"I never thought of that side of it. But I can see there is much in what you say. I should like to put the gold in the VanTwiller Trust Company."
"Fine! I think I can help you. I'll call up our Wall Street man and he will make the trust company take it--unless he thinks there is another still better. Let's go to your room and telephone from there; and we'll tell Stewart to tell the telephone operator not to bother us--what?"
J. Willoughby intended that Jemingham should be the sole and exclusive property of the _Planet_. From Jerningham's sumptuous room he called up the office, ordered a corps of photographers to the battlefield to take pictures of sundry loads of gold on trucks on their way to the great vaults, escorted by the _Planet's_ special commissioner in one of the armored automobiles which the _Planet_ supplied to its bright young men.
Then he called up Amos F. Kidder, the _Planet's_ financial editor; and Kidder, who, of course, knew the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company, Mr. Ashton Welles, hustled thitherward and made all arrangements, including the securing of the trucks owned by Tommy O'Loughlin, who did all the gold-trucking for W. H. Garrettson & Company, Wolff, Herzog & Company, and other gold-shipping banking firms. Photographers were duly stationed at the various points by which the aureate procession would pass.
Mr. J. Willoughby Parkhurst had the boxes of gold-dust taken out by the ash-and-cinder exit, caused his fellow-reporters to be "tipped off" by hall-boys that the gold would be taken away at twelve-thirty sharp to the Metropolitan National Bank vaults, and then took Jerningham in the _Planet's_ automobile and followed the trucks.
In Wall Street Parkhurst introduced Jerningham to the waiting Kidder, and Kidder introduced Jerningham to the waiting Mr. Welles. The gold was carried down to the vaults. Jerningham separated twenty boxes from the heap.
"I'd like to have these cashed," he said, with that delightful humor of all very rich men. And everybody within hearing laughed, as everybody always laughs at the so-delightful humor of all very rich men. There was not a clerk in the trust company who did not repeat the historic remark at home that night.