XI
When Greek Meets Greek
Smith allowed himself ten brief seconds for a swift eye-measuring of thesquare-shouldered, stockily built man with a gray face and stubblymustache sitting in the chair of authority at the Brewster City Nationalbefore he chose his line of attack.
"We are not going to cut very deeply into your time this morning, Mr.Kinzie," he began when the eye-appraisal had given him his cue. "Youknow the history of Timanyoni Ditch up to the present, and you have nodoubt had your own misgivings about the wisdom of its financing on sucha small scale, and as a purely local enterprise. Others have had thesame misgivings, and--well, to cut out the details, there is to be acomplete reorganization of the company on a new basis, and we are hereto offer to take your personal allotment of the stock off your hands atpar for cash. Colonel Baldwin has stipulated that his friends in theoriginal deal must be protected, and----"
"Here, here--hold on," interrupted the bank president; "you're hittingit up a little bit too fast for me, Mr. Smith. Before we get down to anytalk of buying and selling, suppose you tell me something about yourselfand your new company. Who are you? and whereabouts do you hold forthwhen you are at home?"
Smith laughed easily. "If we were trying to borrow money of you, wemight have to go into preliminaries and particulars, Mr. Kinzie. As itis, I'm sure you are not going to press for the answers to these verynatural questions of yours. Further than that, we shall have to ask youto hold anything that may be said here in strict confidence--as betweena banker and his customer. We are not alone in the fight for thewater-rights on the other side of the river, as you know, and until weare safely fortified we shall have to be prudently cautious. But that isanother matter. What we want to know now is this: will you let usprotect you by taking your Timanyoni Ditch stock at par? That's theprincipal question at issue just now."
Kinzie met the issue fairly. "I don't know you yet, Mr. Smith; but I doknow Colonel Baldwin, here, and I guess I'll take a chance on things asthey stand. I'll keep my stock."
The new secretary's smile was rather patronizing than grateful.
"As you please, Mr. Kinzie, of course," he said smoothly. "But I'm goingto tell you frankly that you'll keep it at your own risk. I am not surewhat plan will be adopted, but I assume it will be amortization and aretirement of the stock of the original company. All that we need toenable us to bring this about is the voting control of the old stock,and we already have that, as you know."
The banker pursed his lips until the stubbly gray mustache stood outstiffly. Then he cut straight to the heart of the matter.
"You mean that there will be a majority pool of the old stock, and thatthe pool will ignore those stockholders who don't come in?"
"Something like that," said Smith pleasantly. And then: "We're going tobe generously liberal, Mr. Kinzie; we are giving Colonel Baldwin'sfriends a fair chance to come in out of the wet. Of course, if theyrefuse to come in--if they prefer to stay out----"
Kinzie was smiling sourly.
"You'll have to take care of your own banker, won't you, Mr. Smith?" heasked. "Why don't you loosen up and tell me a little more? What haveyou fellows got up your sleeve, anyway?"
At this, the new financial manager slacked off on the hawser of secrecya little--just a little.
"Mr. Kinzie, we've got the biggest thing, and the surest, that ever cameto Timanyoni Park; not in futures, mind you, but in facts already asgood as accomplished. If it were necessary--as it isn't--I could go toNew York to-day and put a million dollars behind our reorganization planin twenty-four hours. You'd say so, yourself, if I were at liberty toexplain. But again we're dodging and wasting your time and ours. Thinkthe matter over--about your stock--and let me know before noon. It'srather cruel to hurry you so, but time is precious with us and----"
"You sit right down there, young man, and put a little of this precioustime of yours against mine," said Kinzie, pointing authoritatively atthe chair which Smith had just vacated. "You mustn't go off athalf-cock, that way. You'll need a bank here to do business with, won'tyou?"
Smith did not sit down. Instead, he smiled genially and fired his finalshot.
"No, Mr. Kinzie; we shan't need a local bank--not as a matter ofabsolute necessity. In fact, on some accounts, I don't know but that itwould be better for us not to have one."
"Sit down," insisted the bank president; and this time he would take nodenial. Then he turned abruptly upon Baldwin, who had been playing hispart of the silent listener letter-perfect.
"Baldwin, we are old friends, and I'd trust you to the limit--on anyproposition that doesn't ask for more than straight-from-the-shoulderhonesty. How much is this young friend of ours talking through his hat?"
"Not any, whatever, Dave. He's got the goods." Baldwin was wise enoughto limit himself carefully as to quantity in his reply.
"It's straight, is it? No gold-brick business?"
"So straight that if we can't pay twenty per cent on what money we putin, I'll throw up my three thousand acres over yonder on Little Creekand go back to cow-punching."
Again the banker made a comical bristle brush of his cropped mustache.
"I want your business, Dexter; I've got to have it. But I'm going to beplain with you. You two are asking me to believe that you've goneoutside and dug up a new bunch of backers. That may be all right, butTimanyoni Ditch has struck a pretty big bone that maybe your newbackers know about--and maybe they don't. You've had a lot of bad luck,so far; getting your land titles cleared, and all that; and you're goingto have more. I've----"
It was Smith's turn again and he cut in smartly.
"That is precisely what I was driving at. Our banker can't run with thehare and hunt with the hounds. You'll excuse me if I say that youhaven't been altogether fair with Timanyoni Ditch, or with ColonelBaldwin, Mr. Kinzie. A friendly banker doesn't help sell out hiscustomer. You know that, as well as I do. Still, you did it."
Kinzie threw up his hands and tried to defend himself. "It was astraight business transaction, Mr. Smith. As long as we're in thebanking business, we buy and sell for anybody who comes along."
"No, we don't, Mr. Kinzie; we protect our customers first. In thepresent instance you thought your customer was a dead one, anyway, so itwouldn't make much difference if you should throw another shovelful ofdirt or so onto the coffin. Wasn't that the way of it?"
The president was fairly pushed to the ropes and he showed it.
"Answer me one question, both of you," he snapped. "Are you big enoughto fight for your own hand against Stanton's crowd?"
"You'll see; and the sight is going to cost you something," said Smith,and the blandest oil could have been no smoother than his tone.
"Is that right, Dexter?"
"That's the way it looks to me, Dave," said the ranchman capitalist,who, whatever might be his limitations in the field of high finance, wasnot lacking the nerve to fight unquestioning in any partner's quarrel.
The president of the Brewster City National turned back to Smith.
"What do you want, Mr. Smith?" he asked, not too cordially.
"Nothing that you'd give us, I guess; a little business loyalty, for onething----"
"And a checking balance for immediate necessities for another?"suggested the banker.
With all his trained astuteness--trained in Kinzie's own school, atthat--Smith could not be sure that the gray-faced old Westerner was notsetting a final trap for him, after all. But he took the risk, saying,with a decent show of indifference: "Of course, it would be moreconvenient here than in Denver or Chicago. But there is no hurry aboutthat part of it."
The president took a slip of paper from a pigeonhole and wrote rapidlyupon it. Once more his optimism was locking horns with prudent caution.It was the optimism, however, that was driving the pen. Baldwin's wordwas worth something, and it might be disastrous to let these two getaway without anchoring them solidly to the Brewster City National.
"Sign this, you two," he said. "I don't know even the name of your
newoutfit yet, but I'll take a chance on one piece of two-name paper,anyhow."
Smith took up the slip and glanced at it. It was an accommodation notefor twenty thousand dollars. With the money fairly in his hands, hepaused to drive the nail of independence squarely home before he wouldsign.
"We don't want this at all, Mr. Kinzie, unless the bank's good-willcomes with it," he said with becoming gravity.
"I'll stand with you," was the brusque rejoinder. "But it's only fair toyou both to say that you've got the biggest kind of a combination tobuck you--a national utilities corporation with the strongest sort ofpolitical backing."
"I doubt if you can tell us anything that we don't already know," saidSmith coolly, as he put his name on the note; and when Baldwin hadsigned: "Let this go to the credit of Timanyoni Ditch, if you please,Mr. Kinzie, and we'll transfer it later. It's quite possible that weshan't need it, but we are willing to help out a little on your discountprofits, anyway. Further along, when things shape themselves up a bitmore definitely, you shall know all there is to know, and we'll give youjust as good a chance to make money as you'll give us."
When they were safely out of the bank and half a square away from it,Dexter Baldwin pushed his hat back and mopped his forehead. "They say aman can't sweat at this altitude," he remarked. "I'm here to tell you,Smith, that I've lost ten pounds in the last ten minutes. Where in thename of the jumping Jehoshaphat did you get your nerve, boy? You standto lose an even hundred-and-fifty-dollar bill on this deal; don't youknow that?"
"How so?" asked the plunger.
"I'd have bet you that much against the old campaign hat you're wearingthat you couldn't 'touch' Dave Kinzie for twenty dollars--let alonetwenty thousand--in a month of Sundays! You made him believe we'd gotoutside backing from somewhere."
"I didn't say anything like that, did I?"
"No; but you opened the door and he walked in."
"That's all right: I'm not responsible for Mr. Kinzie's imagination. Wewere obliged to have a little advertising capital; we couldn't turn awheel without it. Now that we have it, we'll get busy. We've got tofurnish a new suite of offices, install a bigger office force,incorporate Timanyoni High Line, and open its stock subscription books,all practically while the band plays. Time is the one thing we can'twaste. Put me in touch with a good business lawyer and I'll start thelegal machinery. Then you can get into your car and go around andinterview your crowd, man by man. I want to know exactly where we standwith the old stockholders before we make any move in public. Can you dothat?"
Baldwin lifted his hat and shoved his fingers through his hair.
"I reckon I can; there are only sixty or seventy of 'em. And BobStillings is your lawyer. Come around the corner and I'll introduceyou."
The Real Man Page 11