With the details of these struggles we are not concerned. The “inside” history of many of them will never be known; in almost every case it differs materially from the story which appeared in the papers. Jim became famous and was libelled and flattered, respected and abused, by turns; but always he was feared. He was supposed to be dishonest, and it is true he did not scruple to use his enemies' weapons; but at directors' meetings it was the interest of the stockholders that he fought for.
Men wondered at his success, and over their cigars gravely discussed the reasons for it. Some said it was sheer good luck that turned what he touched to gold, some laid it to his start, and others to his cool, dispassionate strategy. To some extent it was all of these things; but more than anything else he had won as a bulldog does, by hanging on. Often he had beaten better strategists simply by keeping up the fight when by all the rules he was beaten. For as the comrade of long ago had said, “it took a lot of pounding to lick Jim Weeks.”
It was Monday morning, September 23d. The telephone bell on the big mahogany desk rang twice before Jim Weeks laid down the sheet of paper he was scrutinizing and picked up the receiver.
“Hello! Oh, that you, Fox? Yes--Yes. Hold on! Give me that name again. Frederick McNally. Dartmouth Building, did you say? Yes. Thank you. Good-by.”
The bell tinkled again and Jim swung round in his chair.
There was another desk in the room, where sat a young man busy over a pile of letters. He was private secretary to a man who was president of one railroad and director in others, and his life was not easy. The letters he was working over were with one exception addressed to the Hon. James Weeks, Washington Building, Chicago. The exception was a pale blue note addressed to Mr. Harvey West, and the young man had put that at the bottom of the pile and was working down to it.
The elder man spoke. “West,” he said, “Fox has just telephoned me that he's found out who's been buying M. & T. stock. It's Frederick McNally; he's in the Dartmouth Building. He isn't doing it on his own hook, but I don't know who he is doing it for. Somebody wants that stock mighty bad. There isn't a great deal of it lying around, though.”