Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford: reference groups

A lavishly dressed stranger splashes two plain townsmen with mud as his cab pulls up, and sweeps into the best hotel without a glance at them.

He takes a suite though he has under a hundred dollars and no idea where more will come from, and meets an old confederate in the hallway.

He draws out his savings; the promoter mails money to his wife, plans to buy a fine house 'as a front', and takes a costly car on trial without any deposit.

On the credit of owning the house he furnishes, stocks and staffs it, then throws a housewarming where his wife fascinates the investors.

His wife surrenders her jewels to be pawned so he can keep up a front; she says she is tired and wants to live quietly and decently.

In the city he takes rooms at two hundred a week and spends lavishly, while his wife numbs her doubts in fine clothes.

He strolls to the train carrying only a cane while a sweating porter carries his luggage, dignity radiating from him.

With only six hundred dollars, he hosts the partners in a grand private dining room with pitchers of beer; the doctor moves him into the chair.

He buys a boarding house to be made a mansion, hires local servants, and leaves; the paper reports him buying property in neighbouring towns.

Back in luxury on credit his spirits revive, but pocket money runs low; in a shabby cigar shop the maker complains that the government favours combinations over little men.

The promoter complains of a bank overdraft and orders champagne in a temper; the young man, now at ease with big sums, offers a loan and is asked for five hundred.

After a luncheon that has them all praising him, he buys a house by handing the agent a sixty-day note instead of the required cash.

Merchants extend credit on his house and car, each referring to the last; when the car dealer means to demand payment, the promoter orders a second car for his wife instead.

Disgusted by a boarding-house dinner, he moves them into the best hotel with no money, so that the bill will force him back to work.

Walking back, the promoter sees that small cigar stores buy at retail and hatches his plan; the hotel clerk is waiting to press him about his unpaid bill.

He complains angrily about the wine and threatens to pay and leave, and the relieved clerk stops worrying; his wife senses good news.

He dazzles the three small dealers with an expensive lunch; afterwards the hotel manager politely says he must present the two-week bill.

He pockets the bill with perfect calm and walks off.

He reels off fabulous profits and a giant rival that would buy them out for millions, and the applicant, who had resisted the gold-mine seller, is overwhelmed.

The promoter says the stock will go only to a few large holders, and the applicant is disappointed to be shut out of such a sure thing.

The old man wishes he could buy some of the stock, envying its promised dividends; he judges the offer too good to miss if the man is honest.

They offer her stock in the order's operating company at twelve percent; she is swayed less by the figures than by the swindler's diamonds and silk socks.

The swindler urges him to manufacture and scare the giant into buying; the inventor fears losing everything.

The promoter charms them all and offers to back the inventor alone with all the capital needed, though he has six hundred dollars; they insist on going in themselves.

Wheat jumps ten cents, wiping out small speculators; the journal urges every farmer to invest every loose dollar in wheat on margin through the swindler's broker.

The young farmer's father, who distrusts speculation, wants a share of the easy money until his son says everyone must hold their wheat.

The promoter explains stores will be bought for stock, owners kept on salary, and costs cut by bulk buying; the loungers listen avidly.

The promoter tells the maker he saved too slowly and must invest; the maker admits he has five thousand, scraped together over thirty years.

He offers the maker five thousand more in stock, in strict secret to keep the powerful partner out, and promises to push his cigars.

Looking at the carpet, he invents on the spot a cloth-covered tack, saying any patent will do because the company can fight over it after he has gone.

The promoter knows the covering machine is nearly impossible and that going to market would bring ruinous lawsuits, so he stalls.

He shows the directors drawings for a covering machine, restores their confidence, and sells fifteen thousand in stock through a new sales agent in another city.

With the treasury empty and the machine still unfinished, the promoter leers at the old man's daughter, then tells the investors seven thousand more is needed.

The circular to members reprints a big rival's glowing annual report under a tiny heading so readers take it for their own order's, and offers stock at twenty-five dollars.

The swindler takes charge of stock sales, travelling to each interested member to sell him exactly as much as he has; money pours in, and the operator, flush, even borrows from him.

The thrifty men revere interest and agree; he declines every office, offering only to back them if ever needed.

Mobbed at the bank, he confirms the traction line and hints at car shops if citizens do their share; the great man gives a speech of thanks.

He asks no cash, only land, a franchise and repayment of his option money, which he promises to double and spend on a fountain.

He vows to use the million members to break the grain exchange and would give his fortune, even die a pauper, for the farmers' cause.

The promoter explains the consolidation and says he will buy some stores for cash; the maker fears being frozen out if he refuses.

The incorporators, small savers past forty, are enchanted by the trick of watering stock they had always condemned in the newspapers.

The new company buys the old at double value; the investors glory in doubling their money on paper, while the promoter now holds ninety thousand in stock, a house and a car.

The whole town surges to his mansion with a brass band, eating and drinking while special editions promise every citizen riches.

Money fever grips the town; the chamber of commerce asks what the traction company wants in return for building its shops there.

The town's leaders guarantee the franchise; village councils along the route give streets and station grounds away before he even asks.

In yellow boots and a buckboard he wins rights of way from farmers with promises of stops, sidings and cheap freight.

To the promoter's surprise the banker pays two thousand for his own five-hundred-dollar lot, and the paper trumpets the deal.

Speculation becomes a craze across the route; lots double in a day, and he quietly sells at ten times cost.

The buyers rave about the wealth he brought, not seeing that they are passing their own money around at artificial values and he never meant to build a line.

The farmers cheer and form an association with no fees or dues, since he alone will pay for everything.

He is made president; members need only send chain letters recruiting three more growers each.

Plied with cider and liquor, the farmers go home convinced he is their Moses; letters spread across the wheat belt and names pour in.

The farmers cheer him as a martyr and go home with his gifts, dreaming of wheat at a dollar and a half, while his wife watches pale and his confederate grins.

Rumours push prices up; the journal urges every farmer to hold his wheat for a dollar and a half, and farmers refuse to sell.

Across the wheat belt farmers refuse ordinary prices; the swindler laughs that the exchange can be frightened by a pumpkin.

Farmers sell real wheat and gamble the cash on paper wheat; the pit goes wild; neighbours brag of profits as the swindler heads for the city.

The promoter lulls him with promises of a split and fires up the small dealers at meetings; nearly all sign. He then asks the maker, now vice president, about buying a fine house.

They total his spending and are aghast at his extravagance, but the old man concludes the company itself is sound.

The old man calls him a liar but has already mortgaged a house for his stock; they agree to take stock as security for the loans.

Faith in the product holds them; the old man, meaning to be stern, ends up mortgaging again and paying the promoter four thousand for stock.

To save what they have put in they raise ten thousand more, mortgaging again, then scrape up small sums from friends, while the promoter sells twenty thousand of his own stock.

He pays thirty dollars off the books; next day she asks him to buy back her mother's stock, and he tells her to bring the certificate that night.

He asks each whether they would put more money in against the giant; all say no except the inventor.

The partners, frightened, decide to let the sale go ahead and hope to recover the note; he leaves satisfied, and brushes off an urgent caller from another hotel.

At his wife's lawn reception he thinks of the crash to come; the mayor says every cent he has is in property and he will not sell until the first car runs.

The agent admits any patent would not hold; the promoter says he only needs a seal and a ribbon and reminds him to keep quiet, and the agent's conscience goes to sleep.

He calls the promoter a thief; the promoter replies that the young man is the one drawing a salary, leaving him sick with conscience.

The swindler says insurance is beside the point; they will sell stock to the members and then get out. The operator accepts the note; the clerk says he does not quite like it.

The prospectus promises charity and profit together; the operator is proud of it, but the clerk says anyone fooled by such buncombe is too big a sucker to have money.

The partners sell their own stock and live like kings; the clerk warns their low rates will ruin the order, and the operator points to the hidden clauses that contradict every promise.

The operator says they will be out before it fails; the clerk says the old members will be left holding the bag and vows to stay and rebuild it after the crash, so he is sent on the road.

The lawyer reports the bank is suing and the partners will let the company go to forced sale, then demands more than a fee; the swindler offers ten thousand.

He explains the trick: the promoter buys each store for stock and resells it to the company at double, pocketing half the shares free; he wants in.

The promoter reveals he has sold stock to his car dealer and tailor partly for credit, and the young man realises the venture stalls without him.

The young man, pressed by unpaid suppliers, accuses the promoter of selling worthless private stock to the very prospects the company was courting, and refuses to record the sale.

The swindler courts the girl with rewards and raises; when his partner presents the two-thousand-dollar note, he tears it up.

The partner accuses him of selling five of his own shares for every company share and leaving the partner holding the bag; he cheerfully admits it and says he is quitting.

Shaking hands, the swindler reads in the lawyer's eyes that he still plans to double-cross him, and lets him leave feeling in control.

The lawyer plans to sneak off to the sale first, but the swindler drugs his nightcap and he collapses into a deep sleep.

The swindler carries him to bed, searches him and finds telegrams from the giant company authorising the lawyer to buy the patents cheaply and keep the difference as his fee.

The inventor bid everything he had but lost; the partners will divide a pittance. The confederate jokingly asks what the transfer is worth, and the swindler threatens him with the police.

The swindler shows his confederate the drugged lawyer: the last man who tried to double-cross him, who lost forty thousand.

He declares himself in for half the free stock; asked what he brings, he says he is the permanent alderman and controls gambling privileges.

They part in good humour, but the promoter spends long hours thinking.

The alderman takes the check; he balks at letting the promoter hold all the stock as trustee but, finding no better plan, agrees.

The alderman says he swore out the warrant himself over the postdated check, having seen through the double-cross.

Over dinner plans, the confederate sulks that he came to fleece a local mark and has been made a fool of himself.

A week later the two meet again: the swindler lost everything on an inside tip to a crooked broker who vanished with it.

The confederate has also lost his takings to a cheating card dealer; both are broke in expensive rooms that wait to be paid for.

At breakfast he reads that his placid broker has shot himself, and turns ghastly pale for the first time in his life.

The respectable old broker had kept six households and had been juggling customers' money for years.

The partner explains the broker used the swindler's money to cover his thefts, then gambled the rest to make it up and was wiped out when the market broke.

Charged and moved to the county jail, he trades jokes with the alderman, who is reorganising the consolidation himself.

The young man suggests roughening the tack heads; the promoter hails him as a man of remarkable resource.

The test works; the promoter offers the young man a quarter share of the patent as joint inventor, and they go to a lawyer friend of his.

The young man asks to bring friends in; the promoter proposes a tiny dummy corporation with four friends buying one share each as directors.

The man boasts of the clause that makes his own company the paid trustee of all members' funds; the swindler says he deserves half the business for nothing.

The man, badly in need of cash, refuses two thousand but offers half his stock at par; the swindler says he would reorganise on a huge basis.

The inventor refuses any stock company; the swindler proposes a partnership with the inventor's well-off friends instead.

The maker, convinced, agrees; the promoter offers him a directorship and hints he may sell his shop to the combination at an inflated price.

The maker, now a knowing insider, fetches two not-too-smart friends to join, and rides in the carriage.

The promoter charms the thrifty old man with a compliment on his war service and gets him into the car; the old man's daughter watches uneasily.

The young man says the promoter's credit is reference enough, since he bought a car without paying; the old man agrees to join and bring in three more solid men.

The bumbling operator is awed by the swindler's lordly bearing; the confederate slyly warns him to watch the big man, which only impresses him more.

Shown the swindler's grand car from the window, the clerk is reassured and agrees to sell at par; a lavish dinner removes his last doubts.

The neighbour who called him a skinner now dotes on him, and they take him to the cellar for home-made wine.

The pair fill his notebook with fabrications, and he tells the crowd that 'Colonel' Wallingford is a famous Eastern millionaire.

All winter he tours a dozen states addressing sceptical farmers, who leave enthusiastic.

The loungers in the shop agree the laws grind down the poor; the promoter's arrival wakes everyone up.

The confederate describes the mark who beat him: a careful clerk with five thousand dollars saved, who demanded proof that the mine existed.

The old friend teases him about gold-mine schemes and marriage; the young man boasts of his big new salary and the friend asks if the new man is a sharper too.

The man laughs that such stock could never pay and cites the law; the swindler says the law is always on his side and asks what he will do with the death money.

A shrewd neighbour calls the absent promoter a skinner and says profits should stay at home, just as the promoter arrives in a polished cab.

The only suspicious man in town, the hotel keeper, demands cash in advance from guests without luggage and sends the hundred-dollar bill to the bank to be checked.

The town comes alive with hope and every idle dollar looks like a raft to prosperity; only the suspicious hotel keeper remembers he had no luggage.

Realising the whole thing depends on everyone else holding, the old man sells his wheat and banks the money; the swindler exults that a million makes him a financier.

He lunges at the daughter; she flees just as her father arrives, and the old man, seeing him, flies at him in a rage.

The big man whimpers for mercy while the old man throttles him; a friend warns there is a law against it, and the old man cries that the law did not save his savings.

The old man beats the swindler until he collapses from a stroke beside him.

He lies to his wife about his wounds; summoned back for the convention, he walks through a room of hostile stockholders and cows them with a smile.

His fine clothes awe the waiting men; inside, the girl is working on the books, and his partner curtly calls him in.

His towering presence still makes the men lower their eyes.

Threatened by the angry men, the swindler writes the check less a thousand for travel, but insists on handing it over at his own door.

Back in town before the forced sale, he meets the partners' hostility; the shrewd neighbour calls him a liar and a skinner.

The maker refuses to have anything to do with a swindler, and his wife has left the hotel; for the first time he is utterly friendless.

A lawyer for a rival company delivers notice that it has sold exactly this product, with roughened heads, for three years.

The young man realises the special machinery is scrap and every cent the investors put in is gone.

He telephones the old man with the news; the old man cannot take it in and the line goes silent.

They win the first suit, but the giant files another and another, ready to fight until the little company is choked.

Dazed, he hands out cigars and leaves; he has fifty-four dollars, and his wife silently hands over her diamonds.

He tells his wife never to preach again: he tried a legitimate deal and a thief got all the money.

The young man is fully converted; the promoter warns him they must vote down any buyout offer to hold out for a higher price.

The inventor says a giant company offered him only three hundred dollars for six years' work; the swindler says that proves it is worth thousands.

He studies a borrowed commercial machine overnight; at the shop, the inventor's friends admire the invention and plan to force the giant to buy them out.

He squeezes a large loan from the guilty-feeling doctor, sells machines through leads that turn out to be the giant's contacts, and the giant sues the company and every buyer.

He tells them they alone have no say over their prices and must combine, like the great trusts, to demand a dollar and a half for wheat.

The maker says his own cigar is better but he cannot afford advertising, and that consolidators should be jailed.

The promoter suggests the small dealers combine to buy in bulk, and the maker warms at once; the confederate, disguised and on the run, appears begging for money.

He tours the town's night life and is carried to bed by eager servants, the prince who arrived with less than a hundred dollars.

The train is held for the rich-looking swindler, and a fussy mechanic who went back for his wife's umbrella is allowed to scramble aboard too.

Porters and conductors fight to carry his bags for tips and he hands out a cigar the conductor assumes is expensive.

They invite him to a church raffle to meet the local doctor, and agree among themselves that he is a swell.

The whole town crowds the siding; the newspaper owner rings the bell and is admitted while the crowd cranes to see in.

A local notable welcomes the swindler and offers a site for a new hotel; the newspaper owner brings papers and promises the town's cooperation in any investment.

The local notable brings in the town's great man, president of the bank and every factory.

The great man speechifies about the town's advantages, and one leading citizen after another calls to welcome the millionaire.

The swindler shows him bonds and a bank book and claims half a million made in wheat investment; the awed young man spreads the word through the county.

His wife, tired of waiting for the crash, urges him to take every dollar he can and go abroad before this venture ends like the others.

He boasts that the law is his friend; she reminds him of all the towns they have fled and tells him to save money this time.

On the train the swindler gloats that he drew out the money before the check could clear and swore it was signed under coercion; his wife says their money never does them any good.

Privately he tells his wife he means to sell the patent to the company that once snubbed him; she asks what they will be like when they are old.

His wife, seeing the bride's glances at him, urges him to settle here and start an honest business; they drive back and find their watches wrong.

He plans a traction line built on a thousand dollars and the town's money; his wife begs him to make honest money with the hundred thousand they have.

His wife is welcomed by the town's social leaders and blossoms, begging him to stay for good and suggesting he could hold public office.

He laughs that there is not enough money in office, and treats her planned reception as a good business move.

She weeps for her lost hopes; he sinks into apathy, and they drift from town to town, pawning her diamonds and living in boarding houses.

He announces he will settle here and take half the profits of the town's small cigar shops; she tells him she is expecting a child.

His wife confronts him: he used her to squeeze loans out of the infatuated doctor, who has now propositioned her and says the lawyer has exposed him; she is leaving.

He tells her he has sold everything but the donated land and cleared over two hundred thousand; she thinks it was honestly made, and he asks whether a dollar is ever honest.

Home, he says they must leave for Europe; his wife is horrified that he will not build the line and that her happiness here was built on theft.

His wife asks why he pushed farmers to speculate; he says someone had to buy his wheat when he sold, and the confederate says the farmers will sell to the sheriff.

His wife asks who will lose the money; he assures her it is ordinary promoter's profit. A policeman arrives and arrests him for obtaining money under false pretences.

On the way to the bank the promoter hands over a note written for a thousand instead of five hundred, and the young man reluctantly agrees to lend the larger sum.

The operator hands over his half share, and finds he has been paid with a ninety-day note instead of cash.

The credit is approved; he proposes that each member pay in only two thousand now, to keep the rest earning interest, which leaves his own cash share at five hundred.

Amid a lavish lunch he quietly pays in five hundred dollars, completing a share bought mostly with credit, then sends for his own lawyer.

He proposes to lend the company ten thousand against a note it can discount, and writes a check on a distant bank after banking hours.

That night he retrieves the check, claims it was drawn on the wrong bank, discounts the company's note locally and uses the proceeds to cover his own check.

Wanting to be a real millionaire now, he banks his hundred thousand locally and takes options on all vacant land with non-negotiable notes, which the banker says he will lend on at face value.

The alderman's name brings the small dealers in; the promoter asks him to pay the incorporation costs and hands over a postdated check for his own share.

Bored, he bets thousands at the races until only six thousand is left; a telegram from his confederate asks urgently for five thousand, and he goes at once.

The swindler sends him with cash to buy down his jailed confederate's bail; meanwhile he sketches copies of the inventor's machine.

The lawyer returns with the bedraggled confederate, released for four thousand, and slides out with barely any fee.

The confederate rages about four days in a cell; the swindler laughs that in these towns his kind of work is called swindling.

The confederate, just then fleeing a postal fraud charge, builds a lavish gentleman's farmhouse with the swindler's money.

The swindler arrives dressed as a gentleman farmer; the confederate welcomes him with a phonograph and says he is hiding under a false name.

The confederate explains the authorities stopped his gold mine and his bride has left him; the swindler's wife is pleased.

The confederate, grey and frightened, is wanted for selling oil wells that did not exist; the promoter can give him only ten dollars.

The confederate says all their old associates are in prison and they are next, then flees.

As he insists it is legal, a real traction magnate arrives wanting to talk about his line.

The sham line is sold to a real traction group; the town fetes the departing couple, his wife is proud that he can come back, and he laughs that it turned out a legitimate deal.

Struck by the thought that honest deals may pay better, and holding half a million, he reads American papers across Europe looking to make a commanding fortune.

The crop grows; the young farmer's scientific methods produce the best wheat in the district.

The magnate, whose line prospered, forgives him and offers to buy him out of jail and hire him to win rights of way, with a man to watch him.

He laughs that three watchers would be needed and takes his wife's hand; she, understanding at last, knows he will not change.

The old man accuses him of waste; the promoter scorns their small-shop thinking, demands they sell treasury stock, and meanwhile secretly sells his own.

Drunk after a night out, the promoter drives to the old man's house to squeeze out more money before fleeing, and finds the daughter alone.

He says it was all legal and his partner has done well; the clerk bursts in with his delegation of angry members.

After the guests leave, the promoter sits brooding and calls his wife in.

He reasons from the prices that his broker sold at his target; the confederate says the money came from the farmers, and he says it is his now.

He makes the same secret offer to every dealer with money, and tells his wife he will leave town with the cash, cutting out the partner who tried to muscle in.

The confederate warns him the town is impossible to swindle; he says he smells soft money and admits he walked away from his last company leaving the stockholders ruined.

He insists he only deals in lawful propositions; they joke about his wife eating up her diamonds, and the confederate vows to go home where money comes to him.

He resolves to take the mark himself with a 'legitimate business proposition' and arranges for the confederate's sham company addresses to vouch for him.

The careful young man answers an advertisement for a post in the new company; the promoter feigns reluctance and learns the visitor prides himself on his competence.

The promoter describes the immense business to come; the applicant, falling under the spell, insists he has no money to invest.

The promoter says he wants only the man's services, not his money, and turns cool and demanding; the applicant hurries to give references.

The promoter shows a handful of cloth-covered tacks and holds one against the rusty ones in the carpet; the applicant asks about cost.

Sweating from the effort, the promoter sees the man is wholly convinced, and presses him to stay for dinner despite his plain clothes.

The promoter has a private dinner served and buys the guest fresh linen on the hotel's account; the guest begins to feel himself grand.

After champagne, box seats and supper, the guest thinks the host a financial genius and accepts the post in the company.

The young man quits his secure job of fifteen years and goes to see his old friend; the friend's daughter, who quietly loves him, tells him where her father is.

The young man shows the tack and repeats the giant rival's profits; the old man is impressed but asks whether the promoter wants money.

The young man goes through the motions of consulting friends; the promoter keeps him waiting while writing letters, one boasting to his confederate that he is sharpening the shears.

Seated with his face in shadow, the promoter hands over references and then confides, as a mark of trust, that no patent has been applied for.

He shows a board of tacks with the cloth knocked off and says the problem must be solved before patenting, then leans back smiling while the young man puzzles.

The promoter sends for tools and wine, and the two of them roughen and cover tacks with fervour, until his face suddenly clouds over.

A penniless young lawyer draws up the patent agreement and is too timid to ask for his fee, which the promoter, short of cash, does not pay.

The promoter pays a shabby patent agent in cash plus a tip to hurry, leaving him full of golden hopes, then returns frowning.

The promoter explains a chain of recapitalisations that will turn the young man's patent share into a hundred thousand dollars on paper.

The two townsmen plead a lodge meeting, but the promoter overrides them; the young man tries to bring the daughter, who refuses, worried.

The promoter says nothing about the company, letting the two talk themselves into it; after a grand dinner the old man asks whether references were given.

A reckless night drive back at terrific speed leaves the passengers exhilarated and singing despite a near accident.

He delivers them on time, hires the chauffeur with a tip, and deposits six hundred of the borrowed dollars with the hotel to show his solvency.

At a cheerful first meeting over a meal the investors elect officers, with the promoter as president, and vote to raise the capital.

He holds up the tack, praises the young man's contribution and the giant rival's profits, and has the young man read out his glowing references.

The sham letterheads impress everyone; a factory is fitted out; the patent agent reports prior claims that cover the idea, and the promoter orders him to get a patent anyway.

The directors vote the promoter and the young man sixty thousand in stock for future patents, subscribe for more themselves, and form a larger company.

The first machine works and a patent is granted, but a credit report reveals the promoter has no money at all; he cheerfully admits it and says he needs more.

The young man protests the spending; the promoter angrily drives off for the day, leaving the machinists waiting, and the old man arrives because a note he guaranteed is due.

The two friends discover the promoter has borrowed from each of them and from another investor, each without telling the others.

The investors hold an indignation meeting, but seeing the covering machine apparently work, they conclude the promoter is a big man after all.

The friend throws the sobbing swindler out; his chauffeur, well paid for months, drives him home secretly delighted.

The young man arrives; the daughter falls against him and he realises he loves her, while her ruined, stricken father smiles.

The swindler and his wife leave town without a backward thought for the people they ruined, and meet their old confederate in a grand hotel.

He boasts of twenty-eight thousand dollars cleared, says small investors howl louder than big ones, and insists he never broke the law; the confederate warns the fence will break.

The confederate tells of a bumbling head of a small insurance society who brought its reserve fund to the city to gamble and was nearly fleeced.

A member's death forced the man to take the money home; the swindler decides to buy into the insurance society and go with him.

Over champagne the swindler presses the man into admitting his order has barely five hundred members.

The swindler promises to make the widow hand the money back in gratitude, in exchange for a cut and his price; he tells his confederate he will pay out of the business, if at all.

The day after the funeral the two call on the grieving widow and hand her the insurance check with a speech about the order's paternal care.

Paid by check so she will not feel real money, the widow says one daughter wants spending and the other wants the mortgage paid; the swindler warns against losing the money's earning power.

The pretty younger daughter comes in; the swindler offers her a job in the offices, and the pair leave with the widow's check.

Back at the dingy office the operator exults; the swindler recasts the death payout as a stock sale and says they will rent fine offices on credit.

The swindler lays out a plan: reorganise at a quarter million, sell stock to the members, cut rates and pay themselves salaries; the young clerk asks how they will ever pay claims.

The widow's pretty daughter joins the new plush offices at five dollars a week; the swindler courts her under cover of guardianship, and the earnest young clerk falls for her.

The swindler smoothly tells the clerk the stock money may truly grow the order, then privately proposes buying out the troublesome clerk.

The girl realises her mother's money is at risk; after the swindler pinches her cheek she cries, confides in the clerk, and forbids him to confront the swindler yet.

The clerk arranges a grand convention of the order; the girl keeps her employer at bay with flippancy, then reminds him her mother's promised interest is overdue.

She gets the check first; when he grabs her, she stabs him with a hatpin and tells him she stayed only until she could safely get the money back.

The clerk denounces both partners, orders the operator out, and demands a check from the swindler for the forty-five thousand in his bank.

He hands over the check at his door and takes defeat with suspicious ease; the clerk has already obtained an injunction on the account but is uneasy.

The flustered mechanic, robbed of his wife's umbrella, rails at the city's thieves to the genial stranger, who laughs along.

The swindler reads him as a skilled mechanic and pricks up his ears when the man mentions his invention.

In a private compartment the inventor shows his fine machine; the swindler, planning something else entirely, promises to buy in and get a proper price.

In a new town the swindler summons a sharp young lawyer, who, once he sees what kind of man his client is, admits the town is deep in debt.

Recovering, the confederate refuses the swindler's offer to go into business together, saying they would only double-cross each other.

The swindler says his wife barely let him have the bail money; the confederate warns this town punishes swindlers, but the swindler says his legitimate methods will be admired.

The promoter plays the prince at the church raffle, befriends the vain local doctor, and writes his wife to come at once because he needs her smile in his business.

Having studied the rival machine, he tells the inventor one part of his device infringes the giant's patent and shows him a way round it.

He proposes a simpler improvement he will patent and assign to the company for a fifteen-hundred-dollar credit; the inventor, shaken, finds a patent that nearly covers the principle.

The inventor wants time to consult his friends; the promoter arranges to hold the signing at his hotel, and counts his cash.

The doctor vouches for him as a gentleman of vast means; the partnership papers are signed, and he casually raises his patent credit.

He instructs his lawyer to research every lawsuit the giant company has fought and every company it has bought out.

The swindler's glamorous wife arrives, and the vain doctor spreads word of her furs, diamonds and their lavish suppers, cementing the swindler's reputation for wealth.

He throws the vain doctor together with his wife; the business prospers until the machines are ready and his unpaid three thousand falls due.

He tells the despairing partners he cannot spare a dollar, then goes east to offer the company to the giant's patent manager.

The patent manager coolly says the company has nothing worth buying and can be outlasted.

He produces letters from wealthy men the giant once crushed, offering to back the little company with real capital.

Each letter names a rich enemy of the giant; the manager is visibly shaken.

He explains he sells privately because a quiet sale pays him more than a twelfth share of an open sale, and demands to see the head of the firm.

The giant agrees to buy the patents for a hundred and seventy-five thousand within sixty days; he wires his lawyer to have the bank sue on the company's note.

She locks herself away; the lawyer arrives insolently familiar, hinting he knows of the swindler's past schemes.

He finds his wife gone and the doctor's office empty, and fears the worst.

He chases the doctor to Europe, finds his wife is not with him, then learns from his confederate she is in a village, tired of quiet life and missing him.

He recites the companies the giant has ruined, then offers to put in ten thousand if they raise thirty, flashing thousand-dollar bills.

He invites the lawyer to a private dinner the night before the sale and leaves him alone with the champagne.

Over a three-hour dinner and a night of clubs, the swindler, who can hold his drink, gets the lawyer helplessly drunk; at dawn the lawyer mumbles that the sale is at ten.

Admiring the company's business sense but despising the lawyer's clumsiness, he lays the telegrams out beside the sleeper and sits watching him for hours.

Fighting sleep for five hours with cold showers, he finally gets the telephone call: the patents have been bought.

Barely able to stand, he calls a lawyer; his confederate arrives, having bought the patents at the sale for eight thousand.

The patents transferred, the confederate announces he has married a much-divorced musical-comedy star after one night of spending.

He describes the whirlwind wedding; the swindler jokes about how long the lease will last.

After collecting from the giant company, the swindler visits the newlyweds, and the bride sizes him up as a good sport with money to spend.

Nursing hangovers, they boast of their spree; the swindler mixes cocktails and the bride hails him as a hero.

By evening she calls him by a pet name, and he decides she is respectable enough to introduce to his wife.

His wife, a quieter woman, dislikes the new bride but tolerates her; he announces a private-car honeymoon tour for them all.

The party carouses across the country; fuming at a slow train, the swindler bullies the conductor until their car is left on a siding in a small town.

To the sleepy town a private car is an epoch; an idler runs up the street shouting the news.

The town's leading men and idlers hurry to the depot; the newspaper owner rushes to be first.

The swindler welcomes him grandly to lunch and introduces the party as millionaires, a mine dealer and a retired manufacturer.

The editor rails at the railroad that bypasses their thriving town of factories and says even its leading citizen can do nothing about it.

Bored with two hours to kill, the party hires a carriage to see the town; the confederate's bride warms to the swindler more than the others like.

The town watches the four parade up Main Street like a circus, and the swindler senses sleeping money everywhere.

The two schemers toss a coin for the town and the swindler wins, vowing to come back and play the tune that makes the coin dance out.

An idler runs to tell them the through train has taken their private car without them.

The railroad refuses to bring the car back; they are stuck until the next afternoon.

The front page trumpets Eastern millions, the stolen car and a rumoured huge hotel.

The article lists his schemes as triumphs and urges a traction line to rival the railroad; the swindler seizes on the idea.

He hosts them all on the town's entire supply of champagne, and afterwards gloats that they are begging to be skinned; he means to hide the traction idea.

Next morning he tours sites, sketching a grand hotel and opera house, and keeps a thoughtful silence over one pasture.

He takes cheap ninety-day options on seven pieces of property, and the paper devotes its whole front page to the purchases.

The promoter returns by motor car to an ovation; the town's great man comes out bareheaded, and the notable who got option money has smartened himself up.

The editor deduces from the pattern of purchases along the road that a traction line is coming, with the town as headquarters.

The boom spreads a hundred miles; his wife is proud of all the value he has created, and he laughs that it cost him two hundred and fifty dollars.

A surveyor runs a line down Main Street; the banker asks whether the hotel will be built, and the promoter offers him his own lot back at four times the price.

He sells other options at a profit, uses the money to take up the rest, and puts a grading crew on a hill east of town while papers print pictures of trolley cars.

The town and country crowd into the square for the fountain's dedication.

The band parades and the promoter rides in the first carriage with the town's leaders.

The banker speaks for forty-five minutes on the town's glorious future.

The mayor introduces the promoter, holding back his name until the dramatic moment.

The crowd roars his name; he makes a short modest speech thanking them, sweating.

His wife pulls the cord and the fountain he promised spouts; the editor runs off to write it up.

Finding European laws too strict, he cables his confederate to buy him a farm in the wheat belt for a new enterprise.

His room is papered with worthless stock certificates; the swindler solemnly announces he will save the downtrodden farmers.

He plans to empty the wheat pit and make a million, then take on the greatest financiers; they meet the farm's new manager.

The confederate shows a lavish farm office and introduces a college-trained young farmer the neighbours think a joke.

The young farmer asks only fifteen dollars a week; the swindler admits he knows nothing of farming but wants wheat.

The young man honestly warns that the farm cannot possibly turn a profit at the scale planned.

The young farmer throws himself into the work; in the city the swindler skips the polished broker offices as too much like his own stage settings and chooses a shabby, placid old firm.

Shown thirty years of books, he gives the placid broker fifty thousand with instructions for five weekly gambles, needing only one win in five.

The first gamble wins fifteen thousand; he lets the young farmer see the check, and rumour inflates the sum across two counties.

At a country debating society the farmers carry the motion that the farmer is a failure as a businessman; the swindler asks to speak.

At a lavish Christmas feast for members he announces the association has spread to every wheat-growing community.

The secretary circulates reports of his winning deals, hiding the few losses; the young farmer says he tripled his own small savings on the swindler's tips.

He mails a penny journal to a million members, then brings the placid broker four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to bet on wheat.

The broker will not predict but agrees to buy nearly two million bushels; the swindler says he will turn it into a clean million.

He arranges for the broker to sell to other buyers when the price peaks, and has the firm advertise in his journal that it handles his trades.

The market breaks as farmers rush to sell; he tells his confederate the farmers cut their own throats and will hold the bag.

The dingy office is full of frantic customers; the surviving partner flinches when the swindler gives his name.

He buys good cigars, wincing at his own frayed clothes, and watches the maker pay a salesman a high price for a heavily advertised brand.

The promoter admits he has lost his touch since his great fall; the confederate is terrified of a plain-clothes man across the street.

He drafts plans through the night, orders printing, and returns to the shabby shop in a showy carriage that wakes the loungers.

He offers the maker eight hundred dollars for his business, which is a good price; the maker wants more.

With nobody to wire for money, he wanders into a flashy cigar store where illegal dice games run openly for cigars.

The sharp proprietor sizes him up; a policeman passes through to a back-room poker game, and a customer challenges the proprietor to a dice throw for money.

The promoter joins with his last fifteen dollars; the others drop out and he and the proprietor are left facing each other.

They raise the stakes; he wins twice with four aces, then throws a mere pair on a two-hundred-dollar pot.

The proprietor throws nothing and loses; called away, he lets the promoter take the money, and the promoter pays his hotel bill, confidence restored.

That evening the proprietor calls: he is a local power, has heard of the consolidation, and says it will fail unless he gets his cut.

The promoter insists the plan is a straight business; the fixer, who always bets that people are not honest, asks what the inside is.

The fixer demands to see the agreement, reads it several times, and salutes the promoter for inventing a new game.

In his cell he reflects bitterly that after all his big deals he is caught over a hundred dollars, and feels no remorse, only regret at being careless.

His wife visits, bringing the traction magnate who once bought his sham line.