Solution Manual for Concepts of Database Management, 8th Edition
Solution Manual for Concepts of Database Management, 8th Edition
Solution Manual for Concepts of Database Management, 8th Edition
Solution Manual for Concepts of Database Management, 8th Edition
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9. his wife and himself, to New York to spend the winter, and another
dedicated his newly-found money and his winter-enforced leisure to the
reprehensible work of drinking himself to death.
“An’ it’s all on account of a gal,” farmer Hayn would remark to his wife
whenever he heard of any new movement that could be traced to the ease of
the local money market. “If our Phil hadn’t got that Tramlay gal on the
brain last summer, he wouldn’t have gone to New York to visit; then I
wouldn’t have gone to look for him, and the Improvement Company
wouldn’t have been got up, an’ Phil wouldn’t have hatched the brilliant idee
of buyin’—what did he call ’em?—oh, yes; options—buyin’ options on the
rest of the ridge, an’ there would have been no refreshin’ shower of
greenbacks fallin’ like the rain from heaven on the just an’ unjust alike. It
reminds me of the muss that folks got into in the old country over that
woman Helen, whose last name I never could find out. You remember it?
—’twas in the book that young minister we had on trial, an’ didn’t exactly
like, left at our house. It’s just another such case, only a good deal more
proper, this not bein’ a heathen land. All on account of a gal!”
“If it is,” Mrs. Hayn replied on one occasion, as she took her hands from
the dough she was kneading, “an’ it certainly looks as if it was, don’t you
think it might be only fair to allude to her more respectful? I don’t like to
hear a young woman that our Phil’s likely to marry spoke of as just ‘that
Tramlay gal.’ ”
“S’pose, then, I mention her as your daughter-in-law? But ain’t it odd
that all the changes that’s come to pass in the last month or two wouldn’t
have happened at all if it hadn’t been for Phil’s bein’ smitten by that gal? As
the Scripture says, ‘Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.’ For
‘fire’ read ‘spark,’ or sparkin’, an’ the text——”
“Reuben!” exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, “don’t take liberties with the Word.”
“It ain’t no liberty,” said the old man. “Like enough it’ll read ‘spark’ in
the Revised Edition.”
“Then wait till it does, or until you’re one of the revisers,” said the wife.
“All right; mebbe it would be as well,” the husband admitted.
“Meanwhile, I don’t mind turnin’ it off an’ comparin’ it with another text:
‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh
or whither it goeth.’ The startin’ up of Haynton an’ of Phil’s attachment is a
good deal like——”
10. “I don’t know that that’s exactly reverent, either,” said Mrs. Hayn,
“considerin’ what follers in the Book. An’ what’s goin’ on in the
neighborhood don’t interest me as much as what’s goin’ on in my own
family. I’d like to know when things is comin’ to a head. Phil ain’t married,
nor even engaged, that we know of; there ain’t no lots bein’ sold by the
company, or if there are we don’t hear about it.”
“An’ there’s never any bread bein’ baked while you’re kneadin’ the
dough, old lady. You remember the passage, ‘first the blade, then the ear,
then the full corn in the ear’? Mustn’t look for fruit in blossomin’-time:
even Jesus didn’t find that when he looked for it on a fig-tree ahead of time,
you know.”
“ ‘Pears to me you run to Scripture more than usual this mornin’,” said
Mrs. Hayn, after putting her pans of dough into the oven. “What’s started
you?”
“Oh, only a little kind of awakenin’, I s’pose,” said the old man. “I can’t
keep my mind off of what’s goin’ on right under my eyes, an’ it’s so unlike
what anybody would have expected that I can’t help goin’ behind the
returns, as they used to say in politics. An’ when I do that there’s only one
way of seein’ ’em, an’ I’m glad I’ve got the eyes to see ’em in that light.”
“So am I,” said Mrs. Hayn, gently but successfully putting a floury
impression of four fingers and a thumb on her husband’s head. “I s’pose it’s
’cause I’m so tired of waitin’ that I don’t look at things just as you do.
’Pears to me there’s nothin’ that comes up, an’ that our hearts get set on, but
what we’ve got to wait for. It gets to be awful tiresome, after you’ve been at
it thirty or forty years. I think Phil might hurry up matters a little.”
“Mebbe ’tisn’t Phil’s fault,” suggested the farmer.
“Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, with a flash behind her glasses, “I don’t see why
any gal should keep that boy a-waitin’, if that’s what you mean.”
“Don’t, eh?” drawled the old man, with a queer smile and a quizzical
look. “Well, I s’pose he is a good deal more takin’ than his father was.”
“No such thing,” said the old lady.
“Much obliged: I’m a good deal too polite to contradict,—when you’re
so much in earnest, you know,” the old man replied. “But if it’s so, what’s
the reason that you kept him waitin’?”
11. “Why, I—it was—you see, I—’twas—the way of it was—sho!” And
Mrs. Hayn suddenly noticed that a potted geranium in the kitchen window
needed a dead leaf removed from its base.
“Yes,” said her husband, following her with his eyes. “An’ I suppose
that’s just about what Phil’s gal would say, if any one was to ask her. But
the longer you waited the surer I was of you, wasn’t I?”
“Oh, don’t ask questions when you know the answer as well as I do,”
said the old lady. “I want to see things come to a head; that’s all.”
“They’ll come; they’ll come,” said the old man. “It’s tryin’ to wait, I
know, seein’ I’m doin’ some of the waitin’ myself; but ‘the tryin’ of your
faith worketh patience,’ an’ ‘let patience have her perfect work,’ you
remember.”
“More Scripture!” sighed the wife. “You’re gettin’ through a powerful
sight of New Testament this mornin’, Reuben, an’ I s’pose I deserve it,
seein’ the way I feel like fightin’ it. But s’pose this company speculation
don’t come to anythin’? then Phil’ll be a good deal wuss off than he is now,
won’t he? You remember the awful trouble Deacon Trewk got into by bein’
the head of that new-fangled stump-and-stone-puller company, that didn’t
pull any to speak of. Everybody came down on him, an’ called him all sorts
of names, an’ said he’d lied to ’em, an’ they would go to the poor-house
because of the money they’d put in it on his advice, an’——”
“Phil won’t have any such trouble,” said the farmer, “for nobody took
stock on his advice. Tramlay got up the company, before we knew anythin’
about it, an’ all the puffin’ of the land was done by him. Besides, there’s
nobody in it that’ll suffer much, even if things come to the wust. Except one
or two dummies,—clerks of Tramlay’s,—who were let in for a share or two,
just to make up a Board of Directors to the legal size, what shares ain’t held
by Phil and Tramlay an’ that feller Marge belongs to a gal.”
“What? Lucia?”
“No, no,—another gal: mebbe I ought to call her a woman, seein’ she’s
putty well along, although mighty handsome an’ smart. Her name’s Dinon,
an’ Tramlay joked Phil about her once or twice, makin’ out she was struck
by him, but of course that’s all nonsense. She’s rich, an’ got money to invest
every once in a while, an’ Tramlay put her up to this little operation.”
“You’re sure she ain’t interested in Phil?” asked Mrs. Hayn. “I’ve seen
no end of trouble made between young folks by gals that’s old enough to
12. know their own minds an’ smart enough to use ’em.”
“For goodness’ sake, Lou Ann!” exclaimed the old farmer. “To hear you
talk, anybody would s’pose that in the big city of New York, where over a
million people live and a million more come in from diff’rent places every
week, there wasn’t any young man for folks to get interested in but our Phil.
Reelly, old lady, I’m beginnin’ to be troubled about you; that sort of feelin’
that’s croppin’ out all the time in you makes me afeard that you’ve got a
kind o’ pride that’s got to have a fall,—a pride in our son, settin’ him above
all other mortal bein’s, so far as anythin’s concerned that can make a young
man interestin’.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, after apparently thinking the matter over, “if it’s
so I reckon it’ll have to stay so. I don’t b’lieve there’s any hope of
forgiveness for anythin’ if heaven’s goin’ to hold an old woman to account
for seein’ all the good there is in her first-born. I hain’t been down to York
myself, but some of York’s young sprigs have been down here, one time an’
another, an’ if they’re fair samples of the hull lot, I should think a sight of
our Phil would be to all the city gals like the shadder of a great rock in a
weary land.”
“Who’s a-droppin’ into Scripture now?” asked the old farmer, moving to
where he could look his wife full in the face.
“Scripture ain’t a bit too strong to use freely about our Phil,—my Phil,”
said the old woman, pushing her spectacles to the top of her head and
beginning to walk the kitchen floor. “All the hopin’, an’ fearin’, an’ waitin’,
an’ nursin’, an’ teachin’, an’ thinkin’, an’ prayin’, that that boy has cost
comes hurryin’ into my mind when I think about him. If there’s anythin’ he
ought to be an’ isn’t, I don’t see what it is, an’ I can’t see where his mother’s
to blame for it. Whatever good there is in me I’ve tried to put into him, an’
whatever I was lackin’ in I’ve tried to get for him elsewhere. You’ve been to
him ev’rythin’ a father should, an’ he never could have got along without
you. You’ve been lots to him that I never could be, he bein’ a boy, an’ I
never cease thankin’ heaven for it; but whenever my mind gets on a strain
about him I kind o’ get us mixed up, an’ feel as if ’twas me instead of him
that was takin’ whatever happened, an’ the longer it lasts the less I can think
of him any other way. There!”
The old farmer rose to his feet while this speech was under way; then he
removed his hat, which he seldom did after coming into the house, unless
13. reminded. When his wife concluded, he took both her hands and dropped
upon his knees; he had often done it before,—years before, when overcome
by her young beauty,—but never before had he done it with so much of
reverence.
14. CHAPTER XXII.
SEVERAL GREEN-EYED MONSTERS.
As the season hurried toward the Christmas holidays, there came to
Philip Hayn the impression that he was being seen so much in public with
Lucia, never against that young lady’s inclination, that perhaps some people
were believing him engaged to her, or sure to be. This impression became
more distinct when some of his new business-acquaintances rallied or
complimented him, and when he occasionally declined an invitation, given
viva voce, by explaining that he had promised to escort Miss Tramlay
somewhere that evening. If this explanation were made to a lady, as was
usually the case, a knowing smile, or at least a significant look, was almost
sure to follow: it began to seem to Phil that the faces of the young women
of New York said a great deal more than their tongues, and said it in a way
that could not be answered, which was quite annoying. If he was to seem
engaged, he would prefer that appearances might not be deceitful. Again
and again he was on the point of asking the question which he little doubted
would be favorably answered, but he always restrained himself by the
reminder that he was only a clerk on a salary that could not support a wife,
bred like Lucia, in New York, and that villa plots at Haynton Bay were not
selling as rapidly as they should if he were to become well-to-do; indeed,
they scarcely were selling at all. Who could be expected to become
interested in building-sites on the sea-shore when even in the sheltered
streets of the city the wind was piercing the thickest overcoats? And who
could propose to a girl while another man, even were he that stick Marge,
was offering her numerous attentions, all of which she accepted?—
confound Marge and his money!
That Marge also was jealous was inevitable. Highly as he valued
himself, he knew womankind well enough to imagine that a handsome
young fellow just past his majority might be more gratifying to the eye, at
least, than a man who had reached—well, who had not mentioned his age
since he passed his thirty-fifth birthday. He had in his favor all the prestige
of a good record in society, of large acquaintance and aristocratic
15. extraction, but he could not blind himself to the fact that the young women
who were most estimable did not greet him as effusively and confidentially
as they did Phil. His hair was provokingly thin on the top of his head, and
farther back there was a tell-tale spot that resembled a tonsure; he could not
quickly enter, like Phil, into the spirit of some silly, innocent frolic, and
although he insisted that his horses were as good as Phil’s, he could not
bring himself to extending an invitation for a morning dash through the
Park, as Phil did once or twice a week. So he frequently said to himself,
Confound the country habit of early rising, which his rival had evidently
mastered.
As for Lucia, except for the few happy hours she spent with Phil, and the
rather more numerous hours devoted to day-dreams regarding her youthful
swain, she was really miserable in her uncertain condition. Other girls were
getting engaged, on shorter acquaintance, and ten times as many girls were
tormenting her with questions as to which of the two was to be the happy
man. She devoutly wished that Phil would speak quickly, and finally, after a
long and serious consultation with Margie, she determined to adopt toward
Phil the tactics which only two or three months before she had tried on
Marge: she would encourage his rival. With Marge it had had the
unexpected effect of making her yield her heart to Phil; on the other hand, it
had perceptibly quickened Marge’s interest in her: would not a reversal of
the factors have a corresponding result?
She had but one fear, but that was growing intense. Agnes Dinon
continued to be fond of Phil; there was no other man to whom she ever saw
Agnes appear so cheerful and unconstrained. Could it be that the heiress
was playing a deep game for the prize that to Lucia seemed the only one in
view? She had seen wonderful successes made by girls as old as Agnes,
when they had any money as a reserve force, and she trembled as she
thought of the possibilities. Agnes was old,—dreadfully old,—it seemed to
Lucia, but she was undeniably handsome, her manners were charming, and
she was smart beyond compare. She had declared that her interest in Phil
was only in his position as Lucia’s admirer; but—people did not always tell
the truth when they were in love. Lucia herself had told a number of lies—
the very whitest of white lies—about her own regard for Phil: suppose
Agnes were doing likewise? If she were—— Lucia’s little finger-nails made
deep prints on the palms of her hands as she thought of it.
16. She told herself, in her calmer moments, that such a thought was
unworthy of her and insulting to Agnes, who really had been friendly and
even affectionate to her. In wakeful hours at night, however, or in some idle
hours during the day, she fell into jealousy, and each successive tumble
made her thraldom the more hopeless. She tried to escape by rallying Phil
about Agnes, but the young man, supposing her to be merely playful in her
teasing, did his best to continue the joke, and was utterly blind to the
results.
At last there came an explosion. At a party which was to Lucia
unspeakably stupid, there being no dancing, Miss Dinon monopolized Phil
for a full hour,—a thousand hours, it seemed to Lucia,—and they sat on a
sofa, too, that was far retired, in an end of a room which once had been a
conservatory. Lucia watched for an opportunity to demand an explanation:
it seemed it never would come, but finally an old lady who was the head
and front of a small local missionary effort in the South called the young
man aside. In an instant Lucia seated herself beside Agnes Dinon, saying, as
she gave her fan a vicious twitch,—
“You seem to find Mr. Hayn very entertaining?”
“Indeed I do,” said Miss Dinon, “I haven’t spent so pleasant an hour this
season, until this evening.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lucia, and the unoffending fan flew into two pieces.
“My dear girl!” exclaimed Agnes, picking up one of the fragments. “It’s
really wicked to be so careless.”
“Thank you,” said Lucia, with a grand air—for so small a woman. “I
thought it was about time for an apology.”
Miss Dinon looked sidewise in amazement.
“The subject of conversation must have been delightful,” Lucia
continued.
“Indeed it was,” said Agnes.
Lucia looked up quickly. Fortunately for Miss Dinon, the artificial light
about them was dim.
“You told me once,” said Lucia, collecting her strength for a grand
effort, “that——”
“Yes?”
“That—that——”
17. “You dear little thing,” said Agnes, suddenly putting her arm about Lucia
and pressing her closely as a mother might seize a baby, “what we were
talking of was you. Can’t you understand, now, why I enjoyed it so much?”
There was a tremor and a convulsive movement within the older
woman’s arm, and Lucia seemed to be crying.
“Darling little girl,” murmured Agnes, kissing the top of Lucia’s head; “I
ought to be killed for teasing you, even for a moment, but how could you be
jealous of me? Your lover has been a great deal more appreciative: he has
done me the honor to make me his confidante, and again I say it was
delightful.”
“I’m awfully mean,” sobbed Lucia.
“Stop crying—at once,” whispered Agnes. “How will your eyes look?
Oh, Lu, what a lucky girl you are!”
“For crying?” said Lucia, after a little choke.
“For having such a man to adore you. Why, he thinks no such woman
ever walked the earth before. He worships the floor you tread, the air you
breathe, the rustle of your dress, the bend of your little finger, the——”
The list of adorable qualities might have been prolonged had not a little
arm suddenly encircled Miss Dinon’s waist so tightly that further utterance
was suspended. Then Lucia murmured,—
“The silly fellow! I’m not half good enough for him.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Indeed I do; I do, really.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say so,” said the older girl, “for, honestly, Lu,
Mr. Hayn has so much head and heart that he deserves the best woman
alive.”
“It’s such a comfort to be told so!” murmured the younger girl.
“One would suppose you had doubted it, and needed to be assured,” said
Agnes, with a quizzical smile.
“Oh, no! ’twasn’t that,” said Lucia, hurriedly. “How could you think of
such a thing? But—— Oh, Agnes, you can’t understand, not having been in
love yourself.”
Miss Dinon looked grave for an instant, but was quickly herself again,
and replied, with a laugh, and a pinch bestowed upon the tip of Lucia’s little
18. ear,—
“True; true. What depths of ignorance we poor old maids are obliged to
grope in!”
“Now, Agnes!” pleaded Lucia. “You know I didn’t mean to be offensive.
All I meant was that you—that I—— Oh, I think he’s all goodness and
sense and brightness and everything that’s nice, but—and so, I mean, I like
to hear about it from everybody. I want to hear him talked of all the while;
and you won’t think me silly for it, will you? Because he really deserves it.
I don’t believe there’s his equal on the face of the earth!”
“I’ve heard other girls talk that way about their lovers,” said Agnes, “and
I’ve been obliged to hope their eyes might never be opened; but about the
young man who is so fond of you I don’t differ with you in the least. He
ought to marry the very best woman alive.”
“Don’t say that, or I shall become jealous again. He ought to find some
one like you; while I’m nothing in the world but a well-meaning little
goose.”
“The daughter of your parents can’t be anything so dreadful, even if she
tries; and all young girls seem to try, you know. But you really aren’t going
to be satisfied to marry Philip Hayn and be nothing but a plaything and a
pretty little tease to him, are you? It’s so easy to stop at that; so many girls
whom I know have ceased to grow or improve in any way after marriage.
They’ve been so anxious to be cunning little things that they’ve never
become even women. It makes one almost able to forgive the ancients for
polygamy, to see——”
“Agnes Dinon! How can you be so dreadful?”
“To see wives go on year after year, persisting in being as childish as
before they were married, while their husbands are acquiring better sense
and taste every year.”
Lucia was sober and silent for a moment; then she said,—
“Do you know, Agnes,—I wouldn’t dare to say it to any other girl,—do
you know there are times when I’m positively afraid of Phil? He does know
so much. I find him delightful company,—stop smiling in that astonished
way, you dear old hypocrite!—I mean I find him delightful company even
when he’s talking to me about things I never was much interested in. And
what else is there for him to talk about? He’s never proposed, you know,
and, though I can’t help seeing he is very fond of me, he doesn’t even talk
19. about love. But it is when he and papa get together and talk about what is
going on in the world that I get frightened; for he does know so much. It
isn’t only I that think so, you know: papa himself says so: he says he finds it
pays better to chat with Phil than to read the newspapers. Now, you know,
the idea of marrying a—a sort of condensed newspaper would be just too
dreadful.”
“Husbands who love their wives are not likely to be condensed
newspapers,—not while they are at home: but do train yourself to be able to
talk to your husband of something besides the petty affairs of all of your
mutual acquaintances. I have met some persons of the masculine persuasion
who were so redolent of the affairs of the day as to be dreadful bores: if
they wearied me in half an hour, what must their poor wives endure? But
don’t imagine that men are the only sinners in this respect. There isn’t in
existence a more detestable, unendurable, condensed newspaper—thank
you for the expression—than the young wife who in calling and receiving
calls absorbs all the small gossip and scandal of a large circle, and unloads
it at night upon a husband who is too courteous to protest and too loyal, or
perhaps merely too weary, to run away. I don’t wonder that a great many
married men frequently spend evenings at the clubs: even the Southern
slaves used to have two half-holidays a week, besides Sunday.”
“Agnes Dinon! To hear you talk, one would suppose you were going to
cut off your hair and write dreadful novels under a mannish name.”
“On the contrary, I’m very proud of my long hair and of everything else
womanly, especially in sweet girls who are in love. As for writing novels,
I’m afraid, from the way I’ve been going on for the past few moments, that
sermonizing, or perhaps lecturing, would be more in the line of my gifts.
And the company are going down to the dining-room: there’s a march
playing, and I see Phil struggling toward you. You’re a dear little thing to
listen to me so patiently, but you’ll be dearer yet if you’ll remember all I’ve
said. You’re going to have a noble husband; do prepare yourself to be his
companion and equal, so he may never tire of you. Hosts of husbands weary
of wives who are nothing but sweet. Even girls can’t exist on candy alone,
you know.”
20. CHAPTER XXIII.
E. & W.
When iron looked up, as recorded elsewhere in this narrative, there was
at the same time much looking up done or attempted by various railroad-
companies. To some of them the improved prospects of iron were due;
others were merely hopeful and venturesome; but that portion of the general
public which regards a railroad only as a basis for the issue of stock in
which men can speculate did not distinguish between the two.
Like iron and railroads, stocks also began to look up, and Mr. Marge
devoted himself more closely than ever to the quotations which followed
each other moment by moment on the tape of the stock-ticker. It seemed
never safe for him to be out of hearing of the instrument, for figures
changed so suddenly and unexpectedly; shares in some solid old roads
about which everybody knew everything remained at their old figures,
while some concerns that had only just been introduced in Wall Street, and
were as problematic as new acquaintances in general, figured largely in the
daily reports of Stock Exchange transactions.
Mr. Marge remembered previous occasions of similar character: during
the first of them he had been a “lamb,” and was sheared so closely and
rudely that he afterward took great interest in the shearing process, perhaps
to improve and reform it. He was not at all misled by the operations on the
street at the period with which this story concerns itself; he knew that some
of the new securities were selling for more than they were worth, that the
prices of others, and the great volume of transactions in them, were made
wholly by brokers whose business it was to keep them before the people.
Others, which seemed promising, could fulfil their hopes only on certain
contingencies.
Yet Marge, cool and prudent though he was, took no interest whatever in
“securities” that deserved their name; he devoted all his attention to such
stocks as fluctuated wildly,—stocks about which conflicting rumors, both
good and bad, came day by day, sometimes hour by hour. He did not
hesitate to inform himself that he was simply a gambler, at the only
21. gentlemanly game which the law did not make disreputable, and that the
place for his wits and money was among the stocks which most indulged in
“quick turns” and to which the outside public—the great flock of lambs—
would be most attracted.
After a careful survey of the market, and several chats, apparently by
chance, with alleged authorities of the street, he determined to confine his
operations to the stock of “The Eastern and Western Consolidated Railway
Company,” better known on the street and the stock-tickers’ tapes as “E. &
W.” This stock had every feature that could make any alleged security
attractive to operators, for there was a great deal of it, the company was
formed by the consolidation, under the guise of leasing, of the property of
several other companies, it was steadily picking up small feeders and
incorporating them with the main line, it held some land-grants of possible
value, and, lastly, some of the managers were so brilliant, daring, and
unscrupulous that startling changes in the quotations might occur at any
time at very short notice. Could a gambler ask for a more promising game?
E. & W. soon began to justify Marge in his choice. For the first few days
after he ventured into it the stock crept up by fractions and points so that by
selling out and promptly re-purchasing Marge was able to double his
investment, “on a margin,” from his profits alone. A temporary break
frightened him a little, but on a rumor that the company was obtaining a
lease of an important connecting link he borrowed enough money to buy
more instead of selling, and as—for a wonder—the rumor proved true, he
“realized” enough to take a couple of hundred shares more. Success began
to manifest itself in his countenance and his manner, and to his great
satisfaction he once heard his name coupled with that of one of the
prominent operators in the stock.
His success had also the effect of making his plans more expansive and
aspiring. Should E. & W. go on as it was going, he must within half a year
become quite well off,—almost rich, in fact. Such being the case, might it
not be a mistake for him to attach as much importance as he had done to the
iron-business and its possible effect upon the dower of Miss Tramlay? She
was a charming girl, but money ought to marry money, and what would be
a share of the forty or fifty thousand a year that Tramlay might make in a
business which, after all, could have but the small margin of profit which
active competition would allow? There were rich families toward whose
daughters he had not previously dared to raise his eyes, for their heads
22. would have demanded a fuller financial exhibit than he cared to make on
the basis of the few thousands of dollars which he had invested in profitable
tenement-house property. As a large holder of E. & W. his position would
be different; for were not the heads of these various families operating in E.
& W. themselves?
Little by little he lessened his attentions to Lucia, and his visits to the
house became fewer. To Phil, who did not know the cause, the result was
quickly visible, and delightful as well. The only disquieting effect was that
Mrs. Tramlay’s manner perceptibly changed to an undesirable degree. That
prudent lady continued to inform her husband that there seemed to be no
movement in Haynton Bay villa plots, and that the persistency of the young
man from the country seemed to have the effect of discouraging Mr. Marge,
who really had some financial standing.
The change in Marge’s manner was perceptible throughout the Tramlay
family. Even Margie experienced a sense of relief, and she said one evening
to Lucia,—
“Isn’t it lovely that your old beau is so busy in Wall Street nowadays?
He doesn’t come here half as much as he used to, and I don’t have to be
bored by him while you’re talking to Phil. You ought to fit up a room
especially for me in your new house, Lu, for I’ve endured a dreadful lot for
your sake.”
“You silly child,” Lucia replied, “you might catch Mr. Marge yourself, if
you liked. Mamma seems to want to have him in the family.”
“Thank you for the ‘if,’ ” Margie retorted, “but I don’t care for a husband
almost old enough to be my grandfather, after being accustomed to seeing a
real nice, handsome young man about the house.”
“He has money,” said Lucia, “and that is what most girls are dying to
marry. Papa says he is making a fortune if he is as deep in the market as
some folks say.”
“I hope he is,” said Margie. “He ought to have something besides a
wooden face, and a bald head, and the same set of speeches and manners
for all occasions. What a splendid sphinx he would make, or an old
monument! Maybe he isn’t quite antique enough, but for vivacity he isn’t
any more remarkable than a stone statue. Just think of what Phil has saved
us from!”
23. And still E. & W. went up. The discovery of valuable mineral deposits
on the line of one of its branches sent the stock flying up several points in a
single day, and soon afterward a diversion of some large grain-shipments
from a parallel line helped it still further. That the grain was carried at a loss
did not trouble any one,—probably because only the directors knew it, and
it was not their business to make such facts public. And with each rise of
the stock Marge sold out, so as to have a larger margin with which to
operate.
At the first of the year E. & W. declared a dividend so large, for a
security that had been far below par, that even prudent investors began to
crowd to the street and buy the stock to put into their safes. The effect of
this was to send shares up so rapidly and steadily that Marge had difficulty
in re-purchasing at the price at which he sold; but he did so well that more
than six thousand shares now stood in his name on the books of his broker.
Six thousand shares represented about half a million dollars, at the price
which E. & W. commanded. Marge admitted to himself that it did not mean
so much to him, for he had not a single certificate in his pocket or anywhere
else. But what were stock certificates to a man who operated on a margin?
They were good enough for widows and orphans and other people
incapable or unwilling to watch the market and who were satisfied to draw
annually whatever dividends might chance to be declared. To Marge the
stock as it appeared on his broker’s books signified that he had cleared
nearly fifty thousand dollars on it within two months; and all this money
was reinvested—on margin—in the same stock, with the probability of
doubling itself every month until E. & W. should go quite a way beyond
par. Were it to creep up only five per cent, a month—it had been doing more
than twice as well—he could figure up a cool million of gain before the
summer dulness should strike the market. Then he would sell out, run over
to Europe, and take a rest: he felt that he would have earned it by that time.
Of course there was no danger that E. & W. would go down. Smart, who,
in the parlance of the street, was “taking care of it,” had publicly said, again
and again, that E. & W. would reach one hundred and fifty before summer;
and, although Smart was one of the younger men in the street, he had
engineered two or three other things in a manner which had made older
operators open their eyes and checkbooks. Smart’s very name seemed to
breed luck, his prophecies about other movements had been fulfilled, he
evidently had his own fortune largely invested in E. & W., so what more
24. could any operator ask? Even now the stock was hard to get; investors who
wanted small quantities had generally to bid above the market-quotations;
and even when a large block changed hands it depressed quotations only a
fraction, which would be more than recovered within twenty-four hours.
Marge’s margin was large enough to protect him against loss, even should a
temporary panic strike the market and depress everything by sympathy:
indeed, some conservative brokers told Marge that he could safely carry the
stock on a much smaller margin.
Better men have had their heads turned by less success, and forgotten not
only tender sentiments but tender vows: so it is no wonder that, as his
financial standing improved daily, Marge’s interest in Lucia weakened. The
countryman might have her; there was as good fish in the sea as that he had
hoped to catch,—not only as good, but a great deal better. He would not
break old friendships, he really esteemed the Tramlays, but—friendship was
a near enough relationship.
25. CHAPTER XXIV.
IRON LOOKS STILL HIGHER.
“Well, my dear,” said Tramlay to his wife one evening in late winter,
“the spell is broken. Three different people have bought building-sites of
the Haynton Bay Company, and a number of others seem interested. There’s
been a good deal of money made this winter, and now people seem anxious
to spend it. It’s about time for us to be considering plans for our villa,—
eh?”
“Not until we are sure we shall have more than three neighbors,” said
Mrs. Tramlay. “Besides, I would first like to have some certainty as to how
large our family will be this summer.”
“How large? Why, the same size as usual, I suppose. Why shouldn’t it
be?”
“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, impatiently, “for a man who has a business
reputation for quick wits, I think you’re in some things the stupidest person
who ever drew breath.”
Tramlay seemed puzzled. His wife finally came to his aid, and
continued:
“I should like to know if Lucia’s affair is to dawdle along as it has been
doing. June is as late in the season as is fashionable for weddings, and an
engagement——”
“Oh!” interrupted the merchant, with a gesture of annoyance, “I’ve heard
the customary talk about mother-love, and believed it, up to date, but I can’t
possibly bring myself to be as anxious as you to get rid of our blessed first-
born.”
“It is because I love her that I am so desirous of seeing her happy and
settled,—not to get rid of her.”
“Yes, I suppose so; and I’m a brute,” said the husband. “Well, if Phil has
been waiting until he should be certain about his own condition financially,
he will not need to wait much longer. I don’t know whether it’s through
brains, or tact, or what’s called lover’s luck, but he’s been doing so well
26. among railroad-people that in common decency I must either raise his
salary largely or give him an interest in the business.”
“Well, really, you speak as if the business depended upon him.”
“For a month or two he’s been taking all the orders; I’ve been simply a
sort of clerk, to distribute them among mills, or find out where iron could
be had for those who wanted it in haste. He’s after an order now—from the
Lake and Gulfside Road—that I let him attempt at first merely to keep him
from growing conceited. It seemed too great and difficult a job to place any
hope on; but I am beginning to half believe he’ll succeed. If he does, I’ll
simply be compelled to give him an interest in the business: if I don’t, some
of my competitors will coax him away from me.”
“What! after all you have done for him?”
“Tut! tut! the favor is entirely on the other side. Had some outsider
brought me the orders which that boy has taken, I would have had to pay
twenty times as much in commissions as Phil’s salary has amounted to.
What do you think of ‘Edgar Tramlay & Co.’ for a business sign, or even
‘Tramlay & Hayn’?”
“I suppose it will have to be,” said the lady, without any indication of
gratification, “and, if it must be, the sooner the better, for it can’t help
making Lucia’s position more certain. If it doesn’t do so at once, I shall
believe it my duty to speak to the young man.”
“Don’t! don’t, I implore!” exclaimed the merchant. “He will think——”
“What he may think is of no consequence,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “It is
time that he should know what city etiquette demands.”
“But it isn’t necessary, is it, that he should know how matter-of-fact and
cold-hearted we city people can be about matters which country-people
think should be approached with the utmost heart and delicacy? Don’t let
him know what a mercenary, self-serving lot of wretches we are, until he is
so fixed that he can’t run away.”
“Edgar, the subject is not one to be joked about, I assure you.”
“And I assure you, my dear, that I’m not more than half joking,—not a
bit more.”
“I shall not say more than thousands of the most loving and discreet
mothers have been obliged to say in similar circumstances,” said Mrs.
27. Tramlay. “If you cannot trust me to discharge this duty delicately, perhaps
you will have the kindness to undertake it yourself.”
“The very thing!” said Tramlay. “If he must have unpleasant
recollections of one of us, I would rather it wouldn’t be his mother-in-law.
The weight of precedent is against you, don’t you know?—though not
through any fault of yours.”
“Will you seriously promise to speak to him? At once?—this very
week?”
“I promise,” said Tramlay, solemnly, at the same time wickedly making a
number of mental reservations.
“Then if there should be any mistake it will not be too late to recall poor
Mr. Marge,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“My dear wife,” said Tramlay, tenderly, “I know Marge has some good
qualities, but I beg you to remember that by the time our daughter ought to
be in the very prime of her beauty and spirits, unless her health fails, Marge
will be nearly seventy years old. I can’t bear the thought of our darling
being doomed to be nurse to an old man just when she will be most fit for
the companionship and sympathy of a husband. Suppose that ten years ago,
when you boasted you didn’t feel a day older than when you were twenty, I
had been twenty years older than I am now, and hanging like a dead weight
about your neck? Between us we have had enough to do in bringing up our
children properly: what would you have done had all the responsibility
come upon you alone? And you certainly don’t care to think of the
probability of Lu being left a widow before she fairly reaches middle age?”
“Handsome widows frequently marry again, especially if their first
husbands were well off.”
“Wife!”
Mrs. Tramlay looked guilty, and avoided her husband’s eye. She could
not avoid his encircling arm, though, nor the meaning of his voice as he
said,—
“Is there no God but society?”
“I didn’t mean to,” whispered Mrs. Tramlay. “All mothers are looking
out for their daughters; I don’t think fathers understand how necessary it is.
If you had shown more interest in Lucia’s future I might not have been so
28. anxious. Fathers never seem to think that their daughters ought to have
husbands.”
“Fathers don’t like girls to marry before they are women,” said Tramlay.
“Even now I wish Lu might not marry until she is several years older.”
“Mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay. “Would you want the poor child to
go through several more years of late parties, and dancing, and dressing?
Why, she’d become desperate, and want to go into a nunnery or become a
novelist, or reformer, or something.”
“What? Is society really so dreadful to a young girl?” asked the husband.
“It’s the most tiresome thing in the world after the novelty wears off,”
said Mrs. Tramlay, “unless she is fond of flirting, or gets into one of the
prosy sets where they talk about nothing but books and music and pictures
and blue china and such things.”
“ ‘Live and learn,’ ” quoted the merchant. “Next time I become a young
man and marry I’ll bring up my family in the country. My sisters had at
least horses and trees and birds and flowers and chickens to amuse them,
and not one of them married until she was twenty-five.”
Mrs. Tramlay maintained a discreet silence, for, except their admiration
for their brother, Mrs. Tramlay had never been able to find a point of
contact in her sisters-in-law. Tramlay slowly left the room and went to his
club, informing himself, as he walked, that there were times in which a man
really needed the society of men.
Meanwhile, Phil had for the twentieth time been closeted with the
purchasing officials of the Lake and Gulfside Railroad,—as disagreeable
and suspicious a couple as he had ever found among Haynton’s assortment
of expert grumblers. Had he been more experienced in business he would
have been less hopeful, for, as everybody who was anybody in the iron
trade knew the Lake and Gulfside had planned a branch nearly two hundred
miles long, and there would be forty or fifty thousand tons of rails needed,
everybody who was anybody in the iron trade was trying to secure at least a
portion of the order. Phil’s suggestion that Tramlay should try to secure the
contract had affected the merchant about as a proposition of a child to build
a house might have done; but, to avoid depressing the young man’s spirits,
he had consented, and had himself gone so far as to get terms, for portions
of the possible order, from men who were looking for encouragement to
open their long-closed mills. Unknown to the merchant, and fortunately for
29. Phil, one of the Lake and Gulfside purchasing agents had years before
chanced to be a director in a company that placed a small order with
Tramlay, and, remembering and liking the way in which it had been filled,
was predisposed toward the house’s new representative from the first. But
Tramlay, not knowing this, laid everything to Phil’s luck when the young
man invaded the whist-room of the club, called Tramlay away from a table
just as cards had been dealt, and exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper,—
“I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” asked the merchant, not over-pleased at the interruption.
Phil stared so wildly that his employer continued, “Not the smallpox, I trust.
What is it? Can’t you speak?”
“I should think you’d know,” said the young man, looking somewhat
aggrieved.
“Not Lake and Gulfside?”
“Exactly that,” said Phil, removing his hat and holding it just as he
remembered to have seen a conqueror’s hat held in a colored print of
“General Scott entering the City of Mexico.”
“Hurrah!” shouted the merchant, dashing to the floor the cards he held.
This movement eliciting an angry protest from the table, Tramlay picked up
the cards, thrust them into the hand of a lounger, said, “Play my hand for
me.—Gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse me: sudden and important
business,” seized his hat, and hurried Phil to the street, exclaiming,—
“Sure there is no mistake about it? It seems too good to be true.”
“There’s no mistake about this,” Phil replied, taking a letter from his
pocket. The merchant hurried to the nearest street-lamp, looked at the
written order, and said,—
“My boy, your fortune is made. Do you realize what a great stroke of
business this is?”
“I hope so,” said Phil.
“What do you want me to do for you? Name your terms or figures.”
Phil was silent, for the very good reason that he did not know how to say
what was in his heart.
“Suppose I alter my sign to Tramlay & Hayn, and make you my equal
partner?”
Still Phil was silent.
30. “Well,” said the merchant, “it seemed to me that was a fair offer; but if it
doesn’t meet your views, speak out and say what you prefer.”
“Mr. Tramlay,” said the young man, trying to speak calmly, but failing
most lamentably, “they say a countryman never is satisfied in a trade unless
he gets something to boot.”
“Very well. What shall it be?”
“Millions,—everything; that is, I wish you’d give me your daughter
too.”
The merchant laughed softly and shook his head. Phil started, and his
heart fell.
“I don’t see how I can do that,” said Tramlay; “for, unless my eyes
deceive me, you already have her.”
“Thank heaven!” exclaimed Phil, devoutly.
“So say I,” the merchant responded.
31. CHAPTER XXV.
E. &. W. AGAIN.
One of the penalties of success (according to the successful) being the
malignant envy of those who have not succeeded, it is not surprising that in
time there began to creep into Wall Street some stories that E. & W. was no
better than it should be, nor even quite so good, and that there was no
reason why the stock should be so high when solider securities were selling
below par.
The management, assisted by the entire E. & W. clique, laughed all such
“bear” stories to scorn, and when scorn seemed somewhat insufficient they
greatly increased the volume of sales and maintained the price by the
familiar, simple, but generally successful expedient of buying from one
another through many different brokers in the stock-market. The bear party
rallied within a day or two, and returned to the charge with an entirely new
set of lies, besides an accidental truth or two; but the E. & W. clique was
something of a liar itself, and arranged for simultaneous delivery, at
different points on the street, of a lot of stories so full of new mineral
developments on the line of the road, and so many new evidences of the
management’s shrewdness, that criticism was silenced for a while.
But bears must live as well as bulls, and the longer they remain hungry
the harder they are sure to fight for their prey: so the street was soon
favored with a fresh assortment of rumors. This time they concerned
themselves principally with the alleged bad condition of the track and
rolling stock in the West, and with doubts as to the mineral deposits said to
have been discovered. The market was reminded that other railroad
companies, by scores, had made all sorts of brilliant discoveries and
announcements that had failed to materialize, and that some of these roads
had been managed by hands that now seemed to be controlling E. & W.
Then the E. & W. management lost its ordinary temper and accused the
bears of malignant falsehood. There was nothing unusual in this, in a
locality where no one is ever suspected of telling the truth while he can
make anything by lying. When, however, E. & W. issued invitations to large
32. operators, particularly in the company’s stock, for a special excursion over
the road, with opportunities for thorough investigation, the bears growled
sullenly and began to look for a living elsewhere.
The excursion-start was a grand success in the eyes of Mr. Marge, who
made with it his first trip in the capacity of an investigating investor. There
were men on the train to whom Marge had in other days scarcely dared to
lift his eyes in Wall Street, yet now they treated him as an equal, not only
socially but financially. He saw his own name in newspapers of cities
through which the party passed; his name had appeared in print before, but
only among lists of guests at parties, or as usher or a bridegroom’s best man
at a wedding,—not as a financier. It was gratifying, too, to have presented
to him some presidents of Western banks who joined the party, and be
named to these financiers as one of the most prominent investors in E. & W.
He saw more, too, of his own country than ever before; his eyes and wits
were quick enough to make him enter heartily into the spirit of a new
enterprise or two which some of the E. & W. directors with the party were
projecting. It might retard a little his accumulation of E. & W. stock, but the
difference would be in his favor in the end. To “get in on the ground-floor”
of some great enterprise had been his darling idea for years; he had hoped
for it as unwearyingly as for a rich wife; now at last his desire was to be
granted: the rich wife would be easy enough to find after he himself became
rich. Unaccustomed though he was to slumbering with a jolting bed under
him, his dreams in the sleeping-car were rosier than any he had known
since the hair began to grow thin on the top of his head.
But as the party began to look through the car windows for the bears of
the Rocky Mountains, the bears of Wall Street began to indulge in
pernicious activity. They all attacked E. & W. with entirely new lots of
stories, which were not denied rapidly enough for the good of the stock, for
some of the more active managers of the E. & W. clique were more than a
thousand miles away. Dispatches began to hurry Westward for new and
bracing information, but the whole excursion-party had taken stages, a few
hours before, for a three days’ trip to see some of the rich mining-camps to
which E. & W. had promised to build a branch. No answers being received,
E. & W. began to droop; as soon as it showed decided signs of weakness,
and seemed to have no friends strong enough to support it, the bears sprang
upon it en masse and proceeded to pound and scratch the life out of it. It
was granted a temporary breathing-spell through the assistance of some
33. operators in other stocks, who feared their own properties might be
depressed by sympathy, but as soon as it became evident that E. & W. was
to be the only sufferer all the bulls in the market sheathed their horns in
bears’ claws and assisted in the annihilation of the prostrate giant who had
no friends.
The excursion-party returned from the mines in high spirits: even the
president of the company declared he had no idea that the property was so
rich. He predicted, and called all present to remember his words, that the
information he would send East would “boom” E. & W. at least ten points
within ten days. Marge’s heart simply danced within him: if it was to be as
the president predicted, his own hoped-for million by the beginning of the
stagnant season would be nearer two. He smiled pityingly as Lucia’s face
rose before him: how strange that he had ever thought seriously of making
that chit his wife, and being gratified for such dowry as the iron trade might
allow her father to give!
The stages stopped at a mining-village, twenty miles from the station, for
dinner. The president said to the keeper of the little hotel,—
“Is there any telegraph-station here?”
“There’s a telephone ’cross the road at the store,” said the proprietor. “It
runs into the bankin’-house at Big Stony.”
“Big Stony?” echoed the president. “Why, we’ve done some business
with that bank. Come, gentlemen, let’s go across and find out how our baby
is being taken care of.”
Several of the party went, Marge being among them. The president “rang
up” the little bank, and bawled,—
“Got any New York quotations to-day?”
“Yes,” replied a thin, far-away voice.
“How’s the stock market?”
“Pretty comfortable, considering.”
“Any figures on E. & W.?”
“El,” was the only sound the president could evolve from the noise that
followed.
“Umph!” said he; “what does that mean? ‘El’ must be ‘twelve,’—
hundred and twelve. Still rising, you see; though why it should have gone
so high and so suddenly I don’t exactly see. Hello,” he resumed, as he
34. turned again to the mouth-piece; “will you give me those figures again, and
not quite so loud? I can’t make them out.”
Again the message came, but it did not seem any more satisfactory, for
the president looked astonished, and then frowned; then he shouted back,—
“There’s some mistake; you didn’t get the right letters: I said E. & W.,—
Eastern and Western. One moment. Mr. Marge, won’t you kindly take my
place? My hearing isn’t very keen.”
Marge placed the receiver to his ear, and shouted, “All right; go ahead.”
In two or three seconds he dropped the receiver, turned pale, and looked as
if about to fall.
“What is it?” asked several voices in chorus.
“He said, ‘E. & W. is dead as a smelt; knocked to pieces two days ago.’ ”
“What is it quoted at now?” asked one, quickly.
True enough: who could want to know more than Marge? It was in a
feeble voice, though, and after two or three attempts to clear his throat, that
he asked,—
“How did it close to-day?”
Again, as the answer came back, Marge dropped the receiver and acted
as if about to fall.
“What is it? Speak, can’t you?”
“Thirty-seven!” whispered Marge.
There was an outburst of angry exclamations, not unmixed with
profanity. Then nearly all present looked at the president inquiringly, but
without receiving any attempt at an explanation, for the president was far
the heaviest owner of E. & W. stock, and he looked as stony of face as if he
had suddenly died but neglected to close his eyes.
Marge hastily sought the outer air; it seemed to him he would lose his
reason if he did not get away from that awful telephone. Thirty-seven! he
knew what that meant; his margin might have saved his own stock had the
drop been to a little below par, but it had tumbled more than half a hundred
points, so of course his brokers had closed the account when the margin was
exhausted, and Marge, who a fortnight before had counted himself worth
nearly a million dollars (Wall Street millions), was now simply without a
penny to his credit in Wall Street or anywhere else; what money he chanced
to have in his pocket was all he could hope to call his own until the first of
35. the next month, when the occupants of his tenement-houses would pay their
rent.
It was awful; it was unendurable; he longed to scream, to rave, to tear his
hair. He mentally cursed the bears, the brokers, the directors, and every one
else but himself. He heard some of his companions in the store bawling
messages through the telephone, to be wired to New York; these were
veterans, who assumed from past experience that a partial recovery would
follow and that they would partly recoup their losses. But what could he
do? There was not on earth a person whom he could ask, by telegraph, for
the few hundred dollars necessary to a small speculation on the ruins.
He heard the outburst of incredulity, followed by rage, as the passengers
who had remained at the little hotel received the unexpected news, which
now seemed to him to be days old. Then he began to suspect everybody,
even the crushed president and directors. What could be easier, Marge said
to himself, than for these shrewd fellows to unload quietly before they left
New York, and then get out of reach so that they could not render any
support in case of a break? He had heard of such things before. It certainly
was suspicious that the crash should have come the very day after they got
away from the telegraph-wires. Likely enough they now, through their
brokers, were quietly buying up all the stock that was being offered, to “peg
it up,” little by little, to where it had been. The mere suspicion made him
want to tear them limb from limb,—to organize a lynching-party, after the
fashion of the Territory they were in, and get revenge, if not justice.
It was rather a dismal party that returned to New York from the trip over
the E. & W. The president, fearing indignant Western investors, and still
more the newspaper reporters, whom he knew would lie in wait for him
until they found him, quietly abandoned the train before reaching Chicago,
and went Eastward by some other route. A few of the more hardened
operators began to encourage each other by telling of other breaks that had
been the making of the men they first ruined, but they dropped their
consoling reminiscences when Marge approached them; they had only
contempt for a man who from his manner evidently was so completely
“cleaned out” as to be unable to start again, even in a small way. The
majority, however, seemed as badly off as himself; some of them were so
depressed that when the stock of cigars provided specially for the excursion
was exhausted they actually bought common pipes and tobacco at a way
station, and industriously poisoned the innocent air for hundreds of miles.
36. This, then, was the end of Marge’s dream of wealth! Occasionally, in
other days, he had lost small sums in Wall Street, but only he and his broker
knew of it; no one ever knew in what line of stock he operated. But now—
why, had not his name been printed again and again among those of E. &
W.’s strongest backers? Every one would know of his misfortune: he could
no longer pose as a shrewd young financier, much less as a man with as
large an income as he had time to enjoy.
Would that he had not been so conceited and careless as to mentally give
up Lucia, who now, for some reason, persisted in appearing in his mind’s
eye! Had he given half as much attention to her as to E. & W., she might
now be his, and their wedding-cards might be out. And iron was still
looking up, too! How could any one not a lunatic have become so devoted
to chance as to throw away a certainty? for she had been a certainty for him,
he believed, had he chosen to realize. Alas! with her, as with E. & W., he
had been too slow at realizing.