Jack Balcomb, walking through an alley that ran parallel with Jefferson Street, marked the unmistakable figure of Ezra Dameron ahead of him. This alley was called Ruby Street for no reason that any one knew. It was lined with the rear doors of Jefferson Street shops on one side and those of jobbing houses on the other, and, as it was narrow, its traffic was usually congested. A few saloons were squeezed into corners here and there and in one large room opening directly on the alley a dealer in margins maintained an office.
Balcomb paused a moment to watch Dameron, who dodged in and out among trucks, horses and hurrying pedestrians with quick, eager steps.
“I bet a dollar you’re going for a drink,” Balcomb remarked under his breath; but the old man passed a saloon and went on. He seemed to be in haste, and Balcomb stepped into the middle of the alley and watched him, until he reached the broker’s office, which he entered without looking around.
Balcomb whistled. “Worse than drink,” he reflected, and went up to his own office.
Balcomb’s mind seethed with schemes these days. He sought to give an air of seriousness to his business by carrying in the daily press an advertisement which read, “J. Arthur Balcomb, Investment Broker,” and he inscribed the same legend on his stationery. The solid business men of Mariona regarded him a little warily; but he had carried through several enterprises with considerable dash, and, as he cultivated the reporters, his name frequently appeared in the newspapers. The building of interurban trolley lines was bringing the surrounding towns more and more into touch with the capital. The country banker and the small capitalist were now much seen in the streets of Mariona. They were learning the lingo of metropolitan business; many of them had found it convenient to enroll themselves as non-resident members of the Commercial Club, and Jack Balcomb’s office proved a pleasant rendezvous. Here they could use his stenographers, and the long-distance telephone was theirs to command. The banks and trust companies were a trifle large for these interurban capitalists; but Jack Balcomb accommodated himself to great and small. Prosperous farmers, who were finding it pleasant to run into the capital, now that the street car passed their door, learned much from Balcomb, who had the rosy imagination and sublime zeal that they lacked. Balcomb had organized the Patoka Land and Improvement Company to give the interurbanites a chance to taste the sweets of large enterprises.
Balcomb found a group of men waiting for him in his office and he sent them into his private room while he dictated in a loud tone to one of his stenographers. It was a letter to a famous Wall Street banking house and referred in large figures to a certain or uncertain bond deal which, from the terms of the letter, the New York house and Balcomb were carrying on together. It was, to be sure, a letter that would never encumber the mails, but this made no difference to Balcomb, who gave it what he called the true commercial literary finish.
He left the stenographers to themselves with the solemn injunction that he was not to be disturbed; then he entered his private office briskly and was soon talking breathlessly to half a dozen auditors.
“We haven’t merely to crowd in every modern improvement, gentlemen; we’ve got to anticipate improvements! There’s nothing so stale and unprofitable as an old flat. The crowd follows the newest thing. We must have novel features,—all we can get. If it’s likely to be a good thing to pipe the house for buttermilk, all right; we’ll fix it that way. If roof gardens are getting common we’ll not have any. Just at present I’m for a library on the top floor, with splashing fountains concealed by palms in the center; and a ball-room with a stage where they can have amateur theatricals and a big Christmas tree and that sort of thing. It’ll waste room, of course, but we’ll make the tenants pay for it. Rent it? Well, I guess yes! We’ll get tired of putting names on the waiting list!”
He stood with a pile of architect’s sketches before him, disclosing to his associates of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company his scheme for an ideal flat. Jack Balcomb always wore good clothes; they added to his air of plausibility. His Vandyke beard was certainly becoming and his brown eyes were handsome, albeit a trifle restless and unsteady.
“Now,” said Balcomb, standing away from the drawings, “I don’t want you gentlemen to drop dead of heart disease or any little thing like that; but I’ve got my principal idea to spring.”
He produced a box of cigars and passed it round and then carried a lighted match from one to the other with deferential courtesy. He liked to make them wait—to tease their curiosity. He lighted his own cigar deliberately and smoothed the blue prints on the table carefully as he continued:
“You gentlemen will admit that there are plenty of apartment houses down-town. Every old corner is getting one. Every lone widow in the community takes her life insurance money and blows it into a flat and thinks it safer than government bonds. But I’ve got an idea worth two of the best of them. I wish to thunder we could copyright it, it’s so good.”
He let a dreamy look come into his eyes while the grave incorporators of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company smoked and listened. He had dropped the “we” in a casual way, but it had reached the right spot in the breasts of the interurbanites.
“It’s up to us to do something new; and it has struck me that a ten-story flat, with every comfort and luxury provided, located away from the heat and dirt of the city, but accessible by car-line—not more than twenty minutes from the monument—is the thing we’re looking for. Instead of gazing out on smoke-stacks our tenants will look down on trees! Does it sound good to you?”
His audience smoked on quietly and Balcomb continued. They liked to hear him talk. He was an attractive figure as he leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets.
“We can afford to give them some green grass to look at by going out of town. Babies, pianos and dogs are excluded from all well-regulated flats, but if we should be a little tolerant toward babies an acre of God’s green earth would be a great thing for them. Just see how it grows on you, gentlemen! Now, in the same connection we’d run an ideal dairy a little farther out, to give the tenants real cream and butter like their mothers used to make. Say, I don’t see how the down-town flats will do any business after we get going! If anybody asks questions about the milk we can prove it was good by the cows!”
He laughed and they all grinned in sympathy with his plan and in admiration of his genius.
“But where are you going to get all this?” asked Van Cleve, his attorney, who frequently acted as interlocutor at such meetings.
“That’s not so easy. You’ve got to get on the best street and on a good car-line, and you’ve got to go north. Remember, there’s a park system going out that way right up the creek. A park system and a boulevard would be worth millions to us. There are only two or three sites possible and the best of all is the corner where High Street crosses Ripple Creek. It looks awful good to me anywhere along there. Twenty minutes from Jefferson Street, gentlemen; all the comforts of the city; all the joys of the country. Now—” with a change of tone, “this is all strictly inter nos, as Doc Bridges used to say at college. This is our scheme and we don’t want a lot of little real estate fakirs crossing our trail. If I may be a bit confidential and philosophical, I’ll warn you against three classes of men—plumbers, real estate agents and preachers in plug hats and shining alpaca coats who handle a line of Arizona mining stock on the side.”
They all laughed and he sat down to give them a chance to ask him questions. Up to a certain point he always did all the talking; but he knew when to quit. He submitted himself to their cross-examination graciously. They were simple, hard-headed men, and he answered them patiently and carefully. He had accumulated a great fund of data relating to the life of such structures as he proposed building: the cost of maintenance; the heating and lighting questions and the matter of service. Much of this was wholly new to the country capitalists; it was novel and it was interesting and there was a glamour about it that charmed them.
“You’ll go over to the club for luncheon, gentlemen,” he said, when the whistles blew at twelve o’clock and several of his syndicate drew out their watches,—“with me,” he added. “We’ll go about one.”
Most of them were used to dinner at twelve at home and they were hungry; but luncheon at the club was in keeping with their new development, and they waited patiently until young Midas should be ready to lead them.
After seeing them fed at the Commercial Club he parted with them, with the understanding that he was to search for a proper site for the Patoka Flats, as the apartment house was to be called, and report on a day fixed. He returned to his office for a further conference with Van Cleve, his lawyer. The flat project was uppermost in Balcomb’s mind, and he was bent on pushing it through. His interurbanites had already subscribed for considerable stock and he was reasonably sure of getting all the money he needed. Times were good; there was plenty of capital seeking investment, and the incorporators of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company were men of considerable influence in their several communities.
“I say, Van Cleve,” remarked Balcomb to the lawyer, “we’re going to make a big winner out of this. Some of the things I’ve put through are jolly rotten; but this flat scheme is away up and out of sight the best thing I ever tackled.”
“Those farmers are stuck on it, all right,” said Van Cleve. “You certainly know how to blow hot air.”
Van Cleve had come to town to practise law, and had fallen in with Balcomb at a boarding-house where they both lived. Balcomb had taken soundings in the shallow waters of Van Cleve’s intellect and he had decided that the young man would prove useful. Van Cleve had a retreating chin, a corn-silk mustache and pale-blue, near-sighted eyes; but he had an allowance from his father, which in some degree minimized these disadvantages. The elder Van Cleve was a banker in an Ohio River town and Balcomb was cultivating country bankers, with whom he was building up business in the sale and purchase of securities.
“There’s only one place for that flat,” remarked Balcomb, musingly. “That’s old Dameron’s place on the creek at High Street. The malaria is all drained out of there now and it’s getting more valuable every day. The extension of the park system along the creek and the building of the boulevard will give the region a whirl. It’s only a country-town idea that apartment houses must be built on the court-house square; but we’ll show them, all right.”
He opened a plat book and pointed out to Van Cleve the location of the Dameron ground.
“I suppose the old man will throw a fit when I ask him for a price on the strip. Everybody seems to be afraid of Ezra Dameron; but I’m not half as much afraid of him as I am of his daughter, who’s a pleasant rest for tired eyes, all right. Ezra’s a queer old party, with a chilly manner and an alluring smile; but I rather flatter myself that I know how to handle difficult customers.”
“I guess you can handle them if anybody can,” said Van Cleve, admiringly.
“I’ve mastered a few—just a few—of the arts of persuasion. In fact, I prefer a tough case—something that gives a little resistance. It’s more satisfactory.”
Balcomb stretched himself and yawned. He was not averse to Van Cleve’s admiration, but sunned himself in it.
“I’ll drop around and see the old man just about now. There’s nothing like keeping things going after you get started. Let me consider. I’m not sure just what shade of gloves I ought to put on for this interview. Perhaps ox-blood red would do just as well as anything.”
There was a file case in the corner, with many drawers bearing neat labels inscribed with such titles as “Greene County Coal”; “Cement Reports”; “Bank Statements”, and “U. S. Treasurer”. He pulled out a drawer labeled “U. S. Treasurer” and carelessly turned over its contents—several pairs of gloves in a variety of shades.
“Rather a neat thing in chiffonniers,” he remarked.
Van Cleve was staring at him in amazement. He never ceased to wonder at Balcomb.
“This, my friend, is designed for the edification of rubbernecks. The titles are rather impressive, and they are not all a sham. But if you’re in a hurry to change your necktie at any time come in, old man, and try on one of mine. You’ll find an assortment of new spring shades under ‘Missouri Zinc.’”
Van Cleve grinned his appreciation.
“You ought to have gone on the stage, Balcomb. Your province is art, not commerce.”
“Don’t worry, my dear young friend from the banks of La Belle Rivière. Now before I go on my perilous journey to see the ancient Dameron—”
He pulled out a drawer labeled “Kentucky Central R. R.”
“This is no deception at all,” he continued, as he took out a bottle of whisky and a glass. “It’s from Kentucky; it’s for central application,”—tapping his chest—“and it’s rare rye. On the water wagon? I don’t often indulge myself; but it’s well to prepare oneself before going up against a hard frost. Now”—his manner changing—“we’ve got to increase our capital stock; you’d better get busy in the intervals of your engrossing professional duties and do something real noble in that line.”
He gave Van Cleve a memorandum of what he wanted and walked out briskly, disposing of several callers who waited in the outer office, where the typewriters rattled tirelessly.