first Wall Street thought that Silas Shaw’s “religiousness” was an affectation. What purpose the Old Man desired to serve by the calculated notoriety of his church affiliations no one could tell. It is true that many ingenious theories were advanced, some going so far as to hint at repentance. But deep in the hearts of his fellow-brokers, and of his friends and his victims alike, was the belief that old Shaw, in some not generally known way, made practical use of his ostentatious enthusiasm for things churchly as politicians resort to more or less obvious devices to “capture the German vote” or to “please the Irish element.”
One day, after a series of skirmishes and a final pitched battle in “South Shore” between the Old Man and the bears, when the pelts of the latter, after the capitulation, added nearly a half million to the old fellow’s bank account, certain luminaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church were called into consultation. Silas Shaw had long thought about it; and now there was much conferring and more or less arid and misplaced sermonizing by the theologians and much soothing talk by the Old Man’s lawyers; and more Methodist clergymen and more lawyers and more talk; and then a real estate agent and an architect and a leading banker and, at last, just one check from the Old Man.
The next day the newspapers announced that the Shaw Theological Seminary had been founded and endowed by Mr. Silas Shaw. But even after the Old Man had devoted his ursine spoils to this praiseworthy object, Wall Street continued skeptical.
And, yet, Wall Street made a mistake—as it often does in its judgment of its leaders. Silas Shaw really had a soft spot in his tape-wound and ticker-dented old heart for all things ecclesiastical. Next to being a power in the Street he loved to be regarded as one of the pillars of his church. He heard with pleasure, of week days, the wakeful staccato sound of the ticker; but on Sundays he certainly enjoyed the soothing cadences of familiar hymns. And if more than one hardened broker expressed picturesque but unreproducible opinions of the old man, so also more than one enthusiastic young minister could tell pleasant stories of how the old stock gambler received him and responded to the fervent appeal for the funds wherewith many a little backwoods church was built.
Shaw’s generosity was so notorious among the church people that the Reverend Doctor Ramsdell, pastor of the Steenth Street Methodist Episcopal Church and a trustee of the Shaw Theological Seminary, felt no embarrassment in applying to him for assistance. It was not Shaw’s church, but in Dr. Ramsdell’s charge there were one or two bankers well known in Wall Street and several members of the New York Stock Exchange. It seemed particularly fitting to the Rev. Dr. Ramsdell that the name of Silas Shaw, followed by a few figures, should head a subscription list. It was desired to erect a Protestant Chapel in Oruro, Bolivia—the most uncivilized of all the South American “republics.”
“Good-morning, Brother Shaw; I trust you are well.”
“Tolerable, tolerable, thank’ee kindly,” replied the sturdy old gambler. “What brings you down to this sinful section? Doing some missionary work, eh? I wish you’d begin among those da—er—dandy young bears.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Rev. Dr. Ramsdell, eagerly. “It is precisely à propos of missionary work.” And he told Silas Shaw all about the plan for carrying the light into Bolivia by building the only Protestant chapel in Oruro, where it was incredibly tenebrous—worse than darkest Africa. The reverend doctor hoped, nay, he knew, in view of Brother Shaw’s well-known devotion to the glorious work of redeeming their benighted Bolivian brethren, that he could count upon him, etc.; and the subscription
“My dear Dr. Ramsdell,” interrupted Shaw, “I never sign subscription lists. When I give, I give; and I don’t want everybody to know how much I’ve given.”
“Well, Brother Shaw, you need not sign your name. I’ll put you down as X. Y. Z.,” he smiled encouragingly.
“No, no; don’t put me down at all.”
The good doctor looked so surprised and so woebegone that Shaw laughed.
“Cheer up, Doctor. I tell you what I’ll do; I’ll buy some Erie for you. Yes, sirree; that’s the best thing I can do. What do you say to that?” And he looked at the doctor, triumphantly.
“Ahem!—I am not—are you sure it will prove a—ahem!—a desirable investment? You see, I do not—ah—know much about Wall Street.”
“Neither do I. And the older I grow the less I know.”
The reverend doctor ventured a tentative smile of semi-incredulity.
“That’s right, Doctor. But we’ll make something for you. The blooming, I mean, benighted Bohemians”