Free John Fitzgerald GB 05 Great Bra by Great Brain Reforms Page B

can’t think of any possible objection,” he said. “I would, of course, have to get President Hollingsworth’s approval. And I would have to be certain that the money to pay for the stock was on deposit in your bank.”
    “I see your point,” Mr. Whitlock said. “Some people might say they want to buy shares and then change their minds at the last moment. But I can set up a special account in the bank to handle it.”
    Mr. Forester finally finished the haircut and left the suite with the first gratuity of his life. Mr. Pendleton gave him a fifty-cent tip.
    “Now, gentlemen,” Mr. Pendleton said, after putting on his frock coat and removing a business card from his wallet. He handed it to Mr. Whitlock. “Send me a telegram to our Salt Lake City branch office certifying you have the cash in a special account to purchase a hundred shares of stock.”
    “What if we want to purchase more than a hundred shares?” Mr. Whitlock asked.
    “Let me know how many shares you want to purchase in the telegram,” Mr. Pendleton said. “I will then take it up with Mr. Hollingsworth. But you do understand that the stock must be purchased in blocks of one hundred
    shares. And Mr. Fitzgerald, please don’t print anything about this in your newspaper or notify the Salt Lake City papers. If it became known that our company was permitting the citizens of Adenville to buy the stock at forty-five dollars a share, we would be deluged with demands from investors to sell them stock at the same price.”
    Papa was certainly excited when he came home that evening. Before supper, during supper, and after supper, he talked about his visit with Mr. Pendleton.
    Mamma let Papa ramble on until he said he was go-ing to mortgage the house to buy stock.
    “You will do no such thing,” she said. “There are enough of the worthless stocks you’ve bought in a trunk in the attic to paper the walls of this parlor.”
    “But those were high-risk stocks, Tena,” Papa protested, “with no guarantee that the companies would find gold or silver or oil on the property. This is a company that manufactures lye, soap, and Epsom salts.”
    “I have never seen the name Alkali Products Incorporated on any I’ve bought,” Mamma said.
    “That is because their market is in the central states,” Papa said.
    They were still arguing about it when the time came for Frankie and me to go to bed. Papa was a good talker but I knew Mamma would never let him mortgage the house. I stayed awake until Tom came up at nine.
    “Papa could make us rich,” I said, “if Mamma let him mortgage the house.”
    “Mamma knows that Papa doesn’t know beans about stock,” Tom said. “If Mr. Whitlock is going to invest, I just might buy a share of stock myself. I’m not a fellow
    who passes up a chance to almost double his money in six months. But I am also not a fellow who puts up forty-five dollars without knowing a lot more about Alkali Products
    Incorporated.”
    The next morning Tom went for a ride on Sweyn’s mustang, Dusty. That afternoon he went to the post office to mail two letters and a mysterious package. I asked him what it was all about.
    “Just protecting my forty-five dollars,” he said, and that was all 1 could get out of him.
    Mr. Forester didn’t waste any time telling people what he had heard in the hotel suite. Everybody who could scrape up forty-five dollars or more was demanding that Mr. Whitlock let them buy shares of stock. The banker had his bookkeeper, Frank Collopy, record how many shares each person wanted to buy and made them deposit the money in the special account. Papa got a loan on the Advocate building to buy twenty shares of stock. Tom took forty-five dollars from his bank account to buy one share. The total amount of money deposited in the special account was enough to buy two hundred and twenty-one shares. Mr, Whitlock himself said he would purchase seventy-nine shares to bring the total up to three hundred.
    He sent a telegram to Mr.