He had organized two or three glittering bubbles before the firm of Weston & Hill was established, but from lack of capital failed to reap the hoped-for reward. Then along came Hill, a retired manufacturer, whose history shall be given in due time, who had more money than brains and more conceit than either. Weston, a shrewd and smooth-tongued schemer, reading Hill at a glance, was not long in flattering that gullible man into a partnership and taking him and his money into camp, as it were. For a time, and while Winn Hardy was serving apprenticeship, the firm conducted a fairly honest and respectable business. They bought and sold stocks and bonds of all kinds, that is, they sold and then bought to fill orders only,--a species of commission business perfectly safe, but not satisfying to Weston. He longed to soar, to organize a great scheme, a glittering bubble, to see his name in print as a king of finance, and do it on other people's money--and Hill's.
Then one day, while off with his broker, Simmons, on the latter's steam yacht, visiting various north coast islands, the impulse culminated.
"Why not buy one of these islands," said Simmons, "and start a quarry company? You can buy one for a song and a granite-quarrying industry _sounds_ safe and will catch the cautious. I am intending to build a fine residence in the near future, and you can furnish me the stone. In return, I'll market stock enough to pay for it. We can find an island with a harbor and buy it, or a part, which is all that is needful, and you can do the rest." And thus the scheme was hatched, and when J. Malcolm Weston, the to-be great financier, returned to the city, he was sole owner of Jess Hutton's unused quarry and the Rockhaven Granite Company was born.
It took time, however, for Hill was a cautious man, holding on to his purse-strings with the grip of death, and Weston must needs approach him circuitously. Then there were outsiders to warm up, as it were, men of some financial standing whose names were of value, to interest; a charter to be obtained, and all the legal and business detail necessary to the carrying out of a scheme to be attended to. It also needed all of Weston's plausible arguments to perfect the plot, and summer came around again before the conspiracy was ready to be launched. Then "the street" was cautious, and knowing Weston's reputation in the past, was not eager, or even willing, to buy this stock. At first, a few credulous people like Winn's aunt and two or three others who believed in Weston bought small lots, and the men whose names appeared on the prospectus were each and all given stock in due ratio to their prominence. And then Simmons began his fine work. He knew, and so did Weston, that every share they had given away would be offered for sale as soon as a price for it had been established "on 'change" and then the scheme would fall flat. But Simmons had ideas of his own. "We must wait," he said, "until your man Hardy has shipped us one or two loads of granite, then herald that fact repeatedly in the papers until the dear confiding public don't know whether one or ten shiploads have arrived, and then--declare a dividend!"