The Deluge | Page 5

the next day but one after my talk with Roebuck.
"I want you to sell that Steel Common, Matt," said he.
"It'll go several points higher," said I. "Better let me hold it and use my judgment on selling."
"I need money--right away," was his answer.
"That's all right," said I. "Let me give you an order for what you need."
"Thank you, thank you," said he, so promptly that I knew I had done what he had been hoping for, probably counting on.
I give this incident to show what our relations were. He was a young fellow of good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, and as out of place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping him going for four years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and protecting him against loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; for I hadn't the remotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond helping to liven things up at a dinner or late supper, or down in the country, or on the yacht. In fact, his principal use to me was that he knew how to "beat the box" well enough to shake fairly good music out of it--and I am so fond of music that I can fill in with my imagination when the performer isn't too bad.
They have charged that I deliberately ruined him. Ruined! The first time I gave him a tip--and that was the second or third time I ever saw him--he burst into tears and said: "You've saved my life, Blacklock. I'll never tell you how much this windfall means to me now." Nor did I with deep and dark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there. How could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money, including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks--for he would gamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown him that the Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that the only hope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, unless you are big enough to become a card-marker yourself.
As soon as he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. I followed him to the door--that part of my suite opened out on the sidewalk, for the convenience of my crowds of customers. "I'm just going to lunch," said I. "Come with me."
He looked uneasily toward a smart little one-horse brougham at the curb. "Sorry--but I can't," said he. "I've my sister with me. She brought me down in her trap."
"That's all right," said I; "bring her along. We'll go to the Savarin." And I locked his arm in mine and started toward the brougham.
[Illustration]
He was turning all kinds of colors, and was acting in a way that puzzled me--then. Despite all my years in New York I was ignorant of the elaborate social distinctions that had grown up in its Fifth Avenue quarter. I knew, of course, that there was a fashionable society and that some of the most conspicuous of those in it seemed unable to get used to the idea of being rich and were in a state of great agitation over their own importance. Important they might be, but not to me. I knew nothing of their careful gradations of snobbism--the people to know socially, the people to know in a business way, the people to know in ways religious and philanthropic, the people to know for the fun to be got out of them, the people to pride oneself on not knowing at all; the nervousness, the hysteria about preserving these disgusting gradations. All this, I say, was an undreamed-of mystery to me who gave and took liking in the sensible, self-respecting American fashion. So I didn't understand why Sam, as I almost dragged him along, was stammering: "Thank you--but--I--she--the fact is, we really must get up-town."
By this time I was where I could look into the brougham. A glance--I can see much at a glance, as can any man who spends every day of every year in an all-day fight for his purse and his life, with the blows coming from all sides. I can see much at a glance; I often have seen much; I never saw more than just then. Instantly, I made up my mind that the Ellerslys would lunch with me. "You've got to eat somewhere," said I, in a tone that put an end to his attempts to manufacture excuses. "I'll be delighted to have you. Don't make up any more yarns."
He slowly opened the door. "Anita," said he, "Mr. Blacklock. He's invited us to lunch."
I lifted