The Argosy, August 1905 — page 192: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

i aw had woul not fs ies write the issues of securities for half the usual commission. My father at that moment remembered the copy-book mottoes with their high appraisement of truth, and forgot how little of it he used in his own business. “My father died before he saw the full effect of the malignity of the King of the Genii. Yet I am assured that I made his last years a heavy burden by my plain speaking upon his course of life. Before I reached the age of fifteen, T was left with the largest fortune in the caliph’s dominions, and the curse of the genie on my tongue. 1 am now twenty-five. In ten years I have wasted those immense accumulations. You saw the last of his sequins flung among the unappreciative herd to-night, and but for your bounty I should now be on the way to the morgue, without a coin in my pocket.” ’ The caliph’s curiosity was but whetted by this summary of the young man’s career, and he demanded: “How did your gift of veracity de- prive you of the enormous fortune that your father had provided for you?” “JT must speak frankly and trust to your good nature to keep the moat shocking details out of print,’ replied the young man. The caliph bowed at this tribute to the excellence of his disguise. “We suppress more horrifying de- tails than we publish,” he said. The young man pushed back his damp hair from his forehead, and re- sumed his tale: ““[ make no claim to be wiser or bet- ter than other young men of fortune. Therefore a good share of my father’s stealings went in tribute to the twin evils—wine and women. But that is a mere detail. My fortune would have survived the tax for the sparkling liquors and the handsful of jewels that I flung about me had it not been for my fatal gift. ** My father’s funeral had been but a few mouths past when the trustees of the estate called me into council and ex- plained that one of the corporations in which 1 was the principal stoekholder vee unprofitable, and that it to p rove a total loss. ah" wh * he, * \ ite a i, > aap = 2, yo w gh at Rs, Legs. ? et = THE ARGOSY. — be necessary to sell ont if it were sedi ate . ~ “¢ But who will buy a worthless — property?’ I asked. “© Oh, we will unload it on the pub- | lic” replied the trustees. ‘ We will pay 1 a thumping big dividend, and drop hints about a coming consolidation of warring interests, and the lambs on the Street will be breaking their necks to pay a faney price for the stock.’ “*But that will be stealing,” I ob- jected. y ‘““<1Tt ill becomes you to say so,’ said one of the trustees. ‘It is the way your honored father, may he rest in Abra- ham’s bosom, brought this great fortune together.’ “*JT often told my father that I sus- pected him of being a thief, I returned. ‘Now I am sure of it. “The trustees were shocked; then angry; and when I said calmly that no- body but a thief would make such a proposition, they threw up their hands and said that they would let the prop- erty go to ruin. I replied that they might use their judgment about that. IT was merely stating the truth—not at- tempting to influence their action. “One of the trustees a lhttle later confirmed my judgment of him by run- ning away to the dominions of the Sultan of Cashmere, taking with him five millions of my inherited seqwtns. After that 1 came into the management of my own business. But the genie’s gift was fatal to every enterprise in which [| embarked. “I told the truth about the corpora- tions in which I was interested. Few of them were able to survive the ordeal. I explained to one of your brethren of the press those methods of letting con- tracts to ourselves that make it so profitable to hold the control of rail- roads when we own so little of the stock. We were thrown ont at the next stockholders’ meeting, and some other plunderers were put into our places. “I explained to another of your fellow-reporters the methods by which the Bagdad City Council was indueed to grant us the privileges for m e street railroads without compens ; to the city. Asar friends were sent t esult, sever comicbooks.com