Wall Street Stories/The Lost Opportunity
THE LOST OPPORTUNITY
For many years Daniel Dittenhoeffer had desired the ruin of John F. Greener. “Dutch Dan,” as the Street called Dittenhoeffer was a burly man with very blonde hair, a very red nose and a very loud voice. Greener was a sallow, swarthy bit of a man, with black hair and a squeaky voice. He had furtive brown eyes and a very high forehead; while Dittenhoeffer had frank blue eyes and the pugnacious chin and thick neck of a prize fighter. Both were members of the New York Stock Exchange but Greener was never seen on the “floor” after one of his victims lifted him bodily by the collar and dropped him fifteen feet into a coal cellar on Exchange Place. He would plan the wrecks of railroad systems as a measure preliminary to their absorption, just as a boa constrictor crushes its victims into pulp the more easily to swallow them. But the practice, unchecked for years, had made him nervous and soul-fidgetty.
Dan spent his days from 10 to 3 on the Stock Exchange and his nights from 10 to 3 at the roulette tables or before a faro lay-out. Restless as the quivering sea and suffering from chronic insomnia, he had perforce to satisfy his constitutional craving for powerful stimulants, but as he hated delirium tremens he gave himself ceaselessly big doses of the wine of gambling—it does as much for the nerves as the very best whiskey. He would buy or sell 50,000 shares of a stock and he would bet $50,000 on the turn of a card. On an occasion he offered to wager a fortune that he could guess which of two flies that had alit on a table would be the first to fly away. Greener found, in the Stock Exchange, the means to a desired end. Despite innumerable bits of stock jobbing, he had no exalted opinion, in his heart of hearts, of stock operations. But Dittenhoeffer thought the stock market was the court of last resort, whither financiers should go, when they were in the right, to get their deserts; and when they were in the wrong to overcome their deserts by the brute force of dollars. It was natural that in their operations in the market the two men should be as dissimilar as they were in their physical and temperamental characteristics—Machiavelli and Richard Cœur-de-Lion.
Nobody knew exactly how the enmity between Greener and Dittenhoeffer began. The “Little Napoleon of Railroading” had felt toward Dutch Dan a certain passive hostility for interference with sundry stock market deals. But Dan hated Greener madly, probably for the same reason that a hawk may have for hating a snake: the instinctive antipathy of the utterly dissimilar.
Scores of men had tried to “bust” Greener, but Greener had grown the richer by their efforts, the growth of his fortune being proportionate to the contraction of theirs. Sam Sharpe had come from Arizona with $12,000,000 avowedly to show the effete East how to crush “financial skunks of the Greener class.” And the financial skunk learned no new lesson, though the privilege of imagining he was giving one cost Sharpe a half-million a month for nearly one year. Then, after Sharpe had learned more of the game—and of Greener—he joined hands with Dittenhoeffer and together they attacked Greener. They were skilful stock operators, very rich and utterly without financial fear. And they loathed Greener. In a more gorgeous age they would have cut the Little Napoleon to pieces and passed his roasted heart on a platter around the festive board. In the colorless XIX century they were fain to content themselves with endeavoring to despoil him of his tear-stained millions; to do which they united their own smile-wreathed millions—some seven or eight of them—and opened fire. Their combined fortune was divided into ten projectiles and one after another hurled at the little man with the squeaky voice and the high forehead. The little man dodged the first and the second and the third, but the fourth broke his leg and the fifth knocked the wind out of him. The Street cheered and showed its confidence in the artillerists by going short of the Greener stocks. But just before the sixth shot Greener called to his assistance old Wilbur Wise, the man with the skin-flinty heart and thirty millions in cash. A protecting rampart, man-high, of government bonds was raised about the prostrate Napoleon and the financial cannoneers ceased firing precious projectiles. The new fortifications were impregnable and they knew it; so they contented themselves with gathering up their own shot and a small railroad or two dropped by Greener in his haste to seek shelter. Then Sharpe went to England to win the Derby and Dittenhoeffer went to Long Branch to amuse himself playing a no-limit faro game that cost him on an average $10,000 a night for a month.
There was a period of peace in Wall Street following the last encounter between the diminutive Napoleon and Dutch Dan. But after a few months the fight resumed. Greener was desirous of “bulling” his stocks generally and his pet, Federal Telegraph Company, particularly. Just to show there was no need to hurry the “bull” or upward movement Dan sold the stock “short” every time Greener tried to advance the price. Four times did Greener try and four times Dittenhoeffer sold him a few thousand shares—just enough to check the advance. Up to a certain point a manipulator of stocks is successful. His manipulation may comprise many ingenious and complex actions and devices, but the elemental fact in bull manipulation is to buy more than the other fellow can or wishes to sell. Greener was willing to buy, but Dan was even more willing to sell.
Greener really was in desperate straits. He was committed to many important enterprises. To carry them out he needed cash and the banks, fearful of stock market possibilities, were loath to lend him enough. Besides which, there was the desire on the part of the banks’ directors to pick up fine bargains should their refusal to lend Greener money force him to throw overboard the greater part of his load. Greener had despoiled innumerable widows and orphans in his railroad wrecking schemes. The money lenders should avenge the widows and orphans. It was a good deed. There was not a doubt of it in their minds.
Federal Telegraph, in which Greener’s commitments were heaviest, had been slowly sinking. Successful in other quarters of the market, Dutch Dan decided to “whack the everlasting daylights out of Fed. Tel.” He went about it calmly, just as he played roulette—selling it methodically, ceaselessly, depressingly. And the price wilted. Greener, unsuccessful in other quarters of the Street, decided it was time to do something to save himself. He needed only $5,000,000. At a pinch $3,000,000 might do; or, for the moment, even $2,500,000. But he must have the money at once. Delay meant danger and danger meant Dittenhoeffer and Dittenhoeffer might mean death.
Of a sudden, rising from nowhere, fathered by no one, the rumor whirled about the Street that Greener was in difficulties. Financial ghouls ran to the banks and interviewed the presidents. They asked no questions in order to get no lies. They simply said, as though they knew: “Greener is on his uppers.”
The bank presidents smiled, indulgently, almost pityingly: “Oh, you’ve just heard it, have you? We’ve known it for six weeks!”
Back to the Stock Exchange rushed the ghouls to sell the Greener stocks—not Federal Telegraph which was really a good property, but his reorganized roads, whose renascence was so recent that they had not grown into full strength. Down went prices and up went the whisper: “Dittenhoeffer’s got Greener at last!”
A thousand brokers rushed to find their dear friend Dan to congratulate him—Napoleon’s conqueror, the hero of the hour, the future dispenser of liberal commissions, but dear Dan could not be found. He was not on the “floor” of the Exchange nor at his office.
Some one had sought Dittenhoeffer before the brokers thought of congratulating him—some one who was the greatest gambler of all, greater even than Dutch Dan—a little man with furtive brown eyes and a squeaky voice; also a wonderful forehead: Mr. John F. Greener.
“Mr. Dittenhoeffer, I sent for you to ask you a question,” he squeaked, calmly. He stood beside a garrulous ticker.
“Certainly, Mr. Greener.” And Dittenhoeffer instantly had a vision of humble requests to “let up.” And he almost formulated the very words of a withering refusal.
“Would you execute an order from me?”
“Certainly, Mr. Greener. I’ll execute anybody’s orders. I’m a broker.”
“Very well. Sell 50,000 shares of Federal Telegraph Company for me.”
“What price?” jotting down the figures, from force of habit, his mind being paralyzed.
“The best you can get. The stock,” glancing at the tape, “is 91.”
“Very well.”
The two men looked at one another—Dutch Dan half menacingly, Greener, calmly, steadily, his furtive eyes almost truthful.
“Good-morning,” said Dittenhoeffer at length and the little man’s high-browed head nodded dismissingly.
Dittenhoeffer hastened back to the Exchange. At the entrance he met his partner, Smith—the “Co.” of D. Dittenhoeffer & Co.
“Bill, I’ve just got an order from Greener to sell 50,000 shares of Federal Telegraph.”
“Wh-what?” gasped Smith.
“Greener sent for me, asked me whether I’d accept an order from him, I said yes, and he told me to sell 50,000 shares of Telegraph, and I’m”
“You’ve got him, Dan. You’ve got him,” exultantly.
“I’m going to cover my 20,000 shares with the first half of the order and sell the rest the best I can.”
“Man alive, this is your chance! Don’t you see you’ve got him? Smilie of the Eastern National Bank tells me there isn’t a bank in the city will lend Greener money, and he needs it badly to pay the last $10,000,000 to the Indian Pacific bondholders. He’s bit off more than he can chew, damn ‘im!”
“Well, Bill, we’ll treat Mr. Greener as we do any other customer,” said Dittenhoeffer.
“But—” began Smith, with undisguised consternation; he was an honest man, when away from the Street.
“Oh, I’ll get him yet. This won’t save him. I’ll get him yet,” with a confident smile.
It would have been very easy for him to take advantage of Greener’s order to make a fortune. He was short 20,000 shares which he had put out at an average price of 93. He could have taken Greener’s block of 50,000 shares and hurled it bodily at the market. Not even a gilt-edge stock could withstand the impact of such a fearful blow, and the price of Federal Telegraph doubtless would have broken 15 points or more, and he could easily have taken in his shorts at 75 or possibly even at 70—which would have meant a profit of a half-million of dollars—and a loss of a much needed million to his arch-foe, Greener. And if he allowed his partner to whisper in strict confidence to some friend how Dan was selling out a big line of Telegraph for Greener the “Room” would have gone wild and everybody would have hastened to sell and the decline would have gone so much further as to cripple the little Napoleon possibly beyond all hope of recovery. Had Greener made the most colossal mistake of his life in giving the order to his enemy?
Dan went to the Federal Telegraph post where a score of madmen were shouting at the top of their voices the prices they were willing to pay or to accept for varying amounts of the stock. He gave to twenty brokers orders to sell 1,000 shares each at the best obtainable price and he himself, through another man took an equal amount. On the next day he in person sold 20,000 shares and on the third day the last 10,000 shares of Greener’s order. This selling, the Street thought, was for his own account. It was all short stock; that is, his colleagues thought he was selling stock he didn’t own, trusting later on to buy it back cheaply. Such selling never has the depressing effect of “long” stock because it is obvious that the short seller must sooner or later buy the stock in, insuring a future demand, which should exert a lifting influence on prices; for
“He who sells what isn’t his’n
Must buy it back or go to pris’n.”
And Dittenhoeffer was able to get an average of $86 per share for Greener’s 50,000 shares of Federal Telegraph Company stock, for the Street agreed, with many headshakings, that Dan was becoming too reckless and Greener was a slippery little cuss and the short interest must be simply enormous and the danger of a bad “squeeze” exceedingly great. Wherefore, they forebore to “whack” Telegraph. Indeed, many shrewd traders saw, in the seeming weakness of the stock, a trap of the wily little Napoleon and they “fooled” him by astutely buying Federal Telegraph!
With the $4,300,000 which he received from the sale of the big block of stock, Greener overcame his other troubles and carried out all his plans. It was a daring stroke, to trust to a stock broker’s professional honor. It made him the owner of a great railroad system. Dutch Dan’s attacks later did absolutely no harm. Greener had made an opportunity and Dittenhoeffer had lost one.