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{206} 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 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{207} 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{208} 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 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 ............