse luck.”
“Charley could get him to do it, and would, except the one thing that’s the matter with me.”
“No securities left?” his broker queried.
Francis nodded.
“Catch the old man parting with a dollar without due security.”
Nevertheless, a few minutes later, hoping to find Charley Tippery in his office during the noon hour, Francis was sending in his card. Of all jewelers and gem merchants in New York, the Tippery establishment was the greatest. Not only that. It was esteemed the greatest in the world. More of the elder Tippery’s money was invested in the great Diamond Corner, than even those in the know of most things knew of this particular thing.
The interview was as Francis had forecast. The old man still held tight reins on practically everything, and the son had little hope of winning his assistance.
“I know him,” he told Francis. “And though I’m going to wrestle with him, don’t pin an iota of faith on the outcome. I’ll go to the mat with him, but that will be about all. The worst of it is that he has the ready cash, to say nothing of oodles and oodles of safe securities and United States bonds. But you see, Grandfather Tippery, when he was young and struggling and founding the business, once loaned a friend a thousand. He never got it back, and he never got over it. Nor did Father Tippery ever get over it either. The experience seared both of them. Why, father wouldn’t lend a penny on the North Pole unless he got the Pole for security after having had it expertly appraised. And you haven’t any security, you see. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll wrestle with the old man to-night after dinner. That’s his most amiable mood of the day. And I’ll hustle around on my own and see what I can do. Oh, I know a few hundred thousand won’t mean anything, and I’ll do my darnedest for something big. Whatever happens, I’ll be at your house at nine to-morrow——”
“Which will be my busy day,” Francis smiled wanly, as they shook hands. “I’ll be out of the house by eight.”
“And I’ll be there by eight then,” Charley Tippery responded, again wringing his hand heartily. “And in the meantime I’ll get busy. There are ideas already beginning to sprout....”
Another interview Francis had that afternoon. Arrived back at his broker’s office, Bascom told him that Regan had called up and wanted to see Francis, saying that he had some interesting information for him.
“I’ll run around right away,” Francis said, reaching for his hat, while his face lighted up with hope. “He was an old friend of father’s, and if anybody could pull me through, he could.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Bascom shook his head, and paused reluctantly a moment before making confession. “I called him up just before you returned from Panama. I was very frank. I told him of your absence and of your perilous situation here, and——oh, yes, flatly and flat out——asked him if I could rely on him in case of need. And he baffled. You know anybody can baffle when asked a favor. That was all right. But I thought I sensed more ... no, I won’t dare to say enmity; but I will say that I was impressed ... how shall I say?—well, that he struck me as being particularly and peculiarly cold-blooded and non-committal.”
“Nonsense,” Francis laughed. “He was too good a friend of my father’s.”
“Ever heard of the Conmopolitan Railways Merger?” Bascom queried with significant irrelevance.
Francis nodded promptly, then said:
“But that was before my time. I merely have heard of it, that’s all. Shoot. Tell me about it. Give me the weight of your mind.”
“Too long a story, but take this one word of advice. If you see Regan, don’t put your cards on the table. Let him play first, and, if he offers, let him offer without solicitation from you. Of course, I may be all wrong, but it won’t damage you to hold up your hand and get his play first.”
At the end of another half hour, Francis was closeted with Regan, and the stress of his peril was such that he controlled his natural impulses, remembering Bascom’s instruction, and was quite fairly nonchalant about the state of his affairs. He even bluffed.
“In pretty deep, eh?” was Regan’s beginning.
“Oh, not so deep that my back-teeth are awash yet,” Francis replied airily. “I can still breathe, and it will be a long time before I begin swallowing.”
Regan did not immediately reply. Instead, pregnantly, he ran over the last few yards of the ticker tape.
“You’re dumping Tampico Pet pretty heavily, just the same.”
“And they’re snapping it up,” Francis came back, and for the first time, in a maze of wonderment, he considered the possibility of Bascom’s intuition being right. “Sure, I’ve got them swallowing.”
