The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York Part 18

The same spirit which always moved me to do what I could to help everybody I knew led me to say to him, "Ned, I do not want to put any money in a sinking fund for a long pull, as I may have use for all my capital in my own business; but any time you want five thousand dollars for thirty days, I will be glad to let you have it."

He wanted it very soon. In a few days I loaned him five thousand dollars, and after that, until September, 1893, there was no time he did not owe me from five thousand to fifteen thousand dollars.

After we returned to "Redstone" we had the Banfords out for a visit, and a little later visited them in New York. They gave a dinner in our honor, and those amongst the guests who become prominent in this narrative hereafter were Mr. and Mrs. Albert Caine, Mr. and Mrs. William Curtice, and Mr. and Mrs. George Todd.

This dinner was the commencement of a long and intimate friends.h.i.+p with all of those I have named. Very many were the good times we had together, visits back and forth, dinners, driving trips, theatre parties, trips to Atlantic City, Lakewood, and other resorts, to Princeton and New Haven for the college games--nothing that promised a good time was allowed to get by us.

The birthdays and wedding anniversaries of all were duly celebrated, and gifts interchanged at Christmas between both parents and children. It was indeed a happy, joyous circle of friends.

My business affairs continued to prosper, and for my second year, as an importer and dealer, my books showed a profit of sixty-eight thousand dollars.

CHAPTER XXIX

A SHORT YEAR AND A MERRY ONE

As memory carries me back to 1891, it seems as if it would have been impossible to crowd into a period of twelve months more social pleasures and jolly good times than we had in that year.

In the social life at Knollwood we had ceased to be active. We kept up and enjoyed our intimate friends.h.i.+p, now of more than ten years' duration, with our immediate neighbors; but the personnel of the Park had changed in recent years and with many of the new residents we were not congenial, though on pleasant terms with all.

There was still a good deal of dining, card parties, and entertainments at the Casino, in which we partic.i.p.ated, but it was with our New York friends that most of our social life was pa.s.sed. The circle there had been enlarged by the addition of many pleasant people, although the close intimacy still rested where it had started, with, however, the addition of Mr. and Mrs. William Viedler.

Mr. Viedler, a multi-millionaire at that time, has since largely increased his fortune and is now the controlling interest in a prominent trust of comparatively recent formation. They had been Brooklynites but bought a fine house on Fifth Avenue.

We first met them on the occasion of a dinner given in their honor by Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, to welcome them to New York. Mr. Curtice is a nephew of Mrs. Viedler.

The Caines, although intimate, were not of the inner circle. This comprised Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, Mr. and Mrs. Todd, Mr. and Mrs.

Banford, Mr. and Mrs. Viedler, and ourselves. Curtice was our poet laureate, and in a song he composed and sang at a dinner were included these lines:

"Thus from the crowd that gathered then Has sprung to fame the immortal ten, And Stowe has been so generous since That all the crowd have dubbed him Prince."

After that event all our friends referred to the little circle as the "Immortal Ten;" my wife was called Lady Stowe, and I, by right of song, Prince.

It is very difficult to say what we did not do that year in the way of pleasure-seeking, but it is an easy matter to name the chief event.

As guests of Mr. Viedler a party of eighteen went camping in the Maine woods. In every detail the trip was a perfect success. Private car to Moosehead Lake, a banquet fit for Lucullus, prepared by his own chef, en route, exquisite Tiffany menus, and costly souvenirs.

Headquarters at Mt. Kineo for a day or two, and then down the West Branch of the Pen.o.bscot in canoes, and over the carries until the comfortable camp at Cauquomgomoc Lake was reached. Deer, moose, partridge, and trout were in abundance. Every minute of that delightful outing was filled with pleasure.

Early in the fall we decided to try a winter in New York. The "San Remo," at Seventy-fourth Street and Central Park, West, had just been completed, and I rented three connecting apartments, which gave us parlor, library, dining-room, five bedrooms, and three baths, all outside rooms. I also rented in Sixty-seventh Street a stable, and on the first of October we took possession.

We were more than pleased With the life in town, and I commenced negotiations with Dore Lyon for the purchase of a handsome house he owned at West End Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street. Just as the trade was about to be closed my eldest daughter was attacked with typhoid. She became very ill, and this so alarmed us we concluded to return to "Redstone" in the spring and remain there.

When the holidays drew near the invalid was convalescent, and we opened "Redstone" for a house party. When we returned to New York it was with a feeling of regret.

Business had been good throughout the year. My profits were nearly eighty thousand dollars.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A VOUCHER

My life, both in business and socially, in 1892 was not essentially different from that of 1891. Business continued satisfactory, my profits running up to within a few thousand dollars of the previous year.

My senior clerk, George Norman, had been in my employ for eleven years, coming to me as an office-boy. His salary was now twelve hundred and fifty dollars. I told him that as a clerk he would never be worth more to us, and advised him to start as a broker, which he did.

We gave him a strong endors.e.m.e.nt in a circular to the trade, and how well we supported him is shown by the fact that we paid him sixty-six hundred dollars in commissions the first year of his business.

We returned to "Redstone" early in May. Our home, after our New York experience, was more attractive than ever, and we did not believe we would again care to leave it.

My readers will remember my reference in a former chapter to a trade journal which I turned over to George Lawton. On July 9th, in celebration of the commencement of its tenth year, the publisher issued a special number, a copy of which is before me. An article it contains is so completely a confirmation of much that I have written, I insert it here verbatim, except for change of names to comply with my narrative and the omission of irrelevant matter.

The article was written by the Secretary of the Exchange:

WALTER E. STOWE.

Since the father is properly considered before the child, it has seemed to us most appropriate in celebrating for the first time the birthday of the [name of the paper], that we should not only make some mention of its founder, but even that we should accord him the first place in our brief memorial; and we have accordingly, rather against his own wishes, prepared the fine portrait of him which serves as a frontispiece to this issue. It is hardly in the character of a journalist that our readers will generally think of Mr. Stowe, although most of them doubtless know that he originated and for several years managed what we have no hesitation in saying is _facile princeps_ among * * * trade papers; but rather in his more permanent role of decidedly the most successful among the younger generation of * * * dealers--as a man who has carved out for himself a position as commanding in respect of the * * * market, especially, as is occupied abroad by his London correspondent, the famous A * * * S * * *

A trifle over a quarter of a century ago--in February, 1866--Mr.

Stowe entered the office of John Derham as a clerk fresh from school, in which capacity he served for just four years, and then succeeded to the business of this firm as a broker on his own account. A broker in those days was an altogether different sort of cogwheel in the machinery of commerce from the broker of to-day; success depending primarily on geniality of manner, industry and intelligence in the execution of commissions intrusted to him by the jobbing houses; all of which qualifications, Mr. Stowe possessed in an eminent degree, and devoting himself particularly to dealing in * * * advanced rapidly to a position in which the major part of such transactions as were not made directly by importers to consumers, pa.s.sed through his hands. But his business ability was of a broader type than was needed for such services only, and in the process of evolution, through which the old-fas.h.i.+oned broker was practically eliminated, his place being taken by a new type of dealer, who although not always or even usually trading for his own account, yet makes most of his transactions in his own name, and is chiefly differentiated from the jobber only from the fact that he buys and sells in round parcels and does not break them up to shop out into smaller lots. As this change took place, Mr.

Stowe developed into a dealer of a newer and more progressive type than the * * * trade had hitherto known. To-day he stands rather as an importer, the entries to his firm's credit having steadily climbed the list of percentages until they are now far ahead of those belonging to any other house; and with his intimate relations with A. * * S. * * * & Co., of London, it would be making no invidious comparison to say that he is the recognized leader of the * * * trade of America.

For all his remarkably prosperous career, Mr. Stowe has been in no way spoiled by success, and is to-day the same quiet, una.s.suming gentleman as when these characteristics attracted the good will of older men in the trade and secured to him the beginning of a business which has since grown so largely. He was a late comer to the members.h.i.+p of the Exchange, which he joined only in 1886; but has served on its board of managers for four years past, and since the first of April has held the position of vice-president. Outside of his business, his life is a thoroughly domestic one, for which he has abundant excuse in his beautiful home, "Redstone," at Knollwood, N.J., where he is one of the most popular residents of that charming suburb and where he has a particular claim to distinction in the fine stable which he maintains, his chief hobby being horse flesh, though not on the sporting side, with which we are most likely to a.s.sociate such a pa.s.sion. In short, the [name of paper] has every reason to be proud of its parentage, and like all good children delights in doing filial honor and wis.h.i.+ng its founder all possible prosperity in the future as in the past.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION

It was the afternoon of a day in the first week of January, 1893.

I sat in an easy chair in front of the open fire in my private office deep in thought. In my hand was the balance-sheet for 1892, showing a profit of over seventy thousand dollars. I was considering both sides of a momentous question. It was whether or not to retire from business.

I had for years looked forward with delightful antic.i.p.ation to the time when I could do this. I wanted to travel extensively. In my library were many books of travel, all of which had been read with great interest. I had an eager longing to see for myself all parts of the civilized world; not in haste, but at my own leisure. I wanted to devote years to a journey that should cover the globe.

My affairs were in excellent shape. Within a period of sixty days I could liquidate my business and retire with about three hundred thousand dollars. I had my home, complete in its appointments; my library; my stable, with all that it could contribute to our pleasure and comfort; my health, and I was but forty-two years of age. That was one side, now for the other. The largest income I could expect with my capital securely invested would be fifteen thousand dollars. My balance-sheet showed that in 1892 I had drawn forty-four thousand. I considered where my expenditures could be cut down. There was the long list of pensioners, relatives, and friends who for years had been receiving regularly from me a monthly cheque on which they depended for their comfort. Could that be cut off? Surely not.

There was a still longer list of people, many of whom I knew but slightly, who from time to time called on me for help, always as loans but rarely returned. I kept no record of such things and never requested repayment. Could that item be cut out? No, for when a man appealed to me for a.s.sistance, I knew not how to refuse him. He always received it.

There were all the charities, St. John's Guild, Fresh-Air Funds, hospitals, home for crippled children, and the personal charities of my wife amongst the poor--could these be dropped? Again, no.