A Business Career

XXVIII

189 In the afternoon a meeting of the directors of the company was held in Truscott's office at which it was decided to wait until the last minute, and then, if no help were in sight, to make an assignment for the benefit of creditors. XXVIII. Stella, returning from the office with the papers, reached her boarding-house whiletea wasin progress. Shedid not feel like eating, but, lest her absence might attract attention, sat down among the other boarders and drank a cup of tea. She excused herself from an invitation to attend eveningservice at aneighboring church, and went to her room as soon as she left the supper-table. She lit her readinglamp, and opening the packet of papers, took up the outer one, and read it through to the end. There were references she did not understand. Taking up the next, she found it of a date somewhat later, and referring to intermediate dates and occurrences. "I had better," shethought, "arrange them first in chronological order." She sorted out the mass of papers—they seemed quite numerous when laid loosely upon the table—in the order of their dates. They consisted of letters, memoranda, stock certificates and cancelled checks. Most of them were in her father's handwriting. Some were in Wendell Truscotfs,—not the now bold and careless scrawl of the successful financier, 190 but the more careful script of the clerk whose writing must pass under the eyeof a superior. Stella had sat down to her task with glowing anticipations. Visions of wealth and independence danced before her eyes. Her mother's hopes and her own would now be realized. Her interest in Truscott, her scruples, had been lost sight of in the glare of her successful discovery.Shehad the papers—the rest was merematter of detail. She read the first paper carefully. It was in her father's handwriting and wasa memorandum or prospectus of a proposed commercial venture on alargescale;something indeed, on the order of the enterprise in which Truscott was at this moment engaged, but even wider in scope, and promising vaster returns than Truscott hadfigured. "He has stolen my father's idea," she reflected, as she laid the paper down. "That proves nothing, but lays a good foundation . He is using the stolen idea now; the stolen money he has used from the beginning." She took up the next paper. It wasa memorandum of proposed articles of incorporation for a company to develop the scheme outlined in the first paper.By the prospectus, the preliminary organization was to be made by contract, secrecy being for a time one of the essentials to success;the incorporation was to follow as soon as the enterprise was fairly launched. In this second memorandum the contract wasoutlined upon the basis of a stock company.The amount named as the capitalization of the new company fairly took Stella's breath away. Ten million dollars! It was a large sum now; at 191 the date of this paper it was stupendous! How much of this was her father's? He surely would not have undertaken to promote a scheme of this magnitude without a largepersonal interest. The next document satisfied her curiosity upon this point. It was composed of several papers fastened together, and was evidently a draft of the proceedings in the organization of the corporation. Among the items was a list of subscriptions to capital stock, in which her father wasset down as subscribing for twenty thousand shares at one hundred dollars each, making a total of two million dollars. "And he died bankrupt," murmured Stella, with a rush of anger. "His confidential clerk, Wendell Truscott, has subscribed to twenty shares, and is rich." Other paragraphs recorded the election of directors and officers. Her father was named as president of the new company . The other names were unfamiliar to Stella,and most of them were given as residents of NewYork. The next paper was in the form of a letter, dated at New York, and addressed to Wendell Truscott, at Groveland.From it Stella gathered that her father had goneto NewYork to consult with certain capitalists. One of the paragraphsran— "I sawBurrowsyesterday.He is positively dazzledwith the enormous possibilities of the scheme! His idea is to enlarge the scope of the company,so asto take in not onlythe sources of supply of coal and oil and iron, but to securethe meansof transportation...