Ed Nickel's ears heard the astounding question, but Ed Nickel's mind did not grasp it, for Ed Nickel's hand went on mechanically into the case after the designated cigars. It secured the box, it brought it partly out – and then dropped it just inside the sliding door. The hand came out and its fingers twined with those of the other hand.
"What did you say?" asked Mr. Nickel's mouth.
"How much will you take for your business?" repeated J. Rufus.
Mr. Nickel looked slowly around his walls, past the dust-hung wire screen to the dingy back room, under the counter, into the case, over the sparsely filled shelves.
"I don't know," he said, his eyes roving back to those of J. Rufus. "Besides the stock and fixtures, there's the good will, the trade I've worked up, and the call for my Nickelfine and the Double Nickel, my leading ten-cent cigar. I'd have to take an invoice to set a price on this business."
"I know," laughed J. Rufus with a wink, "but you can invoice it with your eyes shut and we can lump the rest of it. Say five hundred for the stock and fixtures and three hundred for the good will, which is crowding it some."
Ed Nickel's cupidity gave a thump. Eight hundred was a good price for his business, especially in this location. He had often thought of moving. In a better location he would do a better business; he was sure of that, like every other unsuccessful merchant; but of course he objected.
"Make it a thousand and I'll listen," he proposed.
J. Rufus looked about the place coldly.
"No," he decided. "I'd be cheating the consolidation."
Mr. Nickel immediately woke up another notch.
"What consolidation?" he wanted to know.
"The one I spoke to you about yesterday," said the prospective buyer, and picking up the coin he had tossed down he tapped with it on the glass.
Thus reminded, the benumbed one brought out the delayed box and Mr. Wallingford lit one of the cigars.
"I'm going to finance a consolidation of all the smaller cigar stores in the city," he then explained. "I expect to buy several for spot cash and put in charge of them managers who know their business. The rest I am going to allow to purchase shares in the consolidation, with the value of their stock and good will, so that altogether we shall have a quarter-of-a-million-dollar corporation. With this enormous buying power I intend to get the lowest spot-cash discount on all goods, manufacture a few good brands, cut rates and control the cigar business of this town. But I'm going to be fair to every man. I'll give you eight hundred dollars for your business, in cold coin."
The day before, had any providentially sent stranger offered Ed Nickel eight hundred dollars in real money for his store, he would have jumped at the chance, and with the purchase price would have opened a better one in some other part of the town. Now it suddenly occurred to him —
"And if I don't sell or come in I get froze out, I suppose," he gloomily opined. "That's the regulation poor man's chance. But how are you going to work this consolidation, anyhow?"
"The same plan upon which all successful organizations are put together," patiently explained the eminent financier whose resplendent carriage was waiting outside. "For instance, five of us organize a holding company. Having incorporated for, say, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, I buy your business for eight hundred dollars in stock of the new corporation, fit it up new till it glitters, and put you in charge of it. A hundred other stores go in on the same proposition, their valuations varying according to their location, their stock, and the volume of business their books can show. You get a salary of just as much as you can prove you're making now, and every three months the business is footed up and a dividend is paid. The difference is just this. The cigars for which you now pay thirty-five dollars a thousand, you will get for twenty-eight and less, and so on down the line. Your profits will be increased nearly a hundred per cent., and all financial worry will be lifted off your shoulders."
Ed Nickel suddenly awoke to the fact that the flabby solitaire player was pressed closely upon one side of the eminent financier, and the apathetic young man upon the other, both drinking in every word, and quivering.
"Come in the back room," invited Mr. Nickel, and on two reeking stools, with tobacco scraps strewn all about them, they sat down to really "get together." Patiently the energetic man of wealth went over the proposition again, point by point, and the cigar maker enumerated these upon his fingers until he got it quite clear in his mind that his business was not to pass out of his hands at all. If it was put in at a valuation of eight hundred dollars, he received a salary equal to his present earnings for taking care of it, and also the net profits on eight hundred dollars worth of stock. It was a great scheme! It would put all the goods he wanted upon his shelves. It would brighten up his place of business and he would no longer have the aggravation of knowing that rich dealers, just because they were rich, could buy cigars a shameful per cent. cheaper than he could. Moreover, there sat Wallingford, a wonderful argument in himself! When he had fully grasped the idea Mr. Nickel was enthusiastic.
"Of course I'll come in!" said he. "Surest thing, you know!"
"Suit yourself," said J. Rufus, with vast indifference. "I have a little agreement that I'll bring around in a couple of days to let you see, and then you may finally decide. By the way, Mr. Nickel, I may need you for one of the original five incorporators, and as a director for the first year."
Mr. Nickel hesitated.
"That'll cost me something, won't it?" he wanted to know.
Mr. Wallingford laughed.
"A little bit," he admitted. "But there are ways to get it back. For instance, as one of the directors I do not suppose there would be any particular harm in selling your business to the consolidation for a thousand in place of eight hundred."
The first stock subscriber to the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation became as knowingly jovial as the genial promoter.
"It listens good to me," he declared, and shook hands.
The big man got up to go, but turned and came back.
"By the way," said he, "I don't know the cigar men in this town, and if you have a couple of friends in the business who would like to help form this incorporation with the same advantages you have, let's go see them."
Mr. Nickel was already throwing off his apron and eye shade, and now he took his coat and hat from their hook.
"I've got two of them, and they ain't too darned smart, either," he stated, showing wise forethought in that last remark; then, putting the flabby man in charge of the store, he went out and rode in that carriage!
CHAPTER XXVII
MR. WALLINGFORD GAMBLES A BIT AND PICKS UP AN UNSOLICITED PARTNER
In the smart carriage Mr. Wallingford took Mr. Nickel and his two friends down to his hotel for lunch to talk over the final steps in the great consolidation. The chief thing the three remembered when they left the hotel was that they had been most liberally treated in the matter of extravagant food and drink, and that the lunch had cost over twenty dollars! Also they recalled that the distinguished-looking head waiter had come over to their table half a dozen times to see that everything was served at the proper minute and in the pink of condition. Nobody but a rich man could command that sort of attention, and they left the table not only willing but thankful to take any business tonic this commercial genius should prescribe. As they passed the desk, the manager called Mr. Wallingford to him, and the great promoter, instantly bidding his friends good-by, promised to see them to-morrow. Then he walked back to the manager.
"Good morning, Senator," said that official, shaking hands. "How are they treating you? Nicely?"
"Very well, indeed," replied Wallingford, "except I'd like to have corner rooms if I could get them."
"I know; you spoke of that last week. I've been trying to secure them for you, but those apartments are always dated so far ahead. I think the corner suite on the second floor will be vacant in a day or so, though, and I'll let you know. By the way, Mr. Wallingford" – this in the most pleasantly confidential tone imaginable – "I'm afraid I'll have to draw on you. The proprietor is a little strict about his rules, and you have been here two weeks to-day."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Wallingford, very much surprised. "I'll have to look after that," and he reached out his hand with courteous alacrity for the bill which the manager was handing to him. Without the quiver of an eye-lash he glanced over the items and stuck the bill in his pocket. "I'm glad you spoke of it. I'm rather careless about such matters," and he walked away in perfect nonchalance.
The telegraph desk mocked him. There was not a soul he knew to whom he could wire with a certainty of getting money, and if he pretended to wire he must certainly produce quick results. Instead of making that error he walked out upon the street briskly. Half way to Ed Nickel's cigar store he paused. Mr. Nickel was not yet ripe, and it would be folly to waste his chances. Thinking most deeply indeed, he strolled into a cigar store of far better appearance than any he had yet visited. The place was a-quiver with life; there was much glitter of beveled plate mirrors; there were expensive light fixtures; the shelves were crowded with rows upon rows of cigar boxes, and at a most ornate case stood three rather strikingly dressed men, playing "ping pong" on a mahogany edged board that was covered with green baize. He had seen these boards before, but they were all set away behind counters, for this game – of dice, not of balls and paddles – was strictly taboo. A moral wave had swept over the town and had made dice shaking for cigars, as well as every other form of gambling, next door to a hanging offense. A heavy-set young fellow, with a red face and a red tie and red stripes in the thread of his broad-checked clothing, was at the end of the counter, half behind it, scoring the game. He was evidently the proprietor, though he had his hat on, and he asked Wallingford what he wanted.
"I don't know your brands, so I'll leave it to you," said the large man, with a pleasant smile. "I want a nice three for a half, rather heavy, but not too tightly rolled."
The proprietor gave his customer a shrewd "sizing-up," as he promptly set out three boxes of different brands. Evidently the general appearance of Wallingford satisfied him that the man asked for this grade of cigars because he liked them and could afford them, for after the selection had been made the salesman observed that it was quite pleasant weather, looking Wallingford squarely in the eyes and smiling in sheer goodfellowship with all the world. He then renewed his attention to the "ping pong" game, and Wallingford, aimless for the time and occupied with that tremendous puzzle of the hotel bill, stood by and watched. A policeman came through, but no one paid any attention.
"Hello, Joe!" he said affably to the man in charge, and passed on into the back room. As the door of this was opened the sharp click of ivory chips came through, and Wallingford heard one strident voice say, "I'll raise you ten." A brisk and gimlet-eyed young man came out a moment later with a fifty-dollar bill, for which he got change.
"How you making it, Tommy?" he asked perfunctorily of one of the men who were shaking dice.
"Rotten!" said the dice shaker. "I've won ten two-for-a-quarter cigars that have cost me four dollars."
"I'd blow the game," advised the young man with a bantering laugh. "Shoot somebody for the four and quit double or even."
"I'll do it," said the man addressed as Tommy. "Fade me, Joe?"
"Any amount, old man," said the proprietor nonchalantly, and taking four dollars from the cash register he left the drawer open. "How do you want to be skinned?"
"First-flop poker dice," said Tommy, picking up the leather box which Joe had slammed upon the board, and rattling the five dice in it.
One turn apiece and the proprietor picked up the money. Tommy silently threw a five on the case.
"You other fellows want in on this?" he asked.
J. Rufus suddenly felt that mysterious thing called a "hunch" prickling in his wrist.
"How about letting a stranger in?" he observed, considering himself far enough west for this forwardness.
With a smile he made ready for that lightning glance of judgment which he knew would be leveled at him from three pairs of eyes at least.
"I'd rather anybody would have my money than Joe," said the man next to him, after that brief but pleased inspection and after an almost imperceptible nod from the proprietor. "Joe's a robber and we none of us like him."
"I don't think I like him very well myself," laughed Wallingford, throwing down his money, and, having accepted him, they judged him again from this new angle. He was a most likeable man, this big fellow, and an open-handed sport. Anybody could see that. It would make no difference to him whether he won or lost. All he wanted was to be in on the game. Rich as the mint, no doubt.
In reality J. Rufus had but three five dollar bills in his pocket, but desperate needs require desperate remedies, and, in view of those vast needs, if he lost he would be but little worse off than he was now. Twice he staked his last five, and then luck steadily alternated between him and the proprietor. One at a time the three others dropped out, and the two winners were left confronting each other.
"Well, old man," said the proprietor to Wallingford, shaking the box up and down while he talked, and smiling his challenge, "we split 'em about even. Shall we quit satisfied, or shoot it off to see who owns the best rabbit's foot?"
Wallingford glanced down at the crumpled pile of greenbacks in front of him and made a hasty computation. He was sure that he had fully two hundred dollars, but he could not in decency quit now.
"I never saw a finer afternoon for a murder in my life," he declared.
"Shoot you fifty," said Joe.
In for it, Wallingford covered the bet, and by this time a throng of interested spectators was at his elbows. It was Wallingford's first throw, and four aces tumbled up. His opponent followed him with fours, but they were four sixes.
"Cover the hundred and be a real sport," advised Wallingford with a grin.
Joe counted the money in front of him. There was enough to cover the bet, with a ten-dollar bill left over. He threw down the pile.
"I'll press it ten," said he, and Wallingford promptly added a ten from his own stack.
Four aces again. Again the man who was called Joe threw four sixes.
"I'll just leave that bundle of lettuce once more," observed J. Rufus. "I've a hunch that you'll be sorry you saw me."
"I'm sorry now," admitted the other, "but I'll skin the money drawer rather than have you go away dissatisfied," and from the cash register he took two hundred and twenty dollars. "Now shoot your head off," he advised.
Wallingford, in perfect confidence, rattled the box high in the air and tossed the five little ivory cubes upon the baize; and a dash of cold water fell on his confidence. A single, small, lonely, ashamed-looking pair of deuces confronted him.
"Here's where we get it all-l-l-l-l back again," laughed Joe in much joy. "Somebody call the porter to throw this stranger out when I get through," and with a crash he dumped the box upside down, lifting it with a sweep. The dice rattled about the board, and when they had all settled down he leaned over to count them. There was a moment of silence and then everybody laughed. There was not even a pair. Wallingford's miserable two deuces had won a two-hundred-and-forty-dollar pot. Gently he leaned over.
"How much of this spinach would you like to cover now?" he asked in soothing tones.
"Wait till I ask the safe," replied his antagonist, but at that moment the telephone bell just behind him rang and he turned to answer it. With almost the first words that he heard he looked at his watch and swore, and when he had hung up the receiver he turned to Wallingford briskly.
"Afraid I'll have to let you carry that bundle of kale for a while," he grudgingly admitted, "for I have to hurry over to the court or lose more than there is in sight right here. But for heaven's sake, man, remember the number and bring that back to me. I want it."
"Thanks," said J. Rufus. "If there's any left after I get through with it I'll bring it back," and he walked out, the admired of all beholders.
He headed straight for a bank, where he exchanged his crumpled money into nice, crisp, fifty-dollar bills, and then with profound satisfaction he strolled into his hotel and threw two hundred dollars in front of the manager. The circumstance, however, was worth more than money to him. It meant a renewal of his confidence. The world was once more his oyster.
That evening, just as he had finished a late dinner, a boy brought a card to him in the dining room; "Mr. Joseph O. Meers."
"Meers!" read Wallingford to his wife. "That isn't one of the men I had to lunch, and besides, none of that bunch would have an engraved card. Where is he?" he asked the boy.
"Out in the lobby, sir."
Wallingford arose and went with the boy. Sitting in one of the big chairs was the "Joe" from whom he had won the money that afternoon, and the man began to laugh as soon as he saw J. Rufus.
"So you're Wallingford!" he said, extending his hand. "No wonder I wanted to hunt you up."
"Yes?" laughed Wallingford, entirely at ease. "I had been expecting either you or a warrant."
"You can square that with a bottle of wine," offered the caller, and together they trailed in to the bar, where, in a snug little corner, they sat down. "What I came to see you about," began Meers, while they waited for the wine to be made cold, "is this cigar dealers' association that I hear you're doping up."
"Who told you?" asked Wallingford.
Mr. Meers winked.
"Never mind about that," he said. "I get it before the newspapers, and if there's a good game going count little Joseph in."
Wallingford studied this over a bit before answering. That afternoon he had decided not to invite Mr. Meers into the combination at all. He had not seemed likely material.
"I want to give you a little tip," added Mr. Meers, observing this hesitation. "No matter what the game is you need me. If I see my bit in it it goes through, but if I don't I'll bet you lose."
"The thing isn't a game at all," Wallingford soberly insisted. "It is a much needed commercial development that lets the cigar store be a real business in place of a peanut stand. What I'm going to do is to consolidate all the small shops in the city, for the purpose of buying at large-lot prices and taking cash discounts."
"That's a good play, too," agreed Meers; "but how about the details of it? How do you organize?"
"Make it a stock company," explained Wallingford, expanding largely; "incorporate as the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation and issue each man stock to the value of his present business; leave each man in charge of his own shop and pay him a salary equal to his present proved clear earnings; split up the surplus profits every three months and declare dividends."
"That's the outside," commented Mr. Meers, nodding his head wisely; "but what's the inside? Show me. Understand, Mr. Wallingford, except for a little friendly gamble like we had this afternoon, I only run a game from behind the table. I do the dealing. I'm not what they call rich back in the effete East, but I'm getting along pretty well on one proposition: I always bet they don't!"
"It's a good healthy bet," admitted Wallingford; "but you want to copper it on this deal. This is a straight, legitimate proposition."
"Sure; sure," assented the other soothingly. "But where do you get in?"
"Well, I'm going to finance it. I'm going to take up some of the stock and get my quarterly dividends. I'll probably buy a few stores and put them in, and I hope to be made manager at a pretty good salary."
"I see but I don't," insisted the seeker after intimate knowledge. "That all sounds good, but it don't look fancy enough for a man that's down on the register of this hotel for suite D. If you come in to get my store in the consolidation – "
"Which I don't know whether I'll do or not," interrupted Wallingford.
"Wait and you will, though," retorted the other. "If you come into my place of business to get my store into the consolidation, I say, how do you close the deal? I suppose I sign an agreement of some sort, don't I?"
"Well, naturally, to have a safe understanding you'd have to," admitted the promoter.
"Let me see the agreement."
J. Rufus drew a long breath and chuckled.
"You're a regular insister, ain't you?" he said as he drew a carbon copy of the agreement from his pocket.
Mr. Meers read the paper over twice. The wine was brought to their table and served, but he paid no attention to the filled glass at his elbow. He was reading a certain portion of that agreement for the third and fourth time, but at last he laid it down on the chair beside him and solemnly tilted his hat to Mr. Wallingford.
"You're an honor to your family," he announced. "I didn't suppose there were any more games left, but you've sprung a new one and it's a peach!"
Wallingford strove to look magnificently unaware of what he meant, but the attempt was a failure.
"The scheme is so smooth," went on Mr. Meers with a heartfelt appreciation, "that it strained my eyesight to find the little joker; but now I can tell you all about it. It's in the transfer of the stock, and here's what you do. The consolidation buys my place for, say, five thousand dollars, and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it. That's what this paper seems to say, but that's not what happens. It's you that buys my place for five thousand dollars and gives me five thousand dollars' worth of stock in the consolidation for it, and you, being then the temporary owner through a fake trusteeship, turn around and sell my business to the consolidation, the management of which is in your flipper through a board of dummy directors, for ten thousand dollars; and you have our iron-clad contract to let you do this, though it don't say so! When you get through you have consolidated a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of business into a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar stock company, and you have a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of stock which didn't cost you a cent! Say! Have this wine on me. I insist! I want to buy you something!"
Slowly Mr. Wallingford's shoulders began to heave and his face to turn red, and presently he broke into a series of chuckles that expanded to a guffaw.
"I don't see how I ever won that five hundred from you this afternoon," he observed, and shook again.
"The pleasure is all mine," said the loser politely. "Now I'm sorry it wasn't a thousand. You're worth the money and I'm glad I came to see you. Count me in on the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation."
"All right, sign the paper," said Wallingford with another chuckle.
"Watch me sign it not," said Meers. "I'm too patriotic. I'm so patriotic that I hate to see all this good money go to a stranger, so I'm going to take sixty-two and one half thousand dollars' worth of that free stock myself. I declare myself in. You hear me?"
By the time Mr. Meers was through talking Wallingford was delighted so far as surface went, though he was already doing some intense figuring.
"I don't know but that it's a good thing you came to see me," he admitted. "However, I hope it don't strike you that I intend to give you half a nice ripe peach without a good reason for it. What do I get for letting you in?"
"That's a fair question. I guess you noticed that if we want to cut a melon or open a keg of nails over in my place we don't go down in the cellar?"
"I certainly did," admitted the big man with a grin.
"Well, that's it. I'm permanent alderman from the fifth ward, and every time they hold an election they come and ask me whether I want it served with mushrooms or tomato sauce. The job has belonged to me ever since I was old enough to lie about my age. What I say goes in the privilege line, and I guess a mere child could figure out what that privilege would be worth to the Retail Cigar Dealers' Consolidation; the dice box privilege; the back room privilege with a nice little poker game going on twenty-four hours a day; faro if I want it. Besides, I'm coming in just because. Why, I'm the man that stopped the ping pong game in this town so I could have a monopoly of it!"
"How soon can you be ready to incorporate?" asked Wallingford, satisfied to all external appearances; for this man could stop him. "To-morrow?"
"To-night, if you say so."
Wallingford laughed.
"It won't spoil over night," he said; "but there's just one thing I want to know. Is there anybody else to cut in on this?"
In reply, Mr. Meers slowly drew down the under lid of his right eye to show that there was no green in it, and when they parted an hour or so later it was with mutual, even hilarious expressions of good will. Immediately thereafter, however, Wallingford retired within himself and spent long, long hours in thought.