Scattergood Baines Part 51

"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner.

"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers."

"Yes, sir. That's my business."

"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest some'eres--a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on makin' myself well off."

"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?"

"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em."

"To be sure they do--if they are properly advised. But one has to know the stock market--like a book."

"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy.

Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents--men in the offices of great corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock manipulation is coming off--and my clients profit by it."

"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?"

Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice.

"My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the stock up five points."

"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?"

"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand dollars besides."

"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I don't know this here girl very well--though I kinder took to her at the first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust....

Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree.

Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars."

"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney.

"Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, to-morrow--say for a thousand dollars?... If you--come out right, then you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real information you can jump right in and make a fortune."

"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand--charge it up to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars jest by settin' down and takin' it."

"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney.

"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt.

"Why, you'd _see_ it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out right, you just pick up the money and walk off."

"No!... _Say_! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now.

Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night."

"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it."

"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a quitter?"

"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...."

Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the street. A corner of the main office had been part.i.tioned off as a private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not happy in his surroundings.

"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind....

Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money to Scattergood.

"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'--jest doin'

nothin' but settin'."

"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip."

"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said Scattergood, with anxious fatuity.

"Certainly.... Certainly."

Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it.

"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy.

"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch the board from here, and n.o.body will disturb us."

"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six.

Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their original position.

"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said."

Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over the old fellow.

Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy me--and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars.

Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...."

Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new jackknife.

"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my money--every penny of it?"

"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a matter of fifty thousand dollars."

"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, won't they? I kin git in ag'in?"

"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon."

"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand dollars; was handling it greedily.

"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney.

"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now where's Ovid?"

Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman.

He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and good-natured; it was; granite--it was the face of a man with force, and the skill to use that force.