Extravagant Living CHAPTER 26.
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Lots were bought for the two dwellings, plans and estimates obtained, and the work of building commenced.
Mr. Allen and Mr. Pinkerton were both present when the first stroke of the pick-axe was made in the earth, which was to give place for the foundations of their elegant houses. Neither of them, however, experienced the high degree of satisfaction they had anticipated — for, within a week, certain cards they had played, with a confidence made bold by repeated good fortune, turned up unfavorably. Even small successes, give to the mind a degree of confidence; opposite is the effect of reverses, however lightly they may affect a man's prosperity.
The losses sustained by Mr. Allen and his son-in-law were not of a serious nature — not sufficient in themselves to damp the ardor of their building excitement. But, they caused their minds to be infested with doubts and questionings — produced a sense of insecurity — a consciousness that the ground upon which they had been standing with such an assurance of stability, was not so firm as they had fondly imagined it to be.
Pinkerton had returned to his store, and was absorbed in business, when a note came from Mr. Allen, asking him to come to his office immediately, as he had something of importance to communicate. The request was at once obeyed.
"Bad news," said Mr. Allen, the moment his son in-law entered.
"What?" eagerly inquired the young man.
"I have a letter from Mr. Eldridge."
"He has arrived then?"
"Yes, and his report is discouraging enough."
"Are they not working the mine?"
"No. The man we sent out to put up and run the engine, went no further than Vera Cruz. He had a good offer there, and broke his engagement with the company. After many delays, the engine was taken to the mines at an expense equal to the original cost. The only machinist who could be found willing to go there, was a drunken fellow, who, after reaching the ground, proved utterly incompetent for the work he had engaged to do. He was over a month in getting the engine in its place and in motion. Then, to put the cap on these drawbacks and disasters, it was found that the pump would not discharge per minute, over half the quantity of water that was flowing into the mine from the large vein which had so unfortunately been opened by the miners in sinking a shaft."
"Most disastrous!" exclaimed Pinkerton.
"A result for which I was altogether unprepared," said Mr. Allen. "Just to think, that one of the richest silver mines in Mexico should be rendered useless by this failure. Not the least doubt had I, that the miners were already among the rich deposits, and that liberal shipments of the precious ore were on their way to this country. Yesterday I refused to take sixty dollars a share for two hundred shares. When this intelligence is known, they will not bring five dollars!"
"Has Eldridge written to anyone else?" inquired Pinkerton, with a meaning in his tones which was well understood.
"Of that I am in ignorance. As the secretary of the company, all official correspondence comes through me, but he has several friends here interested in the stock, and without doubt has promptly communicated with them."
While he was yet speaking, a gentleman came in somewhat hurriedly. Mr. Allen knew him to be one of the individuals to whom he had just made reference.
"Have you anything from the agent of the Ixcotel mines?" he inquired, affecting a carelessness of tone which did not deceive his auditors.
"Nothing," was the cool reply of Mr. Allen.
"How is the stock selling now?"
"I hold mine at sixty-one dollars a share," said Mr. Allen.
"Will you buy at sixty?"
"Yes. How many shares have you?"
"Forty."
"Very well; I'll take them. Have the transfer made in the course of the day. Tomorrow I will hand you a check for the amount."
"Would it not be convenient today?" asked the man. "I have some large payments to make."
"Not exactly convenient," replied Mr. Allen. I have already checked out my balance. But several notes will be paid in to my credit during the day."
A memorandum of the transaction was made, and the man departed.
'I don't understand that," said Pinkerton looking at his father-in-law with a troubled aspect .
"It is clear that he has received news from Eldridge."
"No doubt of it in the world," replied Pinkerton.
"It is also now clear that until tomorrow, he will keep his own secret."
"I see — I see. We are safe until then, so far as he is concerned." Pinkerton spoke with animation.
"We must not be the owners of a share of the stock at the going down of the sun today," said Mr. Allen, resolutely.
"Not a share!" responded the young man.
"Whatever is done, Mark, must be done quickly. Not a moment is to be lost. And yet, the utmost circumspection must be used. I had better manage the whole business; for I am cooler than you. Here, execute this power of attorney, authorizing me to sell your 'Ixcotel Silver Mine Stock,' and then go back to your store. We must not be seen together again today, or we may be charged with collusion in the matter. When the truth is known, there will be a buzzing in the hive; but we must be secure from the stings. As for our friend who has just left us, we can afford to pay for his stock in the morning, if we sell our four hundred shares today. And then, the fact that I bought on that date, will be a good offset to the fact of selling on this, and will be regarded as conclusive evidence that I was not in possession of any disastrous intelligence."
"I see — you can teach me in these matters," said Pinkerton. "So I will leave all in your hands."
The two men now parted. At five o'clock, they met again.
"What news?" asked Pinkerton, earnestly.
"All safe!" was the cheerful response. "Every share is sold."
"Good!" Pinkerton clapped his hand together joyfully.
"And what is better," added Mr. Allen, "I have also sold the forty shares which I am to pay for tomorrow, and have the note therefor in my pocket."
"All safe! How my mind is relieved! But the danger was most imminent. These transactions are attended with fearful risks sometimes."
"So they are, Mark, and also with liberal gains. Just look at the advantage in the present case. We bought at twenty dollars a share, and have sold at sixty — a clear gain ofsixteen thousand dollars. I would like to see one of your mercantile operations pay like that."
Pinkerton shrugged his shoulders and looked well-pleased at the "shrewd exhibit" of his father-in law.
On the next morning, one of the papers contained this paragraph:
"We learn, from reliable authority, that the steam-pump sent out to the silver-mine in Mexico by the Ixcotel company, has failed to answer the proposed end."
Down went the stock from sixty to ten dollars a share, the depression ruining two or three individuals who had risked all they were worth, in the stock. Of the shares sold by Mr. Allen, one hundred were purchased by a gentleman as an investment for a widow under the assurance that it would pay at least ten per cent, and in all probability, twenty. It washer all!
To screen himself from suspicion Mr. Allen pretended still to be the holder of a large number of shares, and of course one of the losers. And he did not escape entirely free of loss. One of the purchasers of the very stock he threw into market, who was ruined by the transaction, owed him five thousand dollars, of which he never received a penny. The final result, therefore, was not so pleasant as he had anticipated.
As for the Ixcotel mine, it has remained flooded until this day; and will probably so remain for as long a time to come.
The incident of the Ixcotel Mining Company will give the reader some idea as to the kind of operations in which Mr. Allen was engaged; and how he was a party in transactions which truly honest men would not hesitate to stigmatize as swindling. It will also be seen, that both he and his son-in-law, with all their unscrupulous shrewdness — with all their reputation for wealth and stability — were treading on very dangerous ground. In their own minds, they had greatly over-estimated their real wealth; and in determining to erect costly dwellings for themselves — had committed a serious error.
Pinkerton, however, felt very safe in the matter. So fortunate had been his stock and other speculations carried on in connection with Mr. Allen, that he felt himself perfectly able to spend twenty thousand dollars on his house, and not draw anything from his business. And yet, his purchase of ground was made on time; and his first installment to the builder, who was under contract for the erection of his new house, was a note at four months for two thousand dollars. Money could be used to too great advantage in stock speculations — to be paid for work or building materials, when notes of hand could be made to answer just as well.
Mr. Allen proceeded on the same plan; and to enable the builder to get his notes discounted readily, he procured Mr. Pinkerton's endorsement; and in return, endorsed Mr. Pinkerton's notes for a like purpose. In fact, their affairs were so involved, one within the other, that at times, they seemed to have but a common interest.
This giving of notes for material and workmanship, worked very well for a time. But, as the buildings progressed rapidly, by the end of six months our two gentlemen found the sums necessary to be withdrawn from their somewhat involved money operations, and laid down irrecoverably in bricks and mortar — rather inconvenient to raise; and it almost invariably happened, that to procure these sums, they were obliged to sell off shares of stock in a depressed state of the market.
Fancy stocks were then quite as plenty — and galvanized banks, situated in places remote from the great money vortices, were a favorite means of swindling the public. Then, as now, gambling transactions in this class of stocks, and with these dead-and-alive banks, was a precarious business, and the shrewdest and most far seeing were often thrown suddenly to the wall. In the very midst of their building operations, and at a time when both Mr. Allen and Mr. Pinkerton began to feel the drain in this direction to be a most exhausting one — a certain bank, in the stock of which they had each ten thousand dollars invested, and on which the advance had been steady for some weeks — suddenly closed its doors. Perfectly aware had they been of the entire unsoundness of this bank, and of the necessity of its early failure. But they, with a few others, had put in circulation, false but specious reports concerning its resources, in order to advance the stock. The maximum rate to which they aimed to bring their stock was nearly reached, and they were about selling at a handsome profit, when the inevitable disaster came. It was only fit that they should be joint sufferers with those they had been such active agents in wronging.
It so happened, that in the case of both Mr. Allen and Mr. Pinkerton, the stock was under contract for considerable loans, which were about becoming due, and which the sale of the stock was to liquidate. The immediate production of a large sum of money was, therefore, rendered necessary. It would not do to show the smallest degree of hesitation, or to seem in any way embarrassed by the failure of the bank. This would only weaken their credit, and render their condition the more precarious. But to maintain a good position — to let all seem entirely fair to the public — sacrifices of a most serious character had to be made.
Had the question of building now been an open one, the decision would have been instant, and in the negative. But, everything was in active progress, and must be carried through. To suspend operations would be to create suspicion that all might not be as well with them as the public had imagined. More paper had, therefore, to be created — and new schemes of raising money devised. In order to meet a suddenly occurring exigency, Pinkerton was drawn aside into the error which led to a dissolution of his first co-partnership. In this case, however, he exercised a shrewder forethought. Instead of issuing the notes of Pinkerton & Lee for discount, and so losing control of them, he obtained, for half a percent a month, the post-notes of a certain institution, the credit of which was good, and deposited firm notes as collateral security for his individual paper. If his own notes were paid at maturity, the existence of the collateral would not, of course, become known to his partner. It would come back into his possession and be destroyed.
The first transaction covered the sum of five thousand dollars — and it was made with such ease, and apparent safety, that it only served as a temptation to take further steps on the dangerous road. The cost of these transactions was, however, rather a heavy item. To obtain the post notes of the Maryland Insurance Company, six percent per annum had to be paid; and from six to twelve percent more was abstracted from the post notes before they were turned into cash.
At such sacrifices was money now obtained to carry on the building operations of both Mr. Pinkerton and his father-in-law. But, the erection of their elegant edifices, now more than two-thirds completed, must go on, even though the envied owners thereof, had lost all pleasure therein. The longer this drain upon their resources continued, the more did they become oppressed with an exhausting sense of inability; and the more earnest — we might say, desperate — became their struggles to sustain themselves. How little did the public imagine, as they admired the two mansions, which grew up in beautiful order and harmony of proportion, under the hands of a skillful architect, and more than half envied the wealthy owners thereof, that, when the last stroke of the painter's brush had been given, and all was ready for the upholsterer and the cabinetmaker — each was burdened with a heavy mortgage. Without this, the building must have been suspended.
Yes, all was completed at the last; and at a cost, in each case, of five thousand dollars beyond the original estimate. Fifty thousand dollars had been absorbed in the two buildings. Months before their completion, the subject of furniture came up for earnest discussion between Mr. and Mrs. Pinkerton. The ideas of the former were far from being as liberal as in the beginning, and very far from corresponding with those of his wife. She had set her heart upon ordering their parlor furniture from Paris — and, as she had talked very freely on the subject to all her fashionable acquaintances, and said that they would certainly have French furniture, she urged the matter with a degree of fervor which quite troubled her husband, who had begun to inspect, somewhat curiously, the furniture already in possession, to see how far it would answer for the new dwelling.
In spite of the remonstrances, tears and persuasions of his wife — Pinkerton refused to give an order for Paris furniture. A most unhappy time he had of it, for weeks afterwards. Poor Mrs. Pinkerton was almost heart-broken. The bitterness of her disappointment passed away at last, though she remained very sober. When sufficiently recovered from her affliction, she yielded to her husband's repeated solicitations, and finally consented to accompany him to New York, where a most liberal order was given to a fashionable cabinet-maker.
Rather serious did Mark Pinkerton feel, as on his way back to Baltimore, he mentally summed up the prices of the various articles ordered, and brooded in silence over the heavy aggregate. The mother of Mrs. Pinkerton, who had lived longer, and seen more of the ups and downs of life, did not approve the unfitting extravagance of her daughter, and offered some slight opposition to her will. But, this was entirely disregarded. The pride and ambition of Mrs. Pinkerton had grown into inordinate strength, and there was little hope of their ever being fully satisfied.
It did not escape the observation of Mr. Lee, that his partner's mind was becoming more and more abstracted from his business; nor did he fail to note, that his periods of absence from the store were getting longer and more frequent. He was also aware that Mr. Pinkerton's drafts of money were getting to be heavy beyond any precedent. The fact of his building — a thing that Mr. Lee opposed in the beginning — readily accounted for this. Occasionally a whisper would reach his ears, awakening the suspicion that everything might not be right with his partner. On all this he pondered deeply.
"No business," he would say to himself, "will bear the exhausting drain to which a man like Plnkerton must subject it. His ideas are ever in advance of him. To think of building at a cost of twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars, at this point of business success — is utter folly. He talks of having made large sums outside of trade. Well, perhaps this is so — perhaps it is not. In gambling, everyone must have his run of ill-luck sooner or later — and I regard his stock and other speculations, as nothing more nor less than gambling!"
And so Mr. Lee thought and reasoned. Nor fruitless were his thoughts. Though not a man of very large views, or comprehensive grasp of thought — he had more prudence than his partner, and possessed a degree of shrewd forecast which was now exercised to very good purpose. It was impossible, under the circumstances, for Pinkerton to give that attention to the details and progress of business, that was absolutely required for its successful prosecution. He had too many selfish ends to serve outside of the store and counting room, to leave opportunity for this. And when Mr. Lee proposed to advance the salary of their head clerk, a thorough business man, and give him certain discretionary and more general powers, Pinkerton was ready to acquiesce.
From that moment, Mr. Lee's interest in his partner subsided. He no longer leaned upon him — no longer consulted him — no longer felt that the successful prosecution of their business was dependent upon his intelligence. In their principal clerk, he found a man on whose judgment he could rely with even more confidence than he had ever been able to rely on that of Mr. Pinkerton; and one who possessed none of the doubtful qualities which were so prominent in the other. Gradually, from this time, he gathered the reins into his own hands, and acted with more independence, and a clearer intelligence.
It was impossible for this state of mind and action to exist on the part of Mr. Lee, without his sooner or later coming into unpleasant collision with Pinkerton. The latter had been so long accustomed to have his views regarded as law in the business, that to find them treated as of little importance, was a thing not only to surprise, but to chafe him.
One day a few rather sharp words had passed between the two men, growing out of this independent action on the part of Mr. Lee. Something, during the excitement, dropped from Mr. Lee, which lingered in the mind of Pinkerton, and annoyed him more and more, the longer his thoughts dwelt upon it. On his way home, on leaving the store, he called, as was his custom, at the office of Mr. Allen, in order to have some conference with him in regard to business. The result of this conference was by no means satisfactory. Twenty-four thousand dollars must be raised by them on the next day — or hopeless ruin would be the result. But how were they to raise it? All, and more than all they were really worth, had been locked up in two handsome houses; beyond this property, there was little to show as a basis for the extraordinary line of accommodation paper that was in market, bearing their signatures and endorsement. Why all this had been created, Pinkerton hardly knew. The whole range of operations with his father-in-law had become so involved, that the clue was completely lost.
An hour of earnest scheming on the part of the two men did not give them much light, and they separated in no very enviable frame of mind; Mr. Allen remaining in his office, and Mr. Pinkerton returning to his home, in a state of gloomy depression. Never before had so dark a cloud spread itself over his mind — never before had so heavy a weight rested on his feelings. A mountain seemed to be suddenly thrown across his path — a thick veil drawn before his future. It was in vain that his wife sought to interest him. She had been busy all day in making costly purchases for the adornment of their new home, and she was eloquent in her descriptions of the various beautiful articles which she had selected. But, her words instead of exciting pleasant images — only served to make deeper the depression from which he was suffering.
Thus it was, when, early in the evening, a message came that Mr. Allen had been taken suddenly ill, and desired the immediate attendance of Mr. and Mrs. Pinkerton. The summons was hurriedly obeyed. On reaching the house of Mr. Allen, they found the family in alarm and consternation. One glance sufficed for Pinkerton, as he entered the chamber of his father-in-law. There was no mistaking the sign stamped on that pallid brow. The finger of death had made the impression. As he advanced to the bed, the dying man stretched forward his hands, and grasped him eagerly. But, all in vain he attempted intelligent speech — even while struggling for a last utterance. The death-rattle sounded in his throat, and he sank back lifeless upon the pillow from which he had attempted to raise himself.
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