Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
Of the men engaged in this shearing business, none, perhaps, had gathered more wool in the same length of time than the two members of the firm of McWade & Stoner. Mr. Billy McWade, junior partner, was a man of wide experience and some accomplishments, but until his arrival at Wichita Falls he had never made a conspicuous success of any business enterprise.
It would be a Christian act to help him sell that goat pasture for enough to go to some nice warm country where he'd get well and they couldn't extradite him." "Of course, if you've got a scheme that is perfectly safe," McWade ventured, charitably, "and our bit was worth it " "I been thinking we might help the boy sell that farm to Nelson." "How?" Mallow, too, was curious.
Certain information from the field had arrived that very day which was bound to send the stock to two dollars. If anybody wanted to sell, the promoters would be glad to buy, and they would advance their price on the morrow, as McWade had promised, so here was a chance for those present to turn a pretty penny by getting busy at once.
Stoner and McWade exchanged a meaning glance it was not lost upon their attentive audience but the latter shrugged and smiled provocatively. "That's our business," he declared, lightly. "You ghost dancers want your money back and we're giving it to you. You're letting up a holler that you were robbed, so come and get it. The faster you come the better it'll suit us.
In and around the office of McWade & Stoner these were busy days, what with a couple of new wildcat promotions and a well going down on semiproven ground that lease which cornered into the Nelson holdings, and to which Stoner had called attention. It had been easy to sell stock in the latter enterprise, and now the deeper went the hole, the higher rose the hopes of the promoters.
This done, he resigned and went to the leading bank, where he opened an account by depositing a check drawn upon a Chicago institution for fifty thousand dollars. McWade made it a practice always to have a few blank checks on hand. Airily, but in all earnestness, he invited the Texas bank to verify the check at its convenience.
Shortly after lunch, Mallow and the two partners were seated in the office upstairs, their work done for the day. Another successful promotion had gone to the credit of McWade and Stoner; all three were in a triumphal mood. Mallow was recounting a story that had just come to his ears. "Remember that old silver tip that took a stand in front of the Owl Drug Store a few days back?
Calvin Gray, but just arrived from Dallas, looked on at the game with some curiosity, not divining its purpose, until McWade pocketed the dice, then mounted a box at the curb and began, loudly: "Now, gentlemen, that is one way of making money, but it is a foolish and a hazardous way. There is a much saner, safer method, and I'm going to tell you about it.
I'm clean and I don't intend to go back. You're a strong guy and you got a bunch of kale, and you're a getter, but the taller they come the harder they fall. You can be had." The speaker was desperate; his face was flushed with anger, the tone of his voice was defiant and threatening. Gray helped himself to a chair, crossed his legs, and lit a cigar. McWade and Stoner neither moved nor spoke.
But all you have to do when stock don't sell is to raise the price. Oh, if you know how, it ain't hard to make an honest dollar in the oil business!" Mr. McWade smiled with conscious satisfaction. "I'm sure of it," Gray said, heartily. "There is so little competition." Ma Briskow always had been known as a woman without guile, but of late she had developed rare powers of dissimulation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking