Young Wallingford Part 13

By way of ill.u.s.trating the point, Mr. Grout and Mr. Christmas, finding that the list in question had some value, and knowing well their former partners, had steadfastly refused to sell, and the five of them, meeting upon the common ground of self-interest, had agreed to one thing--that they would ask five thousand dollars for the list, and take what they could get.

When the price was named to him, Mr. Wallingford merely chuckled, and observed, as he turned toward the door:

"You are mistaken, gentlemen. I did not want to buy out your individual businesses. I am willing to give you one thousand dollars in stock of my company, which will be two shares each."

The gentlemen could not think of that. It was preposterous. They would not consider any other than a cash offer to begin with, nor less than twenty-five hundred to end with.

"Very well, then," said J. Rufus; "I can do without your list," which was no matter for wonder, since he had a duplicate of it in his desk at that very moment.

Henry Smalzer was the first man on that defunct building and loan company list, and him Wallingford went to see. He found Mr. Smalzer in a little shoe repair shop, with a shoe upturned on his knee and held firmly in place by a strap pa.s.sing under his foot. Mr. Smalzer had centrifugal whiskers, and long habit of looking up without rising from his work had given his eyes a coldly suspicious look. Moreover, socialistic argument, in red type, was hung violently upon the walls, and Mr. Wallingford, being a close student of the psychological moment and man, merely had a loose shoe-b.u.t.ton tightened.

The next man on the list was a barber with his hair parted in the middle and hand-curled in front. In the shop was no literature but the Police Gazette, and in the showcase were six brands of stogies and one brand of five-cent cigars. Here Mr. Wallingford merely purchased a shave, reflecting that he could put a good germicide on his face when he returned to the hotel.

He began to grow impatient when he found that his third man kept a haberdashery, but, nevertheless, he went in. A clerk of the pale-eyed, lavender-tie type was gracing the front counter, but in the rear, at a little standing desk behind a neat railing, stood one who was unmistakably the proprietor, though he wore a derby hat c.o.c.ked on his head and a big cigar c.o.c.ked in the opposite corner of his mouth.

Tossed on the back part of the desk was a race-track badge, and the man was studying a form sheet!

"Mr. Merrill, I believe," said Wallingford confidently approaching that gentleman and carelessly laying his left hand--the one with the three-carat diamond upon the third finger--negligently upon the rail.

Mr. Merrill's keen, dark-gray eyes rested first upon that three-carat ring, then upon the three-carat stone in Mr. Wallingford's carmine cravat, then upon Mr. Wallingford's jovial countenance with the multiplicity of smile wrinkles about the eyes, and Mr. Merrill himself smiled involuntarily.

"The same," he admitted.

"Mr. Merrill," propounded Wallingford, "how would you like to borrow from ten dollars to five thousand, for four years, without interest and without security?"

Mr. Merrill's eyes narrowed, and the flesh upon his face became quite firm.

"Not if I have to pay money for it," he announced, and the conversation would have ended right there had it not been for Wallingford's engaging personality, a personality so large and comprehensive that it made Mr. Merrill reflect that, though this jovial stranger was undoubtedly engineering a "skin game," he was quite evidently "no piker," and was, therefore, ent.i.tled to courteous consideration.

"What you have to pay won't break you," said Wallingford, laughing, and presented a neatly engraved card conveying merely the name of The People's Mutual Bond and Loan Company, the fact that it was incorporated for a hundred thousand dollars, and that the capital was all paid in. "A loan bond," added Mr. Wallingford, "costs you one dollar, and the payments thereafter are a dollar and a quarter a week."

Mr. Merrill nodded as he looked at the card.

"I see," said he. "It's one of those pleasant little games, I suppose, where the first man in gets the money of the next dozen, and the last five thousand hold the bag."

"I knew you'd guess wrong," said Wallingford cheerfully. "The plan's entirely different. Everybody gets a chance. With every payment you sign a loan application and your receipt is numbered, giving you four numbered receipts in the month. Every month one-fourth of the loan fund is taken out for a grand annual distribution, and the balance is distributed in monthly loans."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill, the firmness of his facial muscles relaxing and the cold look in his eyes softening. "A lottery? Now I'm listening."

"Well," replied Wallingford, smiling, "we can't call it that, you know."

"I'll take a chance," said Mr. Merrill.

Mr. Wallingford, with rare wisdom, promptly stopped argument and produced a beautifully printed "bond" from his pocket, which he made out in Mr. Merrill's name.

"I might add," said J. Rufus, after having taken another careful inspection of Mr. Merrill, "that you win the first prize, payable in the shape of food and drink. I'd like to have you take dinner with me at the hotel this evening."

Mr. Merrill, from force of habit, looked at his watch, then looked at Mr. Wallingford speculatively.

"Don't mind if I do," said he, quite well satisfied that the dinner would be pleasant.

In his own carpenter-shop Wallingford found Mr. Albert Wright at a foot-power circular-saw, with his hair and his eyebrows and his mustache full of the same fine, white wood dust that covered his overalls and jumper; and up over the saw, against the wall, was tacked the time-yellowed placard of a long-since-eaten strawberry festival.

With his eyes and his mind upon this placard, Mr. Wallingford explained his new boon to humanity: the great opportunity for a four-year loan, without interest or security, of from ten dollars to five thousand.

"But this is nothing more nor less than a lottery, under another name," objected Mr. Wright, poising an accusing finger, his eyes, too, unconsciously straying to the strawberry festival placard.

"Not a bit of it," denied Wallingford, shocked beyond measure. "It is merely a mutual benefit a.s.sociation, where a large number of people pool their small sums of money to make successive large ones. For instance, suppose that a hundred of you should band together to put in one dollar a week, the entire hundred dollars to go to a different member each week? Each one would be merely saving up a hundred dollars, but, in place of every one of the entire hundred of you having to wait a hundred weeks to save his hundred dollars, one of you would be saving it in one week, while the longest man in would only have to pay the hundred weeks. It is merely a device, Mr. Wright, for concentrating the savings of a large number of people."

Mr. Wright was forcibly impressed with Wallingford's ill.u.s.tration, but, being a very bright man, he put that waving, argumentative finger immediately upon a flaw.

"Half of that hundred people would not stay through to the end, and somebody would get left," he objected, well pleased with himself.

"Precisely," agreed Mr. Wallingford. "That is just what our company obviates. Every man who drops out helps the man who stays in, by not having any claim upon the redemption fund. The redemption fund saves us from being a lottery. When you have paid in two hundred and fifty dollars your bond matures and you get your money back."

"Out of--" hesitated Mr. Wright, greatly perplexed.

"The redemption fund. It is supplied from returned loans."

Again the bright Mr. Wright saw a radical objection.

"Half of those people would not pay back their loans," said he.

"We figure that a certain number would not pay," admitted Wallingford, "but there would be a larger proportion than you think who would. For instance, you would pay back your loan at the end of four years, wouldn't you, Mr. Wright?"

Mr. Wright was hastily sure of it, though he became thoughtful immediately thereafter.

"So would a large majority of the others," Wallingford went on.

"Honesty is more prevalent than you would imagine, sir. However, all our losses from this source will be made up by lapsation.

_Lapsation!_"

Mr. Wallingford laid emphatic stress upon this vital principle and fixed Mr. Wright's mild blue eyes with his own glittering ones.

"A man who drops a payment on his bond gets nothing back--that is a part of his contract--and the steady investor reaps the benefit, as he should. Suppose you hold bond number ten; suppose at the time of maturity, bonds number three, five, six, eight and nine have lapsed, after having paid in from one-fourth to three-fourths of their money; that leaves only bonds one, two, four, seven and ten to be paid from the redemption fund. I don't suppose you understand how large a percentage of lapsation there is. Let me show you."

From his pocket Mr. Wallingford produced a little red book, showing how in industrial and fraternal insurance the percentage of lapsation amounts to a staggering percentage, thus reducing by forfeited capital the cost of insurance in those organizations.

"So you see, Mr. Wright," concluded Wallingford, snapping shut the book and putting it in his pocket, "this, in the end, is only a splendid device for saving money and for using it while you are saving it."

On this ground, after much persuasion, he sold a bond to the careful Mr. Wright, and quit work for the day, well satisfied with his two dollars' commission. At a fifteen-dollar dinner that evening Mr.

Merrill found him a good fellow, and, being interested not only in Wallingford's "lottery" but in Wallingford himself, gave him the names of a dozen likely members. Later he even went so far as to see some of them himself on behalf of the company.

Two days after that Mr. Wallingford called again on his careful carpenter, and from that gentleman secured a personal recommendation to a few friends of Mr. Wright's particular kind.

CHAPTER XI