Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-10
Jefferson Thorpe, Home-To Hero,
Was a Master Mind While 1t Lasted

because Cuba being so near to New
York the mail is all distributed from
there. I suppose in; some financial
circles they might have been slower,
but these Cubans, you know. have got
a sort of Spanish warmth OF heart
that touches you.
No, they asked no guarantee. Just
send the money--whether by express
order or by bank draft Of check, they
left that entirely to oneself. as mat.
ter between Cuban gentlemen.
And they were quite frank about
their enterprise-bananas and tobacco
in the plantation district reclaimed
from the insurrectos. You could see
it all there in the pictures-the to-
bacco plants and the insurrectos--
everything. They made no rash prom.
ises, just admitted straight out that
the enterprise might realize 400 per
cent or might conceivably make less.
There was no hint Of more.
So within a month. everybody in
Mariposa knew that jeff Thorpe was
''in Cuban lands" and would probably
clean up 100000 by New Year.
liked 1t about JEFF that he didn't
stop shaving. He went on just the
same. Even when johnson, the livery
stable man, came in with $500 and
asked him to see IL the Cuban board
of directors would let him put It in,
jeff laid 1t in the drawer and then
shaved him for s cents, in the same
old way.
+ OF course, he must have felt proud
when, few days later, he got a letter
from the Cuban people. from New
York. accepting Johnson's money
straight off without single question.
One reason. perhaps, why JEFF didn't
give up shaving was because it al
lowed him to talk about Cuba. You
see, that spread round him kind e
halo of wealth and mystery and out
landishness-oh, something Spanish.
This Cubey. 1t appears. is an is
land" jeff would explain. OF course,
everybody knows how easily islands
lend themselves to making money
land for fruit, they say it comes up so
fast you can't stop it."
Did I say that JEFF shaved in the
same old way? Not quite. There was
something even DREAMER about 1t
now, and a sort Of new element in the
way jeff fell out Of his monotone into
lapses Of thought that I, for one, mis-
understood. 1 thought. that perhaps
getting SO much honeywell, you
know the way it acts on people in the
larger cities.
In fact, I had perhaps borne him a
grudge for what seemed to me his
perpetual interest in the great CAPT.
talists. He always had some item out
Of the paper about them.
81 see where this here Carnegie has
given $4,000 for one Of them observa-
tories" he would say.
And another day he would pause In
the course Of shaving. and almost
whisper: did you ever see this
Rockefeller"
1t was only by a sort of accident
that I came to know that there was
another side to Jefferson's speculation
that no one in Mariposa ever knew. or
will ever know now.
I knew it because I went in to see
JEFF in his house one night. The house
Il think l said-stood out behind the
barber shop.
There was round table and beside
1t jeff would sit, with his spectacles
on and the paper spread out, reading
about Carnegie and Rockefeller. Near
him, but away from the table, was
the woman doing needlework, and
Myra, when she wasn't working in the
telephone exchange, was there, too.
with her elbows on the table reading
Marie Corelli-only now, of course,
after the fortune, she was reading the
prospectuses Of dramatic schools.
So this night don't know just
what is was in the paper that caused
it-Jeff laid down what he was reading
and started to talk about Carnegie.
This Carnegie. / bet you. would
be WORTH" said jeff, closing his
eyes in calculation. las much as per-
haps two million dollars. IL you was
to sell him up. And this Rockefeller
and this Morgan, either of them, to
sell them up clean. would be worth
another couple Of million"
may say in parenthesis that 1t
was a favorite method in Mariposa IL
you wanted to get at the real worth
Of q man, to imagine him clean sold
up. put up for auction, as it were.
1t was the only way to test him.
"And now look at EN-" JEFF went
on. "They make their money and
what do they do with 1t? They give
it away. And who do they give 1t
to?. Why. to those as don't want 1t,
every time. They give 1t to these
professors ana to this research and