_ The Cowperwood family was by this time established in its new and
larger and more tastefully furnished house on North Front Street,
facing the river. The house was four stories tall and stood
twenty-five feet on the street front, without a yard.
Here the family began to entertain in a small way, and there came
to see them, now and then, representatives of the various interests
that Henry Cowperwood had encountered in his upward climb to the
position of cashier. It was not a very distinguished company, but
it included a number of people who were about as successful as
himself--heads of small businesses who traded at his bank, dealers
in dry-goods, leather, groceries (wholesale), and grain. The
children had come to have intimacies of their own. Now and then,
because of church connections, Mrs. Cowperwood ventured to have
an afternoon tea or reception, at which even Cowperwood attempted
the gallant in so far as to stand about in a genially foolish way
and greet those whom his wife had invited. And so long as he could
maintain his gravity very solemnly and greet people without being
required to say much, it was not too painful for him. Singing
was indulged in at times, a little dancing on occasion, and there
was considerably more "company to dinner," informally, than there
had been previously.
And here it was, during the first year of the new life in this
house, that Frank met a certain Mrs. Semple, who interested him
greatly. Her husband had a pretentious shoe store on Chestnut
Street, near Third, and was planning to open a second one farther
out on the same street.
The occasion of the meeting was an evening call on the part of
the Semples, Mr. Semple being desirous of talking with Henry
Cowperwood concerning a new transportation feature which was then
entering the world--namely, street-cars. A tentative line,
incorporated by the North Pennsylvania Railway Company, had been
put into operation on a mile and a half of tracks extending from
Willow Street along Front to Germantown Road, and thence by various
streets to what was then known as the Cohocksink Depot; and it was
thought that in time this mode of locomotion might drive out the
hundreds of omnibuses which now crowded and made impassable the
downtown streets. Young Cowperwood had been greatly interested
from the start. Railway transportation, as a whole, interested
him, anyway, but this particular phase was most fascinating. It
was already creating widespread discussion, and he, with others,
had gone to see it. A strange but interesting new type of car,
fourteen feet long, seven feet wide, and nearly the same height,
running on small iron car-wheels, was giving great satisfaction as
being quieter and easier-riding than omnibuses; and Alfred Semple
was privately considering investing in another proposed line which,
if it could secure a franchise from the legislature, was to run on
Fifth and Sixth streets.
Cowperwood, Senior, saw a great future for this thing; but he did
not see as yet how the capital was to be raised for it. Frank
believed that Tighe & Co. should attempt to become the selling
agents of this new stock of the Fifth and Sixth Street Company in
the event it succeeded in getting a franchise. He understood that
a company was already formed, that a large amount of stock was to
be issued against the prospective franchise, and that these shares
were to be sold at five dollars, as against an ultimate par value
of one hundred. He wished he had sufficient money to take a large
block of them.
Meanwhile, Lillian Semple caught and held his interest. Just what
it was about her that attracted him at this age it would be hard
to say, for she was really not suited to him emotionally,
intellectually, or otherwise. He was not without experience with
women or girls, and still held a tentative relationship with Marjorie
Stafford; but Lillian Semple, in spite of the fact that she was
married and that he could have legitimate interest in her, seemed
not wiser and saner, but more worth while. She was twenty-four as
opposed to Frank's nineteen, but still young enough in her thoughts
and looks to appear of his own age. She was slightly taller than
he--though he was now his full height (five feet ten and one-half
inches)--and, despite her height, shapely, artistic in form and
feature, and with a certain unconscious placidity of soul, which
came more from lack of understanding than from force of character.
Her hair was the color of a dried English walnut, rich and plentiful,
and her complexion waxen--cream wax---with lips of faint pink, and
eyes that varied from gray to blue and from gray to brown, according
to the light in which you saw them. Her hands were thin and
shapely, her nose straight, her face artistically narrow. She was
not brilliant, not active, but rather peaceful and statuesque
without knowing it. Cowperwood was carried away by her appearance.
Her beauty measured up to his present sense of the artistic. She
was lovely, he thought--gracious, dignified. If he could have his
choice of a wife, this was the kind of a girl he would like to have.
As yet, Cowperwood's judgment of women was temperamental rather
than intellectual. Engrossed as he was by his desire for wealth,
prestige, dominance, he was confused, if not chastened by
considerations relating to position, presentability and the like.
None the less, the homely woman meant nothing to him. And the
passionate woman meant much. He heard family discussions of this
and that sacrificial soul among women, as well as among men--women
who toiled and slaved for their husbands or children, or both, who
gave way to relatives or friends in crises or crucial moments,
because it was right and kind to do so--but somehow these stories
did not appeal to him. He preferred to think of people--even
women--as honestly, frankly self-interested. He could not have
told you why. People seemed foolish, or at the best very unfortunate
not to know what to do in all circumstances and how to protect
themselves. There was great talk concerning morality, much praise
of virtue and decency, and much lifting of hands in righteous
horror at people who broke or were even rumored to have broken
the Seventh Commandment. He did not take this talk seriously.
Already he had broken it secretly many times. Other young men did.
Yet again, he was a little sick of the women of the streets and the
bagnio. There were too many coarse, evil features in connection
with such contacts. For a little while, the false tinsel-glitter
of the house of ill repute appealed to him, for there was a certain
force to its luxury--rich, as a rule, with red-plush furniture,
showy red hangings, some coarse but showily-framed pictures, and,
above all, the strong-bodied or sensuously lymphatic women who
dwelt there, to (as his mother phrased it) prey on men. The strength
of their bodies, the lust of their souls, the fact that they could,
with a show of affection or good-nature, receive man after man,
astonished and later disgusted him. After all, they were not smart.
There was no vivacity of thought there. All that they could do,
in the main, he fancied, was this one thing. He pictured to himself
the dreariness of the mornings after, the stale dregs of things
when only sleep and thought of gain could aid in the least; and
more than once, even at his age, he shook his head. He wanted
contact which was more intimate, subtle, individual, personal.
So came Lillian Semple, who was nothing more to him than the shadow
of an ideal. Yet she cleared up certain of his ideas in regard to
women. She was not physically as vigorous or brutal as those other
women whom he had encountered in the lupanars, thus far--raw,
unashamed contraveners of accepted theories and notions--and for
that very reason he liked her. And his thoughts continued to dwell
on her, notwithstanding the hectic days which now passed like
flashes of light in his new business venture. For this stock
exchange world in which he now found himself, primitive as it
would seem to-day, was most fascinating to Cowperwood. The room
that he went to in Third Street, at Dock, where the brokers or
their agents and clerks gathered one hundred and fifty strong,
was nothing to speak of artistically--a square chamber sixty by
sixty, reaching from the second floor to the roof of a four-story
building; but it was striking to him. The windows were high and
narrow; a large-faced clock faced the west entrance of the room
where you came in from the stairs; a collection of telegraph
instruments, with their accompanying desks and chairs, occupied
the northeast corner. On the floor, in the early days of the
exchange, were rows of chairs where the brokers sat while various
lots of stocks were offered to them. Later in the history of the
exchange the chairs were removed and at different points posts or
floor-signs indicating where certain stocks were traded in were
introduced. Around these the men who were interested gathered to
do their trading. From a hall on the third floor a door gave
entrance to a visitor's gallery, small and poorly furnished; and
on the west wall a large blackboard carried current quotations in
stocks as telegraphed from New York and Boston. A wicket-like
fence in the center of the room surrounded the desk and chair of
the official recorder; and a very small gallery opening from the
third floor on the west gave place for the secretary of the board,
when he had any special announcement to make. There was a room
off the southwest corner, where reports and annual compendiums of
chairs were removed and at different signs indicating where certain
stocks of various kinds were kept and were available for the use of
members.
Young Cowperwood would not have been admitted at all, as either a
broker or broker's agent or assistant, except that Tighe, feeling
that he needed him and believing that he would be very useful,
bought him a seat on 'change--charging the two thousand dollars it
cost as a debt and then ostensibly taking him into partnership.
It was against the rules of the exchange to sham a partnership in
this way in order to put a man on the floor, but brokers did it.
These men who were known to be minor partners and floor assistants
were derisively called "eighth chasers" and "two-dollar brokers,"
because they were always seeking small orders and were willing to
buy or sell for anybody on their commission, accounting, of course,
to their firms for their work. Cowperwood, regardless of his
intrinsic merits, was originally counted one of their number, and
he was put under the direction of Mr. Arthur Rivers, the regular
floor man of Tighe & Company.
Rivers was an exceedingly forceful man of thirty-five, well-dressed,
well-formed, with a hard, smooth, evenly chiseled face, which was
ornamented by a short, black mustache and fine, black, clearly
penciled eyebrows. His hair came to an odd point at the middle of
his forehead, where he divided it, and his chin was faintly and
attractively cleft. He had a soft voice, a quiet, conservative
manner, and both in and out of this brokerage and trading world
was controlled by good form. Cowperwood wondered at first why
Rivers should work for Tighe--he appeared almost as able--but
afterward learned that he was in the company. Tighe was the
organizer and general hand-shaker, Rivers the floor and outside
man.
It was useless, as Frank soon found, to try to figure out exactly
why stocks rose and fell. Some general reasons there were, of
course, as he was told by Tighe, but they could not always be
depended on.
"Sure, anything can make or break a market"--Tighe explained in
his delicate brogue--"from the failure of a bank to the rumor that
your second cousin's grandmother has a cold. It's a most unusual
world, Cowperwood. No man can explain it. I've seen breaks in
stocks that you could never explain at all--no one could. It
wouldn't be possible to find out why they broke. I've seen rises
the same way. My God, the rumors of the stock exchange! They beat
the devil. If they're going down in ordinary times some one is
unloading, or they're rigging the market. If they're going up--
God knows times must be good or somebody must be buying--that's
sure. Beyond that--well, ask Rivers to show you the ropes. Don't
you ever lose for me, though. That's the cardinal sin in this
office." He grinned maliciously, even if kindly, at that.
Cowperwood understood--none better. This subtle world appealed
to him. It answered to his temperament.
There were rumors, rumors, rumors--of great railway and street-car
undertakings, land developments, government revision of the tariff,
war between France and Turkey, famine in Russia or Ireland, and
so on. The first Atlantic cable had not been laid as yet, and
news of any kind from abroad was slow and meager. Still there
were great financial figures in the held, men who, like Cyrus
Field, or William H. Vanderbilt, or F. X. Drexel, were doing
marvelous things, and their activities and the rumors concerning
them counted for much.
Frank soon picked up all of the technicalities of the situation.
A "bull," he learned, was one who bought in anticipation of a higher
price to come; and if he was "loaded up" with a "line" of stocks
he was said to be "long." He sold to "realize" his profit, or if
his margins were exhausted he was "wiped out." A "bear" was one
who sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in
anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy
his previous sales. He was "short" when he had sold what he did
not own, and he "covered" when he bought to satisfy his sales and
to realize his profits or to protect himself against further loss
in case prices advanced instead of declining. He was in a "corner"
when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the
stock he had borrowed for delivery and the return of which had
been demanded. He was then obliged to settle practically at a
price fixed by those to whom he and other "shorts" had sold.
He smiled at first at the air of great secrecy and wisdom on the
part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly
suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They
pretended indifference, uncertainty. They were like certain fish
after a certain kind of bait, however. Snap! and the opportunity
was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had
their little note-books. All had their peculiar squint of eye or
position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes they
seemed scarcely to confirm their sales or purchases--they knew
each other so well--but they did. If the market was for any reason
active, the brokers and their agents were apt to be more numerous
than if it were dull and the trading indifferent. A gong sounded
the call to trading at ten o'clock, and if there was a noticeable
rise or decline in a stock or a group of stocks, you were apt to
witness quite a spirited scene. Fifty to a hundred men would
shout, gesticulate, shove here and there in an apparently aimless
marmer; endeavoring to take advantage of the stock offered or called
for.
"Five-eighths for five hundred P. and W.," some one would call--
Rivers or Cowperwood, or any other broker.
Five hundred at three-fourths," would come the reply from some
one else, who either had an order to sell the stock at that price
or who was willing to sell it short, hoping to pick up enough of
the stock at a lower figure later to fill his order and make a
little something besides. If the supply of stock at that figure
was large Rivers would probably continue to bid five-eighths. If,
on the other hand, he noticed an increasing demand, he would
probably pay three-fourths for it. If the professional traders
believed Rivers had a large buying order, they would probably try
to buy the stock before he could at three-fourths, believing they
could sell it out to him at a slightly higher price. The
professional traders were, of course, keen students of psychology;
and their success depended on their ability to guess whether or
not a broker representing a big manipulator, like Tighe, had an
order large enough to affect the market sufficiently to give them
an opportunity to "get in and out," as they termed it, at a profit
before he had completed the execution of his order. They were
like hawks watching for an opportunity to snatch their prey from
under the very claws of their opponents.
Four, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and
sometimes the whole company would attempt to take advantage of the
given rise of a given stock by either selling or offering to buy,
in which case the activity and the noise would become deafening.
Given groups might be trading in different things; but the large
majority of them would abandon what they were doing in order to
take advantage of a speciality. The eagerness of certain young
brokers or clerks to discover all that was going on, and to take
advantage of any given rise or fall, made for quick physical action,
darting to and fro, the excited elevation of explanatory fingers.
Distorted faces were shoved over shoulders or under arms. The
most ridiculous grimaces were purposely or unconsciously indulged
in. At times there were situations in which some individual was
fairly smothered with arms, faces, shoulders, crowded toward him
when he manifested any intention of either buying or selling at a
profitable rate. At first it seemed quite a wonderful thing to
young Cowperwood--the very physical face of it--for he liked human
presence and activity; but a little later the sense of the thing
as a picture or a dramatic situation, of which he was a part faded,
and he came down to a clearer sense of the intricacies of the
problem before him. Buying and selling stocks, as he soon learned,
was an art, a subtlety, almost a psychic emotion. Suspicion,
intuition, feeling--these were the things to be "long" on.
Yet in time he also asked himself, who was it who made the real
money--the stock-brokers? Not at all. Some of them were making
money, but they were, as he quickly saw, like a lot of gulls or
stormy petrels, hanging on the lee of the wind, hungry and anxious
to snap up any unwary fish. Back of them were other men, men with
shrewd ideas, subtle resources. Men of immense means whose
enterprise and holdings these stocks represented, the men who
schemed out and built the railroads, opened the mines, organized
trading enterprises, and built up immense manufactories. They might
use brokers or other agents to buy and sell on 'change; but this
buying and selling must be, and always was, incidental to the
actual fact--the mine, the railroad, the wheat crop, the flour
mill, and so on. Anything less than straight-out sales to realize
quickly on assets, or buying to hold as an investment, was gambling
pure and simple, and these men were gamblers. He was nothing more
than a gambler's agent. It was not troubling him any just at this
moment, but it was not at all a mystery now, what he was. As in
the case of Waterman & Company, he sized up these men shrewdly,
judging some to be weak, some foolish, some clever, some slow, but
in the main all small-minded or deficient because they were agents,
tools, or gamblers. A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a
tool, or a gambler--acting for himself or for others--he must employ
such. A real man--a financier--was never a tool. He used tools.
He created. He led.
Clearly, very clearly, at nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one years
of age, he saw all this, but he was not quite ready yet to do
anything about it. He was certain, however, that his day would
come. _