CHAPTER II

THE RISE OF J. PERCIVAL DUNBAR

DUNBAR was president of the Universal Supplies Company.

In the early morning of the May day on which had occurred the rescue and reconciliation related in the previous chapter, he had gone to his office on the eighteenth floor of the Empire Building, in lower Broadway, to read in the morning paper that, the day previous, in the market, the stock of his company had advanced to 96. He was, therefore, worth so nearly a million dollars as to be able, in fairness, to call himself a millionaire.

He threw down the newspaper, and, going to the window, looked out on the wide expanse of the Bay. In fact, this young man of a boasted practical turn of mind indulged in a pleasant reverie.

He went back to the time when Mark Pollock, a machinist, who had invented a mechanical device, and for whom he had transacted legal business, had come to him, deploring

his inability, because of want of capital and influence, to forward the device. And Dunbar thought how quick he had been to grasp its value as a labor-saver and cheapener of production; how he had secured a half-interest in the patent, and how he had, after great effort and many discouragements, persuaded C. C. Edgar, the Wall Street magnate, to finance the enterprise. And he further reflected how all this had turned him from a struggling lawyer of limited practice into a man of business, with an amount of property which, only a few years previously, reasonable men would have called a fortune, but which he, keenly conscious of the inalienable right of J. Percival Dunbar to be rich, regarded as ridiculously inadequate for a man of his merit.

His reverie was disturbed by a telephone call. C. C. Edgar, the Wall Street magnate, desired to see him at his office in Manhattan at once. As important a person as J. Percival Dunbar had become, he could not disregard the call of a greater man, so he prepared to obey it at once.

It had not been an easy task to interest the wary capitalist, Edgar, in the Pollock device, but, once interested, that able man saw, not only the money to be made in its manufacture, but how it could be used to force the

sale of other machine supplies, over which there was not exclusive control. Broadening the scope of the enterprise, he bade Dunbar organize a company. Then he floated the bonds the company was authorized to issue, and thus secured the requisite capital, from the proceeds of which, with handsome profit, the syndicate advancing the money to erect the big machine works in Brooklyn had been paid. For the patent-right Pollock and Dunbar had received 20,000 shares, which they divided equally. Pollock had received a contract which made him superintendent with an ample salary. At Edgar's dictation, Dunbar was made president and treasurer, and ceased to be a practicing lawyer.

At the end of a year, when the smoke of financiering had cleared away, Dunbar realized that Edgar owned the controlling shares of Universal. He said such was his payment for financing the enterprise. What stock was not owned by Edgar, Dunbar and Pollock was owned by obedient creatures of Edgar, who made the majorities of the various committees in which management was vested. In short, Edgar was in absolute control, though his name nowhere appeared.

In three years' time other works had been established in various parts of the country,

each new one built by a new issue of bonds and a new increase of stock.

At the end of five years, 1899, the capitalization was $20,000,000, with a bonded indebtedness of half that amount. The shares were of a market value of 96, and the company prosperous beyond the most sanguine expectations. Dunbar was assured that he could dispose of his stock for nearly one million dollars.

Half an hour after he had received the telephone call he was ushered into the private office of the magnate with a promptness that showed his "appointment" was considered important, at least by the private secretaries.

"Seat yourself, Dunbar, while I run over and sign these letters," said the financier, without lifting his head.

Dunbar obeyed, at once falling, as he had so often under similar circumstances, into a study of the great man. Again he read willforce, power and indomitable energy in that face with its square, short yet protruding chin; the straight slit of a mouth, little of the red of lips appearing; the high, mounting, arched nose, thin and bony; the sharp, steely gray eyes; the broad, overhanging forehead with its heavy eyebrows, running to flatness of head, out of keeping with the rest of it. And this time, study forced the conviction

that there were in the man latent possibilities of unrelenting cruelty.

His thoughts were interrupted by the financier himself, who, thrusting the letters aside, touched a bell for the clerk to take them away. He turned to Dunbar with an air of concentrating all his powers of mind on the matter he had with the younger man.

"Dunbar," he said with direct and abrupt force, "you must shut down all the factories of the Universal except the one in Brooklyn." Dunbar sat up straight and stared, unable to comprehend.

"Shut down all the factories?" he repeated slowly, every word laden with amazement.

"Except Brooklyn, I said," replied Edgar, his voice rising aggressively.

The young man took possession of himself, summoning all his powers to his aid.

"The proposition is startling, Mr. Edgar,' he said coldly. "You will, therefore, pardon my surprise. The factories are running on full time, product is behind the demand, collections prompt and orders for future deliveries many. We are prosperous. Had you suggested increase of facilities-more factories- 99

"More bonds and more stock for bonus, eh?" broke in Edgar. "That's your idea of finance, is it? Look at this."