The Stoic tod-3 Page 9

  Chapter 18

  The offices of Rider, Bullock, Johnson & Chance, as well as that of Lord Stane, were in one of the dingiest sections of Storey Street, adjacent to the Inns of Court. In fact, the whole region, except for the Inns of Court, would be regarded by Americans as most inappropriate housing for distinguished legal talent. Small, remodeled three- and four-story residences or one-time lofts and stores now contained offices, libraries, consulting chambers, for as many as a dozen solicitors, their stenographers, clerks, errand boys, and other assistants.

  Storey Street itself was so narrow as almost to forbid the companionable stroll of two pedestrians arm in arm. As for the roadway proper, it might admit the easy passage of two pushcarts, but by no means two vehicles of any greater size. Yet through this lane poured a veritable host of workers, including those who used it for a quick cut to the Strand and adjacent thoroughfares.

  The firm of Rider, Bullock, Johnson & Chance occupied all of the four floors of 33 Storey Street, a building no more than twenty-three feet wide, though fifty feet deep. The ground floor, originally the reception and living room of the residence of a singularly retiring judge of a preceding generation, was now the general reception room and library. Lord Stane occupied a small office in the rear of first floor; the second floor was given over to the three most important members of the firm: Rider, Johnson, and Bullock. Chance, along with the various assistants, occupied the third floor. Elverson Johnson’s office, at the extreme rear of the second floor, looked down on a small court. Its cobbled paving had once been part of an ancient Roman courtyard, but its historic luster was dimmed by too great familiarity for those who were compelled to contemplate it day after day.

  There was no elevator, or “lift,” to use the English term. A fairly large air shaft extended from the middle of the second floor to the roof. The offices were also equipped with a rather antique form of air wheel, which was supposed to add to the oxygenization of the air within. In addition, each room contained a fireplace—in which soft coal was burned throughout the foggy, rainy days of winter—and this added immensely to the comfort as well as charm of these interiors. In each solicitor’s room were spacious and well-made desks and chairs, and a white marble mantelpiece on which stood books or bits of statuary. The walls were hung with rather dusty engravings of bygone English legal lights or bits of British scenery.

  Johnson, the authoritative and financially ambitious member of the firm was, in the main, a practical person, and followed, for the most part, an individual course that would be most advantageous to his personal plans. In one corner of his mind, however, was a complex which led him to speculate on the value of religion and even sympathize with the advancement of the nonconformist doctrines. He was given to meditating upon the hypocrisy and spiritual stagnation of the High Church party, and also upon the earthly as well as heavenly significance of such famous religionists as John Knox, William Penn, George Fox, and John Wesley. In his complicated and curious mental cosmos, he sheltered obviously rival and even antagonistic notions. He felt that there should be a ruling class which should advance and maintain itself by a desirable if not always justifiable cunning. Since in England this class was already buttressed by laws of property, inheritance, and primogeniture, it was important, correct, and all but unalterable. Hence the poor in mind as well as substance might best trust themselves to obedience, hard work, and a faith in a Heavenly Father who would, in the last analysis—perhaps—look after them. On the other hand, the immense gulf between not always witless poverty and unearned wealth seemed to him cruel and almost evil. This viewpoint supported his more urgent religious moods, which verged at times upon the sanctimonious.

  Though he had come out of the lesser world of the socially weak and ineffective, he was ever aspiring to those upper walks where, if not he, then his children—two sons and one daughter—would be as secure as those whom he so greatly admired and criticized. In fact, he was aspiring to a title for himself: an unpretentious “Sir” to begin with, which later, if luck favored him, might be accentuated by further royal consideration. To win to that, as he well knew, he must not only secure more money than he now had, but also the favor of those who possessed money and title. In consequence, he intuitively attuned his actions to the ambitions and welfare of the members of that class.

  He was small, pompous, wiry, authoritative. His father, a bibulous carpenter of Southwark, had wretchedly maintained a family of seven. Young Johnson was apprenticed to a baker, for whom he delivered bread. His diligence attracted the attention of a customer who was a printer, and by him he was taken on as a “devil” and encouraged to read and fix his mind on some practical line of work which would lift him out of the drab and miserable state in which he then moved. And Johnson was an eager pupil. Delivering printed matter to all manner of merchants and tradesmen, he finally came in contact with a young solicitor, Luther Fletcher by name, who, campaigning to represent one of the Southwark divisions in the London County Council, found in young Johnson, then not more than twenty years old, one who interested him as a legal possibility. His inquisitiveness and industry so fascinated Fletcher that he sent him to night school for the study of law.

  From that point on, Johnson’s affairs prospered. The firm to which he was ultimately articled was not long in being impressed with his intuitive legal sense, and he was soon undertaking most of the detail work of the phases of law in which this firm was interested: contracts, property rights, wills, and the organization of companies. At the age of twenty-two, he passed the necessary examinations and was admitted solicitor. At twenty-three he encountered Mr. Byron Chance, of Bullock & Chance, solicitors, who offered him a partnership in that firm.

  Bullock, a man of standing with the barristers of the Inns of Court, had for a friend one Wellington Rider, a solicitor of even more influential connections than himself. Rider managed the affairs of a number of large estates, among them that of the Earl of Stane, as well as the legal business of the District Railway. Also becoming interested in Johnson, he was seriously moved to persuade him to leave Bullock and join up with him. However, both self-interest and friendship dictated that he seek some other way of obtaining Johnson’s services. A talk with Bullock finally brought about the present legal union, which had now lasted for ten years.

  With Rider came Gordon Roderick, Lord Stane, eldest son of the Earl of Stane. At that time Stane was fresh from Cambridge and, his father thought, properly equipped to succeed to the paternal dignities. Actually, however, because of certain quirks and idiosyncrasies of temperament, the young man was more concerned with the practical and decidedly unhistoric phases of the world about him. He had come into the world just when the luster and supremacy of mere title were not only being questioned but, in many instances, overshadowed by financial genius. At Cambridge he was an interested student of economics, politics, sociology, and inclined to give ear to the socialists of the Fabian school, without by any means losing consciousness of his prospective inheritance. Encountering Rider, himself interested almost solely in the immense companies which he was constantly being called upon to represent, Stane was easily converted to Rider’s view that the real lords of the future would be financiers. What the world needed was advanced material equipment, and the financier who devoted himself to supplying that need would be the greatest factor in society’s progression.

  It was with such thoughts in his mind that Stane pursued the study of English company law in the office of Rider, Bullock, Johnson & Chance. And one of his chief intimacies was with Elverson Johnson. In Johnson he saw a shrewd commoner with a determination to rise to high places, while in Stane, Johnson recognized an inheritor of social and financial privilege who yet chose to inform and bestir himself in practical pursuits.

  Both Johnson and Stane had from the first recognized the enormous possibilities of the London underground traction field, and their interest was by no means confined to the formation of the Traffic Electrical Company, of which, in its origin, they formed the nucleu
s. When the City and South London, with its up-to-date construction, was first proposed, they and their friends put money into it, with the understanding that a combination of the two old lines then threading the heart of London—the Metropolitan and the District—was to be considered. Like Demosthenes addressing the Athenians, Johnson persisted in his belief that whoever could find the money to pick up enough of the ordinary stock of these two lines to provide a 51 per cent control, could calmly announce himself in charge and thereafter do as he pleased with them.

  After his father’s death, Stane and some of his friends, together with Johnson, sought to buy a control of the ordinary stock of the District, hoping in this way to gain control of both roads, but it had all proven too much for them. There was too much stock outstanding, and they could not get together enough money. Therefore, since the management was unprogressive and the stock did not pay well, they had resold a large part of what they had acquired.

  And as for the still unconstructed Charing Cross line, to promote which they had formed the Traffic Electrical Company, they had never been able to raise enough money or resell enough of the printed shares to provide the £1,660,000 needed to build it. At last, through Greaves and Henshaw, they had been seeking to find a financier, or group of financiers, who would either take this Charing Cross line off their hands or unite with them in their dream to take over the Metropolitan and the District.

  But so far, nothing had come of this. Johnson by this time was forty-seven and Lord Stane forty, and both had become a little weary and more than slightly dubious of this great task.

  Chapter 19

  Into this situation, and into the office of Elverson Johnson, enter Mr. Jarkins and Mr. Kloorfain, desiring to confer with Mr. Johnson on a highly important matter. It related to the Messrs. Greaves and Henshaw, who had recently gone to New York, as Mr. Johnson probably knew, to confer with their client, Mr. Frank Cowperwood, whom Mr. Johnson knew, of course.

  Mr. Johnson admitted that he had heard of him. And what could he do for these gentlemen?

  It was one of London’s best spring mornings. Sunshine poured down on the cobbled Roman pavement below. Johnson, when they entered, had been stirring in a basket of briefs relating to a certain damage suit against the City and South London. And he was in a cheerful mood because the day was warm and bright; there had been a slight rise in the shares of the District; and a very earnest speech which he had delivered the day before to the International Epworth League had been favorably mentioned by not less than two of the morning papers.

  “I’ll be as brief as possible,” began Jarkins, who, arrayed in a gray suit, a gray silk shirt, a brilliant blue and white tie, a derby and a cane in his hand, was surveying Johnson with an inquiring eye, and deciding that his task would not be easy. Johnson was plainly a canny individual.

  “You must understand, of course, Mr. Johnson,” went on Jarkins, smiling his best smile, “this visit of ours is unauthorized as far as Mr. Cowperwood is concerned. But I believe you will grant the importance of it, just the same. As you know, Greaves and Henshaw have been dealing with Traffic Electrical, for which I believe you act as solicitor.”

  “One of the solicitors,” said Mr. Johnson, cautiously. “But it has been some time since I’ve been consulted by them.”

  “Quite so, quite so,” returned Jarkins, “but I think you will be interested, nevertheless. You see, ours was the firm that brought Greaves and Henshaw and Mr. Cowperwood together. As you know, Mr. Cowperwood is an extremely wealthy man. He has been active in all kinds of traction matters in America. And he is rumored to be closing out his Chicago holdings for not less than twenty millions.”

  At the mention of this sum, Mr. Johnson pricked up his ears. Traffic was traffic—Chicago, London, or elsewhere—and a man who knew enough about it to have extracted twenty million dollars out of it must have some definite knowledge of what he was about. His interest was immediately apparent to Jarkins.

  “That may be true,” bluffed Mr. Johnson, a little testily, and seemingly unimpressed, “but just what has that to do with me? You must remember that I am merely one of the solicitors for Traffic Electrical, and have nothing whatsoever to do with either Mr. Greaves or Mr. Henshaw.”

  “But you are interested in the London underground situation in general, or so Mr. Kloorfain tells me,” persisted Jarkins. “That is,” he added diplomatically, “you represent people who are interested in the development of the underground system.”

  “I ventured to mention the fact, Mr. Johnson,” interpolated Kloorfain here, “that you are referred to from time to time in the newspapers as representing the Metropolitan and the District, as well as the City and South London and the Central of London.”

  “That is true,” returned Johnson, seemingly calm and reassured. “I do represent those companies in a legal way. But I’m still not clear as to what you wish. If it relates to the purchase or sale of anything in connection with the Charing Cross and Hampstead line, I am certainly not the person to see.”

  “If you will bear with me for just a minute,” persisted Jarkins, leaning closer to Johnson. “The point is just this: that Mr. Cowperwood is divesting himself of all his Chicago street railway holdings, and without those to employ him, he will have nothing to do. He is not the kind of man who would want to quit. He has been working in Chicago, you know, for over twenty-five years. I don’t mean he is running after an investment of any kind. Mr. Greaves and Mr. Henshaw found that out. They were brought to him by our firm: Jarkins, Kloorfain & Randolph. Mr. Kloorfain here is in charge of our London branch.”

  Johnson nodded and now listened attentively.

  “Of course,” continued Jarkins, “neither Mr. Kloorfain nor myself has the least authority from Mr. Cowperwood to speak for him. But we feel there is something in this London situation which, if put before him by the right person in the right way, might bring about something of great value to whomsoever was connected with it. For I know it to be a fact that Mr. Cowperwood rejected this Charing Cross line, not because he thought it might not pay, but because he was not offered a 51 per cent control, which he always insists on. And then, too, it appeared to him to be just a short branch line which had no important connection with the underground system as a whole, and so could only be operated as a small separate property. He is interested only in the traffic problems of an entire city.”

  Jarkins’ voice now took on a note of flattery.

  “I asked Mr. Kloorfain,” he said, smoothly, “to take me to the one man who would know most about the London underground situation and grasp the importance of interesting Mr. Cowperwood. For if we understand things correctly,” and here he eyed Mr. Johnson almost ominously, “we feel that the time has come to unify and modernize the entire system, and it is pretty well known that Mr. Cowperwood is a genius in the traction field. He is to be in London shortly, and we feel he should be met and talked to by someone who could make him see the need here for a man like him.

  “If you do not care to go into the matter, Mr. Johnson,” and here Jarkins was thinking of Stane and his rumored connections, “you may know someone who would, and perhaps advise us in regard to that person. Of course, we are brokers, and we would like to see Mr. Cowperwood interested, in order that we might come in for our share of the brokerage, which is naturally part of an undertaking like this.”

  Johnson sat at his desk and stared, not at either Jarkins or Kloorfain, but at the floor.

  “Ahem!” he began. “Mr. Cowperwood is an American multimillionaire. He has had enormous experience in running street railways and elevated roads, I believe, in Chicago and elsewhere. I am supposed to interest him in solving the London underground problem. And if I do, I am supposed to pay you—or at least see that you are paid—for getting Mr. Cowperwood to help some other Londoners interested in the traction field to make money.” He looked up, eyebrows lifted, while Jarkins stared knowingly but without deigning to comment.

  “Very practical, I must say,” continued Johnson,
“and I don’t doubt there are quite a few who might be benefited, and, again, who might not be. London underground problems are very great. Too many lines already planned, too many different companies to be harmonized, too many acts already acquired by speculators and promoters without a shilling between them.” He stared depressingly at the two men. “A great deal of money would be required, millions of pounds, not less than twenty-five millions, I should say.” He pressed his hands together almost sadly, so great was the financial weight of all this, “Of course, we are not unaware of Mr. Cowperwood over here. If I am not mistaken, there have been charges of various kinds made against him in Chicago—charges, I will admit, that should not stand in the way of the prosecution of a great public enterprise such as you two gentlemen are suggesting—but still, considering the conservatism of the English public . . .”

  “Oh, you mean those political charges against his financial methods in Chicago,” interjected Jarkins defiantly at this point. “Merely politics, the work of financial rivals, jealous because of his success.”

  “I know, I know,” interrupted Mr. Johnson, still depressively. “Financial men everywhere naturally understand and discount that sort of opposition. At the same time, he would meet with opposition here. For this is a very conservative and tight little island. And we do not like outsiders to come in and manage our affairs for us. However, as you say, Mr. Cowperwood is plainly a very able and resourceful man. Whether there are people here who might care to join with him, I cannot say. Certainly I know that there are few, if any, who would be willing to grant him the sole financial control of such a system as you speak of,” and here he got up and brushed from his trousers and waistcoat some flecks of imaginary dust. “He has, you say, rejected the Greaves and Henshaw offer?” he added.

  “He has,” echoed both Jarkins and Kloorfain.