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"Well," observed Freye, "we've got to get him in." "Talk to me about that now," Sweeny answered. "I'm new to some parts o' this scheme o' yours yet. Why is Crookes so keen on having him in? I'm not so keen. We could get along without him. He ain't so god-awful rich, y' know."
"No, but he's a solid, conservative cash grain man," answered Freye, "who hasn't been associated with speculating for years. Crookes has got to have that element in the clique before we can approach Stires & Co. We may have to get a pile of money from them, and they're apt to be scary and cautious. Cressler being in, do you see, gives the clique a substantial, conservative character.
At the end of the third week of the month Freye reported to Crookes that Cressler was "in," and promptly negotiations were opened between the clique and the great banking house of the Stires. But meanwhile Jadwin and Gretry, foreseeing no opposition, realising the incalculable advantage that their knowledge of the possibility of a "corner" gave them, were, quietly enough, gathering in the grain.
I want him out of the market. We've let him have his way now for three or four months. We figured we'd let him run to the dollar mark. The May option closed this morning at a dollar and an eighth.... Now we take hold. "But," Cressler hastened to object, "you forget I'm not a speculator." Freye smiled, and tapped his friend on the arm.
Sweeny was an Irishman, florid, flamboyant, talkative, who spoke with a faint brogue, and who tagged every observation, argument, or remark with the phrase, "Do you understand me, gen'lemen?" Freye, a German-American, was a quiet fellow, very handsome, with black side whiskers and a humourous, twinkling eye.
There was a great big jag of wheat sold to Liverpool a little while ago through Gretry, Converse & Co., who've been acting for Curtis Jadwin for a good many years." "Oh, Jadwin, hey? Hi! we're after big game now, I'm thinking." "But look here," warned Freye. "Here's a point. Cressler is not to know by the longest kind of chalk; anyhow not until he's so far in, he can't pull out.
He talked for nearly an hour and a half, at the end of which time the lunch table was one litter of papers letters, contracts, warehouse receipts, tabulated statistics, and the like. "Well," said Freye, at length, "well, Charlie, do you see the game? What do you think of it?" "It's about as ingenious a scheme as I ever heard of, Billy," answered Cressler. "You can't lose, with Crookes back of it."
"Oh, get on with you, Charlie," said Freye, good-humouredly, "you're scared." "Of what," asked Cressler, "speculating? You bet I am, and when you're as old as I am, and have been through three panics, and have known what it meant to have a corner bust under you, you'll be scared of speculating too."
"Well, then, we can count you in, hey?" "Count nothing," declared Cressler, stoutly. "I don't speculate." "But have you thought of this?" urged Freye, and went over the entire proposition, from a fresh point of view, winding up with the exclamation: "Why, Charlie, we're going to make our everlasting fortunes." "I don't want any everlasting fortune, Billy Freye," protested Cressler.
And as soon as Cressler had accepted the invitation, Crookes, with a succinct nod, turned upon his heel and walked away. At Kinsley's that day, in a private room on the second floor, Cressler met not only Crookes, but his associate Sweeny, and another gentleman by the name of Freye, the latter one of his oldest and best-liked friends.
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