Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-10
written for The Star.

Of eountenance with which he had entered
the Office daily for more than twenty years.
With the usual air of frowning preoccupa-
ton that made him laboriously oblivious OF
all the humility of the awed clerks and the
eager smiles of waiting visitors, he strobe
into his private Office at the end Of the
long, open banking room and slammed the
door behind him. Soon his bell rang as 1t
had rung every morning for twenty years.
to summon one of his chattels-office boy.
bookkeeper. manager or partner-into his
presence to have his soul withered by
fierce. contemptuous denunciation.
This time it was the Office manager who
was selected by the tinkling Chooser of the
Slain, while the rest of the banking force
heaved one universal sigh of relief; very
much as at that moment tribe of BUSH
men In central Africa may have heaved
similar sigh when their priest-chief had at
last selected the one who was to be the
sacrifice to an angry god.
The wicked eyes of the Great Ffnancier,
bisonlike even to the little tlnge OF bright
red in the low-hanging corners, nailed the
poor manager for five long minutes, while
criticism Of the entire office system from
copying press to stenographers. was spat
at him.
And now" concluded the chief, swinging
around to his desk and pointedly dismissing
the fact that there was any creature like
a manager in the world of created things.
Il want you to send me new stenographer
when ring for one. That's ALL"
The office manager backed out softly,
closed the door gently, assumed stern
air of command, and treated the office
boys to a highly creditable imitation of
the simeon that had just turned him pale
to the lips.
In the private Office the Great Financier,
having glanced sharply to see that the door
was shut. furtively took a mirror out of
q and 1nrl yA1 =
Not a Beauty.
The face that looked back at him was
not pretty. 1t justified the remark that a
financial enemy had made once, that 1t
looked as If 1t had been roughly hammered
out of pumice stone with mighty poor
hammer. The bison-eyes were surrounded
by puffy skin. 1.-The great nose full of
strength, was so carelessly adjusted by an
otherwise careful Providence that it seemed
to point half dozen ways at once.
He was not accustomed to deceivins him.
self about many things. SeIf-deception is
incompatible with the supreme work of man
IN the world, which is making money, and
to this work he had consecrated himself
But In sheer self-defense he had to deceive
himself on one point and that was on the
point of looks. though deep in a corner of
ms heart he may have known that for all
his Russian sables and priceless clothes and
wonderful linen, he looked like a tough cab
man of the nighthawk variety
Presently he rang his bell and in came
new stenographer. Her appearance did not
surprise the Great Financier a bit. He had
seen her the moment he entered the Office,
as he had seen everything else in 1t, with
those saVagely oblivious eyes,
He began to dictate to her gruff1y AS
she wrote he looked at her brown head
There were liquid golden lights on it, like
the sunlight that laughs at the bottom of
shallow brown brooks in the woods. 1t
made him think of the line in Maud
My bird with the shining head
and that was the first time he had ever
thought there was anything in that fellow
Tennyson.
Fair to Look Upon.
The girl had long eyelashes, and he could
see them and the fair curve of her cheek
as she bent her head over her notes. Sud
denly she locked up, frightened, because she
had missed the exact words of sentence
At the sudden look the Great Financier felt
himself getting so embarrassed that he bit
furiously at a cigar, stammered, and finally
said, helplessly:
That's ALL"
That morning he had rolled through the
streets with only one thought. 1t was to
lick" and wipe out" an fnsoIent western
Scoundrel who had the effrontery to appear
in his own Wall street preserves and play
at his own game. All Wall street had been
at the frightful impudence of the man who
could dare to think of such a thing as
boarding the king. For days all the minor
fnanciers had been talking in aWed tones
of the battle of giants that was to come
AS a matter of fact Wall street did not
know anything about 1t, which Is not at all
an unusual matter; for a little coterie that
fondly imagines that 1t is the pulse of the
country every time some more or less bogus
paper stock goes up or down in price is not
at all likely to have sane points of view
about anything.
Long ago, in the beginning of things, Wall
street and Lombard street and all their
nieces and cousins and aunts learned that If
the investors were encouraged to use COM
mon sense the great financial interests of
the stock exchanges and bourses would be
reduced to the onerous necessity of earning
money instead of making It, Thus COM
mon sense became an article tabooed so
successfully that at last (alSp long, long
ago now common sense fed from the great
financial interests themselves.
How He Worked It.
So Wall street just then worshiped the
Great Financier, though everybody knew
right well that he was only a swollen bully,
who was strong because he had laid out
beautiful wide driveway through the nasty
criminal code.
Instead of taking other peoples money
and putting 1t ciumsiiy into his own safe,
which would have been vulgar stealing, he
bought nice old, rubbishy stocks cheap,
threw them on the market, and then Dor
rowed other peoples money from banks and
trust companies with which that stock was
promptly bought at greatly advanced prices,
owing to the sudden buying demand that
sprang up the minute the hungry money
struck the street"
The new bully from the west didn't have
such good machinery. 1t takes time to
build 1t up, even in Wall street. So common
sense would have told every one that the
battle of the giants was more likely to
be a game of blackmail and bluff, and that
the swollen Financier would never risk
battle. If he couldn't beat the new bully
in the first hot engagement the new bully
would win his point, which. most palpably.
was to be taken into some of the good
things of the preserves.
The new bully had a beautifully simple
weapon that embarrassed the acute minds
of the street not a little. He told lies
great wonderful, patent lies. He lied by
word or mouth and In print. He lied in
private and in public, by word and deed.
At first the street thought that he was
easy" Most liars are. So the street
tried the innocent expedient of specializing
that the exact contrary of the lie would be
the truth, and--got horribly bitten. Lies are
so complex. This mans lies were parlicu-
Iarly so. Henry James could have written
a whole novel full Of utterly uninteligtble
analysis about any one OF the dozens that