Read Ebook: Riches have wings; or A tale for the rich and poor by Arthur T S Timothy Shay

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Ebook has 831 lines and 39218 words, and 17 pages

"Not for me, Evie," returned Eunice, good-humoredly. "It will be best for each of us to consult her own taste; and if we do run a little into opposite extremes, it will be no very serious matter."

Eveline could not but agree with this and so the good-natured contest ended.

The leading traits of character that marked the two sisters, appear, to some extent, in this conversation. Eveline was a gay, high-spirited girl, who was fond of pleasure, and enjoyed, sometimes, even to excess, the privileges afforded by her position; while Eunice was retiring and thoughtful, and took more delight in doing some useful thing, than in dress or fashionable company. But, opposite as were their dispositions, they were tenderly affectionate towards each other, and had been so from childhood.

At the time our story opens, Eveline was twenty, and Eunice in the nineteenth year of her age. For nearly a year, Eveline had been receiving the attentions of a young man named Henry Pascal, son of a wealthy merchant and friend of her father. Pascal was in Europe, where he had been spending some months, and was in familiar correspondence with Eveline. Although no regular engagement had been made, yet it was pretty well understood, in both families, that a marriage between the young couple would take place. Eunice had no acknowledged lover, although many had looked upon her pure young face with loving eyes.

CONFIDENCE IN HUMAN PRUDENCE SHAKEN.

Some things that were said by the minister, came back to the mind of Mr. Townsend, and slightly disturbed it. The possibility that there might be truth in what he had said, was suggested to his thoughts, and he felt fretted at the idea of any Providential interference with his worldly prosperity. He wished to be let alone; and even went so far as to say, mentally, that he considered himself perfectly competent to manage his own affairs. But this state did not remain long. Possession, with him, was nine points of the law, and he meant to retain his advantage.

It happened, not long after, that an arrival from the Pacific brought Mr. Townsend letters from the supercargo of one of his vessels, announcing the loss, in a terrible storm, of a fine ship laden with a return cargo of specie and hides, valued at thirty thousand dollars. She had only been out of Callao two days when the disaster took place. The loss of both ship and cargo, it was feared, would be total.

Unfortunately for Mr. Townsend, neither of these vessels had arrived, and therefore no insurance had been made upon the cargo. They were both telegraphed on the next day, but they came too late. Three weeks elapsed without further intelligence, when the captain and supercargo arrived, bringing news of the entire wreck of the vessel and loss of the cargo.

Mr. Townsend loved money for its own sake, and, therefore, although worth some two or three hundred thousand dollars, the loss of thirty thousand was felt severely. It made him exceedingly unhappy, and by the reaction of his state upon his family, disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of home.

A month after the intelligence of this loss came, he received account sales of ten thousand barrels of flour, shipped to Montevideo, where very high prices had ruled in the market for some months. He expected to make from five to ten thousand dollars by the shipment. But the arrival of half a dozen ship loads of flour, simultaneously with his own, had knocked down the price, and he lost by the adventure over twelve thousand dollars. As a remittance, his consignees sent, in part, a cargo of cocoa, upon which there was another loss; not of much consequence in amount, but serious as to the effect produced upon the merchant's mind. Hitherto, almost every commercial enterprise had been successful. All his previous losses did not amount to twenty thousand dollars, and now, in the space of little over a month, he had seen nearly fifty thousand dollars pass from his hands, without even the opportunity of an effort to save it. And the worst of it was, he could blame no one. The ship had been wrecked in a storm. Previously, the supercargo had sent by the first vessel that sailed, after he had determined upon the nature of his return cargo, all the information necessary for purposes of insurance. But the winds and the waves had retarded her progress until after the news of the wreck came. If the loss had been the effects of clearly apparent human errors or inefficiency, Mr. Townsend would have felt less disturbed about it; for greater care on his own part, or a nicer discrimination in the selection of his agents, would prevent a recurrence of like events in future. But the satisfaction of mind such a reflection would have produced, he was not permitted to have.

For months after this, nothing but ill-luck attended Mr. Townsend's shipping interests. After this, followed several losses through the failure of old customers, whose solvency, not only he, but every one else, considered undoubted. During a single year, his riches, to the amount of over seventy thousand dollars, took to themselves wings and flew away, beyond the reach of recovery.

In spite of every effort to put away from his mind the intruding recollection of what Mr. Carlton had said about the nothingness of human prudence, the prominent features of the conversation he had held with the clergyman were continually forcing themselves upon him, and impressing him with a sense of his own powerlessness never felt before.

From this time his trust in commerce became impaired. Hitherto he had considered it the surest road to wealth, because it had borne him safely on to prosperity. But now he hesitated and reconsidered the matter over and over again, when proceeding to send out a ship, and thought with doubt and anxiety about the result, after she had spread her white sails to the breeze, and started on her voyage to distant lands. This uncertain state of mind continued, until Mr. Townsend began to think of some other mode of using his capital less likely to be attended with loss. He had been raised in the counting-room of a shipping merchant; had sailed ten voyages while a young man, as supercargo, and was now, from twenty five years active devotion to business, thoroughly conversant with every thing appertaining to commerce with foreign countries. As a shipper he was at home. But although, like other men of his class, he had a general and pretty accurate notion of the operations of trade, he had no practical knowledge of any branch but his own. A few years before, he had said that any man who, after ten or twenty years successful devotion to any business, was silly enough to change it for another, of which he knew little or nothing, deserved to lose, as he stood ten chances to one of losing all he had made. And yet, notwithstanding all this, in the darkness and doubt that had come over his mind, Mr. Townsend had serious thoughts of directing his capital into some other business.

This important crisis in the merchant's affairs occurred during a period when every thing was inflated, and speculation rife. In his younger days he had made, in one season, by speculating in cotton, twenty thousand dollars; and, on another occasion, ten thousand dollars in a single day, by operating in flour. Fortunes were lost at the time, but he had been wise enough to stop at the right moment. Rumors of this one having made twenty or thirty thousand dollars, and the other one fifty or one hundred thousand, in the course of a few months, were floating through all the circles of trade, and inspiring men who had never made a dollar in their lives, except in regular trade, to stake their fortunes on little better than the turn of a die. The whole commercial atmosphere was filled with the miasmata of speculation, and all men who inhaled it became more or less infected with the disease. Property, estimated for years at a certain price, suddenly changed hands at an advance and again at, perhaps, double the original price paid for it. Why it had become so much more valuable all at once, nobody could clearly explain, although reasons for it were given that appeared to be taken for granted as true. A lot of ground that the owner would have taken a thousand dollars for, and been glad to have got it, all at once became worth two or three thousand dollars, and was sold for that sum; and, in the course of a month or two, perhaps, was resold for five or six thousand, on the rumor of a railroad terminus being about to be located in the neighborhood, or some great change in the avenues of trade in progress that would make it immensely valuable. Imaginary cities were bought and sold; and railroad and canal stocks, while not even the lines of improvement they pretended to represent had been surveyed, passed from hand to hand at twenty, thirty, fifty, and sometimes a hundred per cent. above their par value. Men stood looking on in wonder at this strange state of affairs, or plunged in headlong to struggle for the wealth they coveted.

Nor were individuals permitted to remain the passive spectators of all that was going on around them. Daily, and almost hourly, some one, infected with the mania, would present himself, and urge, with such eloquence and seeming fairness, a participation in the vast benefits of some imposing scheme of profit, that to withstand his persuasions was almost impossible. And these individuals were so generous, too. They were not content to make fortunes themselves, but wanted every body else to take a share of the golden harvests they were reaping. If you had no cash to spare, that did not matter. Your credit was good, and your note, as an acknowledgment of the purchase, and a formulary of trade all that was wanted. To give a note of ten thousand dollars, to-day, for a piece of property that there was a fair chance of selling, in a fortnight, for twenty thousand, was, certainly, a temptation. Of course you had to sell, if you did sell, as you bought, for paper, not for cash. But that was nothing. Every body was getting rich, and, therefore, everybody was safe. There was no risk in taking a man's note for ten or twenty thousand dollars, payable six or twelve months hence, when he was known to be worth one, two, three, or four hundred thousand.

Mr. Townsend had a neighbor whose name was Cleveland. This man called in to see him at least once every day, to talk about schemes of profit, and the chances of acquiring great wealth suddenly. He was also engaged in shipping, and had made a good deal of money by fortunate adventures. Recently he had sold one of his vessels and freighted the other, which had enabled him to divert a considerable amount of capital into the new channels of profit that had opened all around him. This Cleveland was half owner of a western city, a map of which hung up in his counting-room. The name of the city was "Eldorado." As could be seen by its position, relative to other parts of the State in which it was situated, it was plain that "Eldorado" was destined to become, at no very distant day, one of the most important places in the West. It was situated on the bank of a rapid river, with a fall close by, affording water-power for mills and manufactories to any extent. The country around was healthy, and the lands were rich; and, moreover, a railroad, now in process of erection, would pass through it from north to south, and another from east to west. One of these roads started from the lakes at the north, and was to terminate at the Ohio river. The other started from, and terminated in, deep navigable rivers.

This "Eldorado" Mr. Cleveland said he looked upon as the most valuable of all his interests. His half of the city cost him twenty thousand dollars, and he had already sold lots enough to realize fifteen thousand dollars and expected to sell enough to net him fifteen or twenty more, and still have a little fortune safely locked up in "Eldorado."

Besides his western town interest, he was largely concerned in a manufacturing company; owned shares in all sort of internal improvement and banking corporations; and was, according to his own showing, making money so fast that he could hardly count it as it came in. Some time after, Mr. Townsend met with the loss of thirty thousand dollars by the wreck of a vessel, upon the cargo of which no insurance had been effected. Mr. Cleveland said to him:

"I've just made an operation from which I expect to realize fifty thousand dollars before twelve months pass away."

"Have you, indeed!" responded Townsend.

"Yes. I've bought up a majority of the stock of the Sandy Hill and Dismal Lake Canal, at twenty per cent. below par."

"I would'nt have it at fifty cents below par," returned Townsend. "The project is in itself impracticable, and will never be carried out. The stock is not worth a dollar, intrinsically, and never will be."

"There you are much mistaken," replied Cleveland. "The survey has not only been completed, but workmen are upon the lines, and now that I have secured a control in the Board of Directors I mean to have the work prosecuted with vigor. In two months I will have the stock up to par, and in less than a year, as high as thirty per cent. above, and not to be had easily, at that price. My shares cost a hundred thousand dollars. When the price reaches thirty per cent. above par, I will sell, and thus make fifty thousand dollars. After that, those who own the canal may go on with it as they please. Won't you take ten or twenty thousand dollars worth of the stock? You will find it better than the shipping interest?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Cleveland. I never meddle in matters of that kind. Give me straight forward, legitimate trade; not uncertain speculation. I have made my money by commerce, and will certainly not risk it in fancy stocks or ideal cities. I have no taste for your 'Eldorados' and 'Dismal Lake Canals!' The one will turn your gold to dross, and the other will bury it from your sight in its turbid waters."

"Don't believe the half of it, Mr. Townsend. Before two years have passed away, I'll show you a cool hundred thousand or two that I have made by these and one or two other schemes I have in my head."

"If you don't find yourself a ruined man you may be thankful. As to your canal stock, even its par value will be a fictitious one, for, if the works were completed, they never would pay an interest on the investment. How much more fictitious, then, will be the value at thirty per cent. above par. Whoever buys at such a price will ruin himself."

"I don't know how that may be. But I do know, that if I can sell the stock that cost me only eighty, for a dollar thirty, I shall make just fifty thousand dollars."

"Don't you believe it. I know what has been done, and I know what can be done. There are stocks in the market, not half so promising as this, up, already, to fifteen and twenty per cent. above par."

"Well, from all such uncertain schemes, I hope to be kept free, Mr. Cleveland. Much more, I am satisfied, will be lost than gained, in the end."

"I shall take good care to be a gainer," said Cleveland. "Trust me for that."

"Gain or loss, I am not to be tempted into the danger of losing what I have made in honest trade, by the hope of great returns from doubtful schemes," replied Townsend, in a very positive way, and thus closed the matter for the present.

SPECULATION.

A few months afterwards, when Mr. Townsend had, from repeated failures to realize anticipated gains in commerce, grown distrustful of the means of prosperity so long successfully applied, he listened with more interest to what Cleveland had to say about the new roads to wealth that had been opened.

"Depend upon it, Townsend," said the individual to him, one day, "that you are standing still, while other men are seizing upon the golden opportunities that offer themselves on every hand. Times have greatly changed. A new order of things prevails. Wealth is no longer to be gained in the old channels, or, at least, not without twenty times the labor required in the new channels. Notwithstanding your want of confidence in my 'Sandy Hill and Dismal Lake Canal' stock, I managed it just as I said I would. I controlled the Board and had the excavations entered upon with great vigor. I had an office procured in a public location, where a clerk was placed, and every thing reduced to an active business aspect. I secured one or two editors in favor of the work, and got one or two shrewd brokers interested in the stock. Every thing went on just as I desired. The price advanced steadily until about ten days ago, when it reached the maximum of my wishes, since which time I have been selling it as fast as I can without creating suspicion. The stock is still firm. In a week or ten days more I shall not own a share, and then the company can take care of its own interests."

"And you will have cleared fifty thousand dollars by the operation?"

"Yes, every cent of it."

"I can hardly credit it."

"I bought for eighty cents, and am selling for a dollar and thirty. You can make the calculation yourself. And what is more than all this, Mr. Townsend, I have not had to use ten thousand dollars real money from beginning to end. My credit was enough. Although such a handsome profit has been made, only two or three of the first notes given for the stock have fallen due."

"You sold on time?"

"It's surprising," remarked Townsend, thoughtfully.

"But no more so than true," said Cleveland, in a confident voice. "Now is the time for a man who possesses good credit and a clear head to make or double his fortune. I shall treble mine, and you can easily do the same, and this, too, without interfering at all with your regular business operations. Mine go on the same as usual."

Mr. Cleveland believed what he said. But he was slightly mistaken. To these grand speculating schemes he gave up all his own thoughts and attention, and left his regular business in charge of his eldest clerk, in whom he had unlimited confidence. He was satisfied to believe that every thing was conducted as well as it could have been done, if he had given to it all his personal attention. In this, however, he was in error.

Mr. Townsend hardly knew what to think. His confidence in the old way that he had been for years pursuing, was impaired, and in spite of his better judgment, confidence in the new way was gaining strength. It occurred to him that he might be neglecting, unwisely, to improve the golden opportunities that were presenting themselves every day, because they did not exactly accord with his old notions of business. He remembered how successful he had been, many years before, in speculating in flour and cotton, and then asked himself why he might not be quite as successful, if he tried his hand in some of the many money-making schemes that were put in operation all around him.

Another disastrous voyage, which no human foresight could have prevented, completely unsettled his mind, and, in this state, with a kind of bewildered desperation, he stepped aside from the old beaten way, into one of the many paths that diverged towards the mountains of wealth that were seen in the distance, towering up to the skies.

Cleveland, like a tempting spirit, was near him to suggest the path he should take. Stocks, Townsend had a prejudice against, except United States Bank stock, and in that there was not sufficient fluctuation in the price to make its purchase desirable. As a safe investment of money, he would have preferred it to almost any thing else; but as a matter of speculation, the inducements were not strong.

"I do not like to have any thing to do with stocks," he said to Cleveland, who proposed their buying up a majority of the stock of a broken bank, the charter of which was perpetual, and embraced several advantages not usually possessed by banking institutions. "To me there is something intangible about them. A ship, a bale of cotton, or a piece of real estate, have a certain value in themselves; will always bring a certain price; but scrip is merely a representative of property that may or may not exist. You are never certain about it."

"You may be certain enough. As to the Eagle Bank stock, it may be had for thirty cents on the dollar, and, by proper management, in twelve months, or even a less time, be made worth, in the market, from seventy to eighty cents, or even par. It has been done with the People's Bank, and can and will be done with this. I know several monied men who are beginning to turn their thoughts towards this charter, and if we don't take hold of the matter at once, the opportunity will pass by. Another such a chance is not likely soon to offer."

Mr. Townsend, with all his love of money, had a certain degree of integrity about him, more the result of education as a merchant of the old school than any thing else. The scheme proposed, he took a day to reflect on, seriously. He looked at it in its incipiency, progress, and termination, and saw that, although he might make twenty or thirty thousand dollars, by selling off his stock when it had reached the highest price to which their forcing system could raise it, others would lose all he made; for the stock must inevitably fall in price. In fact, he saw that he would make himself a party to a fraud upon the public, and this he was unwilling to do. So he refused to enter into this scheme. Cleveland then proposed to sell him out his interest in "Eldorado," that he might have more means, and a freer mind, to enter into the Eagle Bank speculation--a thing that he said he was determined to do.

"I have already sold lots enough to pay for the original purchase, and now own nearly half of the town," he said.

"What will you take for your interest?" Mr. Townsend asked.

"Forty thousand dollars; and I wouldn't part with it for less than double the price, were it not for my determination to push through this matter of the Eagle Bank. In six months you can sell lots enough to clear the whole purchase, and still be owner of at least a third of the town. Come into my counting-room, and let me point out to you the singular advantages that 'Eldorado' possesses."

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