Chapter 401: Money Like Running Water

Late July, in Bay City.

Chet Fuller and Grace still made a point of calling on Kenny Yates every day.

The Yateses had moved into a modest two-bedroom apartment along the Embarcadero.

The place was just under a thousand square feet, yet it had cost better than twenty thousand dollars.

If anyone ever asks you what happiness is, for a man without a roof of his own, the greatest joy is surely buying one.

Even so humble a home in a city known the world over made for a blissful, peaceful life.

Cora had nearly recovered, and she’d put together a few home-cooked dishes to entertain the Fullers.

“Big Brother didn’t come?”

“You expect him to have time to spare? That’s no easy thing.”

Chet said, “He’s in Hampton with the Rising Star Group’s chief men, talking over a partnership with Mr. Mason.”

Mr. Mason of Hampton. There could only be one man that meant.

The most famous businessman of the age, and by common agreement the richest man in the country.

Kenny was quite taken aback, and so, naturally, was Annabel Yount beside him.

Outside Hampton, you had no idea how boundless the reach of Mr. Mason and his Great Western Express Company was.

Annabel remembered when Great Western had floated its shares on the Exchange with such success. All of Hampton had been full of Great Western legends.

Every billboard in the streets had been changed to Great Western notices overnight.

When folks spoke of one man standing for an entire city, they probably meant Mr. Mason.

“Big Brother’s reach is getting to be downright unbelievable!”

“Isn’t it? He’s in the financial columns just about every day now.”

Chet said, “This time he sold the fresh-produce chain for three and a half million pounds sterling. It sounds like a heap, but once you start spending it, it’s still not enough. That Sunflight Steam Carriage Works of his is a real bottomless pit. You can’t even begin to guess how much more he means to pour into it.”

It was extravagant indeed.

Kenny had tried starting a business twice himself, and knew only too well how hard it was to build something from nothing.

All one could say was that the Rising Star Group’s success today owed everything to Caleb Walker’s steady, old-fashioned caution.

* * *

Caleb was indeed at Great Western with the Rising Star Group’s chief men, learning and looking around.

When it came to the great miracles of enterprise in this age, Great Western was certainly one of the brightest.

Plenty of folks said it had a stranglehold on half the express and wire trade in the land.

But Caleb knew that, whatever else was said, it was an exceptionally well-run concern.

Taking advantage of this partnership, he’d brought his chief men along so they could learn a thing or two.

By the time he got back to Bay City, it was already the end of July.

In August he had to go to Empire City for the Presidents’ Class, with plenty more waiting besides.

But now that he’d suddenly come into such an enormous sum, naturally he had to think about how to spend it wisely.

To make money, you first had to learn how to spend it.

His wife had also come into over sixteen million dollars in cash, after passing along the ten-percent share owed to the Rising Sun Fruit Co.

The couple talked it over at home for an entire evening.

Only then did they settle on where all this money would go.

As things stood, sixteen of the big Cloudwater parlors in Bay City still stood in buildings they didn’t own.

To buy every one of them outright, some four million dollars ought to be enough.

What was more, with the hiring and training in September, Cloudwater expected to take on ten thousand girls.

The Cloudwater Academy in Sterling City couldn’t possibly hold that many students.

Clara had taken a fancy to a college that was up for sale in Bay City.

It wasn’t in the center of the city, naturally; it lay a little farther out, in the Goldhill district.

The college hadn’t taken in any students for two years, and its grounds covered some twelve hundred acres.

Clara meant to spend five million six hundred thousand dollars to buy the whole campus.

A college was business property like any other; it wasn’t about profit or loss. If she felt it was worth it, it was.

The five million six hundred thousand was only the price agreed with the city fathers. Mending and refitting the place was expected to cost over four hundred thousand more.

All told, her family was set to spend six million dollars on this college.

It was also meant to fix Cloudwater once and for all as the finest name in ladies’ beauty and wellness in the country.

Beyond that, another two million dollars would be set aside to found a Cloudwater Learning Fund.

It would cover the ten thousand trainees’ wages and activities for the next two years.

Such a hefty outlay was meant to make Cloudwater bigger and stronger still.

Adding everything together, they’d spend around twelve million dollars.

The rest would go toward buying property ahead of time down south.

In any case, they’d decided to start with four flagship parlors there.

Two in Riverport and two in Pueblo Springs.

And naturally, they’d buy every one of the storefronts outright.

They were spending money like running water, and the main reason they dared to was that there would be a grand Cloudwater gala in Bay City at the end of the month.

That would bring in another million and a half or so; it truly was a case of the more you spend, the more you have.

As for Caleb himself, he first announced that he was formally putting ten million dollars into the field of calculating engines.

Chiefly for the self-steering apparatus.

Then he set aside twenty million dollars to subsidize the teams working on storage accumulators, electric motors and their controlling gear, and the like.

Having taken that step, he now had very nearly the most powerful team of inventors and engineers anywhere in the business of horseless carriages.

His way of going about it was simply to spend heavily.

As long as there was money enough, there was no talent he couldn’t draw in.

All told, he had now put ninety million dollars into the venture out of his own pocket, and the Sunflight Steam Carriage Works had become one of the chief inventive enterprises that Bay City had pledged to back.

With this injection of money, he wouldn’t need to divert anything more into the horseless carriages for the next year and a half.

At last he could breathe easy, with a spell of plentiful funds ahead.

For the time being, everyone only had to keep their minds on moving forward with the projects in their own hands.

The great works, the industrial park, the various new laboratories, and so on.

Only when the money was there could everyone truly throw themselves heart and soul into the work of invention.

Chapter 402: Out on the Bay

As things now stood, the Rising Star Group had put more money into horseless carriages than any other concern in the land.

It followed the same way of doing business they’d always held to.

First the biggest outlay left every competitor far behind; then they leaned on their own way of doing business, and their drawing power.

They climbed to the top in no time.

And after that, no one could touch them.

Look closely at any venture Rising Star Investments had backed, and you’d find it was always so.

Even after spending thirty million dollars in one quick swoop, Caleb still had over six million left in hand.

With it he went straight down to Galveston and bought a college to make into the Rising Star School of Dramatic Arts.

Just as with Cloudwater, building everything from nothing would take at least two years.

But buy a college already standing, spend a few hundred thousand on mending and refitting, and you had a brand-new school.

He bought a college of a thousand acres in the Flower Hill district of Galveston for five million two hundred thousand dollars.

Then he set aside six hundred thousand for rebuilding and refurnishing, expecting classes to begin officially by the middle of September.

Since the school was meant from the start for young folks from the country, a later opening didn’t matter much.

The theater world was murky water. If it ever came to the point where the poor couldn’t get in at all, it would go the way of the ball clubs, getting worse the more they played.

Having taken in this great flood of money, the Rising Star Group had plainly taken a big step forward.

First came the Sunflight Steam Carriage Works, which had received the most money of all.

It had become the venture with the greatest outlay on horseless-carriage invention in the country, and it had the most laboratories.

It also carried on its own the whole work of research into storage accumulators, electric motors with their controlling gear, and calculating engines.

Cloudwater had become a mountain no one could climb over in the trade of fine ladies’ beauty and wellness.

Besides a twelve-story headquarters in Bay City, it now had a training academy on twelve hundred acres.

With a setup like that, who could hope to surpass it?

Not to mention the Rising Star Theatrical Company, which had just bought a college down on the Gulf Coast for over five million dollars to found its own advanced school of the dramatic arts.

The key was that the company hadn’t bought the college itself; its boss had bought the land and rented it to the company cheaply.

The moment the news broke, the company’s shares shot up on the spot.

In a single day, through the rise in the share price alone,

Caleb earned back every cent he’d spent on the land.

Did that sound exaggerated?

The Rising Star Theatrical Company officially became a great theatrical group with a market value of over a hundred and twenty million dollars.

On top of that, Sunrise Property Management, headquartered in Empire City, held commercial property worth some sixty-eight million dollars.

The rent from its own buildings alone brought in a net income of a million to a million two hundred thousand dollars a year.

Once a concern had come this far, it was all but impossible for it to go bankrupt.

When Annie grew up, she’d have the means to blow four thousand dollars every single day.

That was what had changed for their family once all these holdings had been fully taken in.

No matter what the venture, with steady money behind it, it could make great strides.

* * *

The last few days of July.

At the Little Terror’s fierce insistence, Caleb took a day off.

He took the family’s Livingston steam yacht out to sea for some fun, and invited Kenny Yates and the Fullers, along with his old schoolmate Annabel Yount, to come along.

Kenny’s daughter Lottie was only eight, near enough the Little Terror’s age. One was a born scholar, a wonder of learning whom every other family envied; the other a born dunce at her books, but a champion at eating, drinking and having a good time.

Surprisingly, the two of them got along, chiefly because Annie taught Lottie everything she knew.

How to fish for sharks out in deep water, how to eat giant prawns, how to play the little violin, and how to drink two-hundred-dollar claret mixed with lemon soda.

With what the Yates family had to live on, Lottie was easily taken in by Annie.

The July sun was fierce. Even with the awnings spread and ice-cooled fans turning in the saloon, the heat hit them hard.

The yacht, moored in Bay City, was worth only about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, yet that alone was enough to make an ordinary family gaze up at it in envy.

Caleb wore a pair of black smoked spectacles and watched, very seriously, as Annie made a great fuss out on deck.

She was going after the big prawns, and before coming she’d made a special point of looking up “three things every deep-sea shark fisherman must know” in a sporting almanac.

She’d only half learned it, yet she was already teaching Lottie to hold a rod.

“Cal, you sure do spend money fierce!”

“Fierce? You’ve got to spend to earn,” Caleb replied. “Next month I’m going to Empire City for the Presidents’ Class, and some of the classmates there are a lot richer than me, including the founder of that penny picture-parlor chain you’re always fooling around with.”

“Who, Dudley Hume?”

“Who else?” Caleb said offhandedly. “His company’s valued at better than seventy million pounds sterling this year, some three hundred and sixty million dollars, and it’s bound to grow bigger. That picture-card selling outfit I’ve set up on the Gulf Coast opens for business in September. Tick-Tock opens its new parlors on the twentieth of September; let’s see if we can take the trade of selling through Tick-Tock’s darlings the way New Summit Vaudeville took the halls.”

Chet teased him, “You’re one of a kind. You’ve got everything ready before Tick-Tock’s even opened its doors, and you don’t even know if it’ll catch on. What if it flops and gets swallowed up by Kwik-Peek?”

“If it flops, I’ll have wasted two or four million dollars, and what of it?” Caleb said. “If I didn’t think those penny picture parlors were going to eat up a great deal of young folks’ time, do you think I’d need to make money through music-hall darlings?”

“It’s just laying the groundwork ahead of time, to seize the road the crowds will travel. When Tick-Tock opens in September, besides sending a batch of my own people over to fight for a place among the darlings, I’ll put up four million dollars, and whoever catches on fastest, I’ll sign them.”

Chapter 403: A Third of the Kingdom

“At the stage I’m at, I’ve already got plenty of trades. But those great roads where the crowds pass, a man has to fight for the top spot on every one of them,” Caleb said.

What had happened on Chet’s side had already shown him, very clearly, how much the penny picture trade might grow in the years ahead.

However much he thought about it, it was never too much.

In just half a year, New Summit Vaudeville had cut its way up to become the Group’s second-biggest earner, after the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

It had reaped a net profit of two million six hundred thousand dollars.

By the end of the year, it was estimated, the net profit could reach five million six hundred thousand.

That figure was more than even he had imagined.

Not one person in the Group had expected it. Even Tabitha Lane, who’d put in one million eight hundred thousand, was flabbergasted.

She’d bought thirty percent at a valuation of six million dollars, and now it looked as though New Summit Vaudeville might net six million a year.

That was incredibly exaggerated.

Whether or not it ever listed on the Exchange hardly seemed to matter anymore.

Consider that among all the many companies listed on the Exchange, fewer than two hundred made more than two million dollars a year in profit.

And New Summit Vaudeville, not even a year old, could make about six million.

It had over three thousand dancing girls and singers on its books.

Of those, hundreds had over a hundred thousand admirers, and twenty of them had followings of a million or more.

To say it held half the kingdom of the picture-card and music-hall trade was no exaggeration.

It was chiefly because they’d started early, back when the trade was still a plaything for a crowd of youngsters. They’d put four hundred thousand dollars into it.

They’d even kitted the girls out with fine carriages worth four hundred thousand dollars, and in no time raised up a crop of darlings with followings of a million.

And then there was the Young Hopefuls’ Contest, that great engine for making darlings; you could say it was the reason for their rise.

Outsiders might call it luck, but insiders knew it was bound to happen.

A crowd of young mill hands had been going wild posing as swells in their picture cards, and then along came Caleb Walker, a real fortune of the first rank, and took a hand in the game.

And that had grown into what was now New Summit Vaudeville.

For a man of his standing to flaunt his own wealth would have been a downright embarrassment.

It simply wouldn’t suit the level he’d reached.

Besides, there was no need at all. He wanted drawing power, so did he have to become a darling himself?

Wasn’t it enough to put up the money directly and raise dozens or hundreds of great darlings?

That was why he was paying special attention to Tick-Tock, which was opening its parlors in September.

If need be, he was even willing to throw all the drawing power of the Rising Star Theatrical Company behind it.

Annabel Yount sat to one side, quietly and diligently taking notes, wishing she could have brought along one of those new typewriters.

So she could take down every single word.

Then chew it over at home for a week; there was so much business wisdom here.

According to her old classmate’s plan, by September, before Tick-Tock opened its doors, he’d have a batch of darlings formally made ready.

An organized, disciplined company of them, to take this new ground before anyone else.

He might not take half the kingdom, but he’d surely take at least a third.

Because he truly had the means.

While everyone else was still rubbing their eyes, he’d already got both the people and the money ready.

Annabel could only think: no wonder the man could make money.

No one could match his foresight.

If Tick-Tock really did take off, it would mean another New Summit Vaudeville rising on his side.

Two great engines drawing the crowds, and not merely to earn money off the darlings.

It would lift the Group’s own ventures up as well, one after another.

Was this the real secret of how the Rising Star Group won its battles a thousand miles away?

“Right…” Caleb paused.

He turned to Annabel with some curiosity. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. What is it you really want?”

To tell the truth, now that he’d built the Rising Star Group this far, he was no longer short of clever people around him.

This old classmate, the top girl in their grammar-school class, was one of them.

Don’t be fooled that she’d never yet said what she needed; wasn’t that exactly where her cleverness lay?

After all the running around she’d done, she was bound to want something in return.

Annabel perked up. “Cal, right now I’ve got four or five dress shops in Hampton, and I’ve opened a little mail-order catalog store besides. I’ve made a modest living for years, but I’m stuck. I don’t know what step to take next.”

“That you can run five dress shops in Hampton all by yourself is already mighty impressive,”

Caleb said. “In these times, there’s a lot of argument over where the old-fashioned dress shop is headed. If you want an answer from me, you’d do better to use what you know about the clothing trade: sell those shops with their counters and windows, find a big warehouse and fit it out like a clothing works, give up the old way of selling over the counter, and ride the new craze of selling from the stage, carried by wire.”

“A small business, you know, has to follow the current to pick up speed.”

Without a doubt, the selling show carried by wire was going to be a great current in the years ahead.

Especially for old-fashioned shops like hers.

If all else failed, even a stint with the Penny-Pool Mail Order Club beat clinging foolishly to those dress shops.

Annabel was instantly fired up. Among her peers, her money made her an enviable success.

But in his eyes, it truly was only enough to keep a family and get by.

It had nothing to do with success.

After a moment’s thought, Caleb added, “Since time out of mind, clothing has always been the first thing folks buy by mail. Whether in the early days of the catalogs or later on, it’ll never be done away with; it’ll only be split up finer and finer.”

“I’ve got my own Sunburst Department Stores, and they’re doing well enough in everyday wear. If you’re willing, my advice is to dig deep into one particular corner of ladies’ clothing. If you need money, I’m willing to put two hundred thousand dollars into you.”

His classmate was clever, no doubt about it, and she was sure to go into the clothing trade.

If she could carve out a particular corner of it, all the better.

Two hundred thousand dollars was nothing. And what if it succeeded?

If it didn’t, it was just a few “first hundred thousands” gone, really no great matter.

He tended to put money into people he knew well.

The key was that he believed there was a future in carving ladies’ clothing into its finer corners.

If the picture parlors truly took off one day, every one of his darlings would aim at her own particular corner of the market.

Only by holding a precise channel and winning a precise following could they make the most profit.

Live off the coins tossed by the “big brothers”?

Did he need such paltry sums?

Don’t make him laugh. He was aiming at corners of the market worth hundreds of millions.

Not those flashy Sky-Rockets at two or four dollars apiece.

Real men of great fortune, first of all, would never flaunt their wealth in public.

Nor would they rely on coins tossed onstage, or on hawking goods themselves, to make their money.

Only a fool would believe his family used two-cent tooth powder and two-cent soap.

Caleb’s eye on the future wasn’t fixed on just one or two things.

He had plans for the penny serials as well. Once the Rising Star School of Dramatic Arts officially opened, he’d use its students to write and stage them.

Right now was the time to hire a great many penny-serial writers.

The picture-taking was expected to start in earnest in October.

Serials like that usually took nothing more than a few days’ worth of box suppers to turn out.

So foolish they defied belief.

Chapter 404: Steamer Night

At the end of July, another great event was looming.

That was Cloudwater’s midsummer Steamer Night.

Just as the name said, it meant chartering a great excursion steamer, inviting one or two thousand of the most important members, and setting out on a three-day, two-night voyage at sea.

From it, the takings could reach a million and a half dollars.

That income was largely owed to all the customers they’d gathered in the earlier stages.

Cloudwater’s two flagship parlors had begun their trial opening at the end of 1875, and after that twenty million dollars had gone into thirty-two of the finest parlors, all of which opened together in June of this year.

Through that whole period, their notices had blanketed the skies, and they’d put on a tremendous concert.

A spectacle on that scale naturally caught the eye of countless customers.

After such an enormous outlay at the start, they were now, in the true sense, beginning to take in their first substantial harvest.

It was a momentous occasion indeed.

This Steamer Night kept to Cloudwater’s usual standard for its parties.

There was only more luxurious; there was never most luxurious.

Every guest of the first rank received a Hermance silk scarf, a flacon of Maison Chantal perfume and a Varenne handbag, worth about sixty dollars in all per person.

And those were merely the thank-you gifts.

The grand prizes aboard the steamer were far richer. The very top prize was an open-top Hooper landau.

Just below that came prizes on the level of a Kimball cabriolet, and below those, limited Hermance of Paris handbags.

As for the wine, it was nothing but claret of the famous ‘42 vintage.

Even the ladies’ toilet paper was the finest perfumed kind in the world.

Guaranteed to leave one’s bottom smelling sweet after use.

All of it was paid for by the wool that came off the backs of the sheep.

What was sold aboard the steamer included not only the usual Eternal Youth course of facial care, but also all manner of costly treatments against age on the newest galvanic and electrical apparatus.

That included the new injections from a famous Viennese surgeon, and the like.

Those skin treatments and injections could be had twice a year at most, at four thousand dollars a sitting.

For a woman to keep her youth, and at forty to hold her own against girls in their twenties, spending money on her skin was unavoidable.

Cloudwater had been offering its fine apparatus treatments for some time, and had got every sort of certificate and medical endorsement for them.

Being costly went without saying, and Cloudwater made sure never to sell a single counterfeit article.

When it was already making such a killing, there was no need to sell fakes.

A great many stars were on hand for the event, including Mae Darling, Delphine Rabaut, Evangeline Frost, Belle Lowry and others, all turning out in support.

They themselves were Cloudwater customers too, and needed their treatments every year.

They’d tried nearly every kind of top-quality preparation there was.

Only that way could they keep their faces young for years on end.

Aboard the steamer, the cheapest course was the restorative program for those who were run-down without being truly ill.

At one thousand five hundred sixty dollars, it was priced quite fairly.

The dearest had reached about ten thousand dollars.

Mostly they sold yearly subscriptions, covering a whole year’s care in a given course, with no limit on the number of sittings.

The restorative courses were usually taken once a week, while the stronger treatments came once every six months or even once a year.

The summit of Steamer Nights, the very height of ladies’ luxury.

In the end, with the backing of countless stars, they closed bargains worth two million five hundred sixty thousand dollars. After taking out the cost of the event and the goods, they still made a profit of one million seven hundred eighty thousand.

Caleb personally held sixty percent of Cloudwater’s Bay City district.

With a chime, his income for the day came to one million eighty thousand dollars.

A small sum.

“Activate the random multiplier.”

The Golden Die tumbled over and over, and finally came to a dead stop on the number five.

[Congratulations, Holder. You have obtained a fivefold random boost.]

One second, two seconds, three minutes went by.

[Your account at the First Territorial Bank has received $5,400,000.]

His wife’s account had also received the profit of one million seven hundred eighty thousand, for the dividends due next month.

Speaking seriously, he’d just spent thirty-six million dollars a few days earlier, and now he truly didn’t know how to spend this money.

It was mainly because he’d already stuffed every concern in his Group full of funds.

Even the Sunflight Steam Carriage Works, the thirstiest of them all, had nearly forty million dollars lying about in its working funds.

There’d be no need to put in any more for the next year and a half.

As for the Antler Coffee House, it went without saying; its profits had already begun to climb.

It had officially completed its listing on the London Exchange in late July, and right after it listed, it had hit the day’s limit five times running.

Its market value had already reached a staggering fifty-two million dollars.

The Fat Lamb and Bobo’s Soda Parlor were the same, with no further need of any subsidy.

The only one that hadn’t listed yet was the Sunburst Department Stores, and with the paperwork already done, listing was only a matter of time.

Even the newly founded Snack Dash was growing fast, on the strength of its agency stores.

For a moment he felt a helpless sort of extravagance, as though he had too much money and nowhere to put it.

Truly, life was lonely and dull with only six million dollars left in his bank account.

Who in the family could understand the feeling of having money and nowhere to spend it?

The Little Terror, Annie, poked her head in and came over. She’d invited Lottie to come play.

“Pa, are you going to Empire City soon?”

“Yes, I’m going on the fifth of August. Your pa’s still going to school.”

“Then can you take me along?”

Caleb looked up to find the Little Terror volunteering to rub his shoulders. Help nobody asked for, that was for sure; she was either after pocket money or wanted to go somewhere to play.

“Isn’t Bay City enough for you to play in? What do you want in Empire City?”

“I’m going there to do my show. I hear it’s even more popular over there.”

Annie had worked hard for half a year, and her career as a performer had come along by leaps and bounds.

She’d finally grown from a hundred regulars to three hundred and some.

This trip to Empire City was meant to break through five hundred.

For that modest goal, she had to strive, and strive, and strive some more.

“If you go with your pa, it’s for ten days to half a month. No whining to come home, all right?”

“I definitely won’t whine.”

Annie’s eyes lit up. “Pa, can you bring Lottie along too? It’s no good making picture cards all by myself.”

Chapter 405: A Rehearsed Speech

“Fine, you call the shots.”

Caleb seemed to think of something, and spoke up again. “Lottie’s marks are so good, and she spends hours on her lessons every day, yet your marks are so poor. How come I’ve never once seen you doing your lessons?”

“Pa, did you forget? My lessons were set by the teachers in Sterling City, and now I’m at school in Bay City, and the teachers here don’t recognize Sterling City lessons.”

That made so much sense that for a moment he didn’t know how to answer it.

With marks like the Little Terror’s, even the Almighty himself probably couldn’t help.

Caleb hadn’t seen the little stinker, Joy; her grandma must have taken her to the park for the evening square dance.

This big mansion of theirs, with its yard full of vegetables, was really something.

If Annie wanted to go to Empire City, then let her go. The family still owned a mansion on the Heights, on Nob Crest Road, worth one million six hundred thousand dollars, and a big apartment worth two million four hundred thousand besides.

So long as it was one of the great cities, they truly had homes everywhere.

His wife was still busy wrapping things up at Cloudwater and hadn’t come home yet.

“Annie, it’s kind of strange. I haven’t noticed you asking us for money this whole summer holiday.”

“Ha.” Annie said proudly, “Pa, money is such a vulgar thing. How could I be short of it, when I can easily spend four hundred dollars a month?”

Caleb gave the Little Terror a serious look. Had she grown up all of a sudden?

Just when she ought to be squandering money, she’d suddenly stopped.

It seemed that one of his reasons for making a great deal of money had just gone away.

“Pa, I want to earn money through my own hard work and my own efforts. It’d be best if you didn’t give me any more money. Giving me money is just ruining me.”

Heaven only knew what had got into her, but for the first time in her life, Annie declared that she didn’t want money.

Caleb felt her forehead. “I suspect there’s something wrong with your head lately!”

“Not at all.”

Annie said earnestly, “My friend Lottie once said we have to be thrifty, because every penny comes from our parents’ hard work. From now on I’ll never waste money again.”

“Makes sense.”

Caleb patted her little shoulder. “It’s a rare thing for you to say something so wise. When your ma gets back I’ll talk it over with her, and we’ll raise your allowance to a thousand dollars a month.”

“Really?” Annie held down the excitement that was about to give her away.

If Pa found out, all those rehearsals would be for nothing.

“Of course it’s true. You’ve worked so hard on this act.”

Annie giggled foolishly and kept on praising her father.

The speed with which her face changed was beyond belief, and she was only nine.

When Clara came home, it was already seven in the evening.

The supper had to be warmed up a little before they could eat.

She wanted to go to Empire City too, but she couldn’t manage it, because Katie was about to give birth any day, and as her sister-in-law she certainly had to look after her.

Katie’s time might come any day now.

She’d already been moved to the best lying-in hospital in Sterling City for the delivery. It seemed now that his sister’s plain, sensible choice in marrying Harry Linwood had been the right one.

There were squabbles now and then in their daily life, but there was a great deal more warmth and care.

Expecting Harry to become some great success was out of the question; he was still teaching comfortably at a primary school there.

As Katie told it, she wanted him to transfer to Bay City.

Living close to her brother was always better. Harry had no objection; he only suggested they wait until the baby was born.

With her belly so big, she mustn’t travel at all.

Honestly, for a girl to find such a truly honest fellow was really quite something.

Men like that weren’t smooth talkers, but they gave their wives everything they had.

At least, Caleb found Harry more and more to his liking.

He’d told his wife more than once that Winnie ought to find a plain, honest man to marry as well.

Someone like Harry would do just fine.

At the very least, ever since his sister had got pregnant, his family hadn’t had to worry at all.

Harry always came home on time to cook for Katie, doing his best in all these little things, day after day.

Wasn’t that the best choice of husband?

Of course, the biggest benefit Harry got from marrying Katie was that he no longer had any money worries.

They were completely independent, living off rents that brought in over two hundred dollars a month.

So long as they didn’t raise a daughter like the Little Terror, their life would be free of strain.

Clara was quite anxious about the matter too, but Margaret simply wouldn’t agree.

Having seen what was good, she’d grown picky about ordinary folks.

No matter how she looked at them, none of them seemed right.

As for Clara’s sister Winnie, though she didn’t say so, she didn’t truly want to marry an ordinary man either.

In her circle there was a lot of comparing, and choosing an ordinary man would only make others look down on her.

Well… for the first time, Caleb’s opinion carried no weight at home.

He didn’t bother trying to interfere anymore.

Honestly, in the circles of the rich, faithfulness between men and women was hardly considered a matter of much importance; he was quite the exception.

Especially in the theater world, where swapping wives and husbands happened all the time, and plays far more shocking went on than ordinary folks could ever imagine.

That was also why Caleb didn’t want Winnie to find herself an actor from that circle.

Barney Quill was a good enough fellow, but sadly he’d been saddled with a worthless wife.

Clara worried about it too. She didn’t want her sister to marry after thirty.

Getting married by twenty-five or twenty-six would be best.

* * *

Time hurried on into August.

During that time, Tabitha Lane came to see him once, and they planned to travel to Empire City together.

Caleb waited until his sister had safely given birth before setting out. His sister had a big, chubby boy, and Martha hurried off to Sterling City to take care of her.

Chapter 406: The Landlord Company

He enrolled in the advanced course in commerce in Empire City, and after staying two days in Sterling City, he set out.

By the time he reached Empire City it was the fourth of August, just one day before the class officially began on the fifth.

The mansion on the Heights was very comfortable to live in, with a view that took in half the harbor.

Nothing stood between it and the sea.

Once she got there, Annie let herself go completely.

She set up a tripod and had Lottie make picture cards of her with the box camera.

Her mother wouldn’t be coming for a while, so for now she’d have to look after herself.

The Rising Star Group had no headquarters building in Empire City, but it owned six floors of offices in the International Exchange Tower.

They’d been bought at the steep price of seven million dollars.

The concerns based there were chiefly Sunrise Property Management, the Sunburst Department Stores and Sunburst Capital.

The trainee Sylvia Shore hadn’t wanted to come to Empire City at first, but she couldn’t hold out against her senior, Ivy Hollins, who kept telling her how high the wages were there.

Work a few years and you could go back home and buy a house and a carriage. So in the end she’d been transferred to Empire City along with her senior.

Those who held several floors in the International Exchange Tower were mostly great international firms.

The dearest office rents in the world, without an equal.

Even a rich group like Rising Star had bought only six floors there.

But those six floors were enough to astonish her. She and her senior didn’t know whether it was luck or something else, but somehow they’d ended up assigned to Sunrise Property Management.

What sort of company was that?

Before the two of them came, they’d never even heard of it, not even during the Group’s training before they took up their posts.

Only after they’d been assigned there did they learn that it was a company that managed business property.

And the property it held was worth as much as ninety million dollars.

It was all business property the big boss had been buying up since 1874.

That included the storefronts of over sixty Cloudwater parlors and thirty-two prime single-story storefronts of the Sunburst Department Stores, as well as a college of twelve hundred acres in Bay City and a college worth several million in Galveston.

It also held the finest mansions and three office buildings in the great cities.

Had they not joined Sunrise Property Management, they could never have imagined that the Rising Star Group had piled up so much property in only a few years.

By that measure, the big boss would easily make the papers’ list of America’s richest men.

But plainly, outsiders knew nothing whatever about Sunrise Property Management; its ownership was registered in London.

It was held by the big boss alone.

Only after coming here did Sylvia learn that the most valuable part of the Rising Star Group wasn’t those companies listed on the Exchange.

It was Sunrise Property Management.

Yet she’d also run into something that bothered her, which was that the work at Sunrise Property Management was far too idle.

It was nothing but collecting its own rents.

A textbook case of money passing from one hand to the other.

Every concern under the Group had to pay it rent, since the three office buildings in Sterling City, Bay City and Galveston were all registered in its name.

The Group’s nickname for it, “the Landlord Company,” was well deserved.

This was the big boss’s very own enterprise.

“Good news, the big boss has come to Empire City.”

“What’s going on?”

“I hear he’s here for the Presidents’ Class and he’ll be staying quite a while.”

“The big boss’s daughter is here too, and she’s coming to our company this afternoon.”

A crowd of office girls and clerks were chattering eagerly at the coffee counter.

What was the biggest shock after being transferred to Empire City?

It was surely the gulf between rich and poor.

At least, for Sylvia it was, since property in Empire City was sold by the square foot.

A decent place started at a hundred dollars a square foot.

You heard right: not ten dollars, but a hundred dollars a square foot to start.

On wages of sixty dollars a month, you could buy about seven square feet in a year, if you went without eating or drinking.

And that was only the price of a big apartment. For a mansion on the Heights, a house with grounds, the starting price was two hundred dollars a square foot.

As for the office building where they worked, the tallest tower in Empire City, the big boss had bought six floors of it for the Group’s headquarters, at a cost of seven million dollars.

In Bay City, each trainee had a flat of her own.

In Empire City, though, it was two to a flat, and the flats were only two or three hundred square feet.

Even little flats like those, if you rented one on your own, started at forty dollars a month.

On sixty dollars a month in Empire City, if you weren’t given room and board, it was hard to save a cent.

Just renting a tiny room started at twenty dollars.

A cheap plate of stewed pig’s trotters at a quick-lunch counter cost at least eight cents.

A slightly better one cost over twenty cents, and that was only quick-lunch fare.

That showed how dear living was here.

Sylvia and her senior could settle in here chiefly because the Rising Star Group gave them room and board.

Otherwise, sixty dollars a month here truly wasn’t as good as sixteen back home.

With the big boss coming, the girls inside were buzzing with excitement.

Many of them had never even laid eyes on him.

That was only natural when you thought about it. Of the great cities, apart from Pueblo Springs, which lay next to Galveston and had no headquarters building of its own, the other three all had one.

The big boss usually stayed in Bay City and seldom came to Empire City more than a few times a year.

Catching a glimpse of him was no easy thing.

Sylvia had only seen him once, from dozens of yards away, during that speech.

Soon after that, she’d been transferred straight to Empire City.

August was still the height of summer.

The great steam-driven fans kept the International Exchange Tower beautifully cool, and Sylvia was wearing a close-fitting pale blue skirt with a white shirtwaist.

She looked about as fresh and innocent as a girl could.

Ordinary folks couldn’t afford to buy a house in Empire City, and she was no exception.

Chapter 407: A Girl at the Elevator

She’d come here to earn more money and then go back home to build a big house.

She held a little cup of coffee. Even trying to work in earnest, she didn’t know what to do; Sunrise Property Management was that idle.

For so little work, there were still over a hundred people on the payroll.

Nine in ten were money men, whose chief task was smoothing out the Group’s profits.

To put it more bluntly, it was the lawful art of paying less tax.

That was a required course in every great corporation.

It was also a required subject in the examinations for chartered accountants.

The field took in many specialties, and its columns of figures would dazzle any layman.

This floor belonged to Sunrise Property Management.

Downstairs were the Sunburst Department Stores, Sunburst Capital and the rest.

All one Group, only different companies.

Sylvia was about to go downstairs to buy a few things when she happened to run into a young girl at the elevator.

The girl wore a big pair of green-glass goggles and was in the middle of her show.

Beside her, a skinny girl with a Kwik-Peek traveling key clipped into the wire box was tapping out her every word to the Kwik-Peek halls, where her regulars followed on the tape and wired back penny paper flowers.

In a voice full of drama, the girl announced, “See? This is where my pa works in Empire City. I’ve told you my family’s rich; why don’t you ever believe me?”

Just then someone wired her a little paper flower.

Annie at once stood up straight. “Thank you, sister, for the little paper flower! May you stay young forever, have a baby real soon, enjoy a hundred years of happy marriage and grow old together, have a house full of children, and pass away peacefully in your bed at eighty!”

Ouch… She’d said something wrong, and the lady who’d sent the flower signed off in a huff.

It was all because of her wretched marks in composition.

Why hadn’t her composition teacher taught her properly?

“Little girl, are you putting on a show?”

Sylvia bent down and asked, curious.

“Yeah, sister. Your face looks so full of good fortune, why don’t you join my regulars too?”

This little girl could certainly talk.

Sylvia gave her a penny and let Annie write her into the regulars’ book, but kindly reminded her, “Little girl, this is a private firm. You can’t put on your show in here, all right?”

“A private firm?”

Annie glanced down. Her pa was still downstairs, so she took Lottie up for a look around.

“It’s all my pa’s fault for owning so many companies. I get here and I can’t even tell which one is ours. When I grow up, am I going to inherit it, or is my little sister going to be in charge?”

Sylvia: “…”

Little miss, do you hear what you’re saying?

“We’re Sunrise Property Management, a business-property company belonging to the Rising Star Group.”

“Sunrise Property Management?”

Annie’s not-so-sharp little head worked fast, and suddenly she remembered.

“Sunrise! Then I can rest easy. Pa said you’d all be mine when I turn eighteen.”

Annie asked her in all seriousness, “Sister, I don’t even know what Sunrise Property Management does. Can you tell me, is it really powerful? If it isn’t, I don’t want it; I’ll leave it to my useless little sister. I want to inherit something bigger.”

A question mark hung over Sylvia’s face. She’d never met a girl like this.

Walking right up and saying the place was hers.

“It’s powerful, all right. It has property worth eighty or ninety million dollars.”

“Eighty or ninety million dollars, how many zeros is that?”

Annie and Lottie counted it out on their chubby little fingers.

Theirs weren’t enough, so they borrowed one of Sylvia’s hands.

Now it came out right.

Who knew how many zeros there were on the end?

Her own pocket money was four hundred dollars a month, now raised to a thousand.

She still clearly remembered those three zeros.

“Ha…” Annie laughed out loud. “Not bad at all. That’s so powerful it’s off the charts. My pa really is amazing.”

Could this be the rumored princess of the Rising Star Group?

She didn’t look it!

Sylvia eyed her doubtfully. Not very tall, a little plump.

Her face was round and chubby too, and terribly cute.

And begging for paper flowers on the wire didn’t fit a princess of the Rising Star Group!

Chapter 408: Her Ladyship’s Visit

Annie strolled in as if she owned the place.

Now that she knew this was the family business she’d inherit when she turned eighteen, there was nothing to be nervous about.

With her hands clasped behind her back, Annie asked, “Sister, I haven’t asked your name yet. What was it again?”

“I’m Sylvia Shore. I’ve just been transferred here as a trainee.”

Seeing how sure of herself the girl was, wandering about as if she were in her own house, Sylvia grew even less certain what to make of her.

It was a pity that not one of the people here had ever seen Miss Annie.

Annie stood before the tall plate-glass windows, with the sea spread out beyond them in a magnificent view.

“Oh, you’re still a trainee. My pa will be up later. I’ll just have a look around in the meantime.”

Then Annie asked her, “Sylvia, do you need any help? Just tell me. There’s no trouble money can’t fix.”

Annie was very confident. So long as nobody dragged her into an examination hall, there was nothing she couldn’t handle.

“Who’s this little girl?”

Her senior, Ivy Hollins, came over and asked, just as curious.

Sylvia whispered that the little girl claimed to be the big boss’s daughter.

The great princess of the Rising Star Group.

Now that was no small claim.

Ivy didn’t quite believe it, but she giggled and said, “Little girl, we’ve got so many worries, like not having a house or a carriage. None of them could compare with what you must be used to!”

After all, Annie was only nine years old, and she loved to be flattered.

She was delighted whenever anyone called her “young mistress.”

“No house and no carriage, that’s a real bother, haha. My pa’s got loads of those, and I own a big apartment here myself, one I get when I turn eighteen. As for carriages, that’s even easier. Who’s in charge of the money here? Have them come over.”

“Oh, stop, we were only joking. We can’t really ask you to fix that.”

Ivy hurriedly waved her hands. Whether or not this really was the heir to the Group, they couldn’t lead her on like that.

People would talk if they heard.

It was only a joke.

“I’m not saying I’ll fix it. I just want to ask about the money, to find out how much this company can make in a year after I turn eighteen.”

Annie looked at her expectantly.

Sure enough, before long the lady in charge of the accounts really did come over. She’d had word from downstairs that of the two little girls who’d come up, one was actually the big boss’s daughter.

The chosen heir of Sunrise Property Management.

Not heir to its property, but heir to its income: the rents.

“Young Miss, Sunrise Property Management currently collects about one million one hundred twenty thousand dollars in rent a year. By the time you’re eighteen, it’s expected to reach two million.”

“Two million?”

Annie at once turned back to her show and started bragging on the wire, but sadly, nobody believed her.

Only three people were following along, and one of them was Lottie, right beside her tapping away at the key.

Who the other two were, nobody knew.

The big boss’s daughter, really?

Sylvia was secretly startled. For some folks, the goal of a whole lifetime was to reach Rome.

Others were born at the gates of Rome, and plainly the big boss’s daughter was one of them.

With a background like that, it was hard to imagine what troubles she could possibly face when she grew up.

From the time she was little, her family had set up a company for her to inherit.

Truly, once she turned eighteen, Sunrise Property Management would be hers.

The first thing each morning would probably be figuring out how to spend six thousand dollars.

With a carriage and a house already at her disposal, six thousand dollars a day was mere pocket money!

How could she ever spend it all?

It was the first time either of them had met the young princess of a wealthy family, and it surprised them a good deal.

She didn’t seem nearly as hard to approach as the stories claimed; her nature was quite sweet.

She even knew to address them politely as “sister.”

With her hands still behind her back, Annie put on a serious air and said, “Not bad, not bad. You must all keep up the good work, because when I turn eighteen, I’ll lead you on to greater success and create even more glory.”

She often listened to her pa talking, so she knew how to spout that sort of nonsense.

“How many people are in your little company?”

Business property worth over eighty million dollars, living purely off rents.

And she called it a little company?

The lady in charge of the accounts didn’t argue, and answered directly, “There are a hundred and twenty people at work, and three on holiday.”

“That’ll do, that’ll do.”

Annie, her hands still behind her back and her face serious, announced, “Her Ladyship can’t come here for nothing. I have to let everybody know who their future boss is. Give every person a hundred dollars in cash.”

“Wait, first let’s work out how much that’ll cost.”

Annie did have some idea of the amount. Seventy thousand dollars’ worth of small change, she could easily spend that.

After she spent it, her pa surely wouldn’t scold her.

If it went over that, she’d definitely get a lecture from her ma.

A little crying at home, and it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

A hundred and twenty people at a hundred dollars each, how much was that?

It was at critical moments like this that she remembered how awful her arithmetic was, and she couldn’t work it out at all.

“Miss, counting the three on holiday, it comes to twelve thousand three hundred.”

The instructions from downstairs were clear: whatever the young miss wanted, let her have it. With that settled, there was nothing more to say.

Just follow orders and be done with it, though of course the actual paying out of the money would still need the big boss’s approval.

“Only twelve thousand and some!”

Annie shook her head. She couldn’t spend a mere twelve thousand on her staff’s welfare, when she so seldom visited her own company.

The little enameled watch she was wearing, with a cartoon pony painted on its face, had cost over ten thousand dollars by itself.

To her, twelve thousand dollars was like two or four cents of pocket money to ordinary folks.

A trifle.

“Take out forty thousand dollars, and help me work out how much each person gets.”

That was easy to figure: roughly three hundred twenty-five dollars apiece.

The lady answered quickly, and soon afterward Caleb came upstairs.

After the lady in charge of the accounts told him what had happened, Caleb had her go to the bank and draw forty thousand dollars in gold coin.

He beckoned, and Annie scurried over. “Pa.”

“See, this is the family business you’ll inherit. Do you want the power to change so many people’s lives with a single word?”

“Yes.” Annie nodded hard.

Caleb patted her shoulder. “If you like it, then you have to learn to be a young president who loves her country and takes responsibility. Only when you grow up can you truly shoulder what this wealth means.”

For all that Annie loved to fool around, just then she listened very seriously.

She could spend forty thousand dollars so casually not because her parents earned it easily, toiling away out there.

They simply earned a great deal, though exactly how much more, she didn’t know.

But it was enough to let her splurge whenever she liked.

“Pa, I really like these two sisters. Can they come stay at our house? Ma hasn’t come yet, and you’re always busy. I’d like them to keep me company for a while.”

Caleb turned to look at Sylvia and Ivy. “My wife can’t come to Empire City on account of some business, and Annie will have no one to look after her in the meantime. If you’re willing, would you stay with her for a while?”

What kind of job was this?

A pie falling from the sky.

Ivy nodded at once. The top secretary in Sterling City had started out as the young miss’s home tutor.

In only a few years, she’d got everything she could want.

Now at last it was their turn, and only a fool would refuse.

Chapter 409: A House on the Heights

The man from Sunrise Property Management’s counting room drew the money in no time.

He even brought seven or eight of the Group’s guards along with him, and came back with four big strongboxes full.

Forty thousand dollars in gold, and every person got three hundred twenty-five dollars in hand.

If you wanted to know what it meant to change someone’s fortunes with a single word, this was it.

Just by showing up once, Annie had spent forty thousand dollars.

To her family, tens of thousands weren’t worth mentioning, but to those clerks it was a different story altogether.

They’d come out here to earn money. On wages of sixty dollars a month, it was nearly half a year’s pay.

Every face was bright with excitement, and when they received the money they called out smartly, “Thank you, big boss! Thank you, young miss!”

Annie patted her little tummy. She wouldn’t say so, but she was happy inside.

She simply liked this feeling. Compared with going out and buying fancy goods, spending money this way made her much happier.

It was mainly that fancy goods no longer held any fascination for her. She’d been able to buy anything she wanted for a year or two now, and she’d long since lost interest in such things.

Using them to dress up one’s standing? Absolutely not.

She was Annie; she herself was the greatest luxury of all, and everything else was merely trimming.

Downstairs, on the fifth floor, were the Sunburst Department Stores, the Rising Star Theatrical Company, and the World Goods Emporium set up jointly by the Sunburst Department Stores and New Summit Vaudeville.

Living in Empire City was too dear, and the cheap tea-and-chop houses were the commonest eating places here.

And for that reason, the Antler Coffee House, Bobo’s Soda Parlor and the like would never spread to Empire City at all.

But Caleb had still decided to open his own grand department emporium in Empire City, not for any other reason than to lay the groundwork for his world-goods buying team.

The cost of prime property in Empire City was beyond imagining, but he still had a cool six million and more in his account, and with the money on his wife’s side, it easily came to eight million.

That was surely enough to buy two or three single-story buildings of several thousand square feet each.

Titles to property in Empire City were as good as forever, and this would also count as the first foothold they’d set down in Empire City.

A grand shopping emporium.

A small task like that certainly didn’t need him to see to it personally; he only had to send someone to look.

So long as he didn’t insist on the very best locations, six million dollars thrown down would surely be enough to open three grand Sunburst Department Stores.

Caleb’s private carriage was waiting below. Empire City wasn’t like home.

For one thing, carriages there kept to the left side of the road, the English way.

They were still staying in that mansion of just over five thousand square feet on Nob Crest Road.

With no halls or stairways shared with anyone else, it was nearly the size of the grand courtyard mansion in Sterling City.

It had two plunge baths in all.

One lay in the front courtyard, where you could swim and look out at the ocean at the same time; the other was on the third floor.

The house also had three housemaids, hired through the best agency in Empire City: two for cleaning and one who did nothing but cook.

Her cooking was very fine indeed, and it was worth saying that the devotion of the trained maids of Empire City couldn’t be compared with the maids back home.

They were thoroughly professional, and they never brought their employers the slightest needless trouble.

Of course, servants in the houses of the rich were paid extremely well too.

A thousand or twelve hundred dollars a year, easily.

Sylvia and Ivy, who’d come along in the boss’s carriage, were completely dumbfounded.

This was how the very top of society lived.

You didn’t have to lift a finger at home. After a meal you just sat in the courtyard with a cup of tea, facing the sea, and drank it.

How comfortable that little life must be, one could only imagine.

The courtyard was so big that one could run around and play in it to one’s heart’s content.

And this in a place where every inch of ground was worth its weight in gold.

A mansion’s worth was of a different order entirely; the great stars of Empire City, for instance, seldom lived in mansions on the Heights.

Mainly because the prices were too high for even them to afford.

Yet a big boss’s courtyard here was big enough to run about in as one pleased.

So long as you didn’t think of the countless ordinary folks living packed like pigeons in their coops at the foot of the hill, this kind of life was no different from paradise.

The two housemaids made up rooms for them on the second floor, each with a bed six feet wide facing the harbor outside.

To think of waking up every day facing the sea, that little life couldn’t be more comfortable.

After supper, Annie came looking for her.

“Sylvia, are you done with your work?”

“Yes, all done.”

She’d come over without bringing a thing, meaning to go back that evening for her belongings, but the big boss had simply waved his hand and had seven outfits sent over for her.

At a glance, the price tickets hadn’t even been taken off.

The prices very nearly gave her a fright.

The plainest white shirtwaist cost over sixteen dollars.

It was the newest summer line from the House of Worth.

As for the walking skirts, the close-fitting riding skirts and the rest, not a single one was under twenty dollars.

The seven outfits came to four to six hundred dollars all told.

She had hers, and naturally her senior, Ivy, had hers too.

Not only clothes; they’d each been given two watches as well, of a plain, everyday sort.

The price wasn’t too high, at least not to the big boss.

Cartier ladies’ watches worth sixty to eighty dollars apiece; she didn’t dare wear them.

No wonder every woman fought so hard to squeeze her way into a rich family. Who wouldn’t be dazzled by a life like this?

“Then come on out, quick, and help me take some swell picture cards.”

Annie had already put on her little white fringed practice outfit. She was going to start teaching Lottie the Mantis Draw.

And have some pictures taken while she was at it.

Sylvia quickly said yes, and before long Ivy came out too, bathed and changed into her new clothes.

She’d never felt so comfortable in her life.

Living in the young miss’s house was simply too much like a dream.

Annie did have a few talents, such as the Mantis Draw, which she’d been learning since she was small.

She practiced it for half an hour after every meal, first to stretch her limbs, and second, of course, for the exercise.

The nimblest Little Chubby in the land had to be her.

Sylvia held the box camera and took pictures of her, while Ivy did the same with another off to one side.

Chapter 410: A Fairly Modest Little House

As soon as she’d finished a round of the Mantis Draw, Annie started her show on the wire, with Lottie at the traveling key.

Annie put on a pair of smoked spectacles and played her little violin.

A master alone on the heights; a lonely shadow on a cold river.

Lottie tapped out the scene too: the sea at her back, the harbor lamps.

Sylvia laughed from the side. “Miss, your tastes sure are one of a kind!”

“Aren’t they just!”

Ivy added, “With her family’s standing, she can play however she pleases.”

“True. She spent forty thousand dollars at our company, and the boss didn’t scold her one bit.”

“You’d better not talk about that. Didn’t you hear what the boss said? Sunrise Property Management will be hers when she turns eighteen.”

Tsk, tsk… Extravagant indeed.

Ivy dried her feet. Living in a house like this, she was afraid she’d never want to leave.

Never mind how lavish it was.

The boss was still drinking his tea nearby, unbothered.

Sylvia kept stealing curious glances, with no idea what the boss was up to.

With so many companies under him, he must have a great deal to see to.

“Oh my, thank you, sister, for the little paper flower!”

“Young lady, where are you? How come there’s the sea behind you?”

“This is my house. Just a fairly modest little house.”

The other end: “…”

One sentence, and she’d been struck dumb.

Far off in the Southern Territory, in the dormitory of a ladies’ seminary.

Evie Jenks lay on the parlor sofa beside the Kwik-Peek ticker the girls had clubbed together to rent, bored out of her mind, idly reading the tape. Suddenly she came upon a little girl’s show. Curious, she followed along, found the scenery on the girl’s end stunning, and took an interest.

She hadn’t much money, but a paper flower she could afford, to encourage a girl earning money so young.

If her family weren’t struggling, who’d let a child go out earning money this early?

“Young lady, are you in Empire City? Why does your show say Empire City?”

“Yes, I’m in Empire City. That one behind me is my pa.”

“Your family lives in a house that big in Empire City?”

Annie was puzzled. “This house isn’t big. It’s much smaller than the ones I’ve got in Bay City and Galveston.”

She trotted around giving a tour, Lottie hurrying after her with the key on its long cord. “Look at this plunge bath, it isn’t even a hundred feet from end to end. And this house, three floors and not even a steam elevator. And look at our back yard, not even big enough for my grandma to keep a few dozen chickens. If Grandma came, she couldn’t even grow enough vegetables for all four seasons!”

Evie: “…”

“Aren’t houses in Empire City awful dear?”

“What’s dear about it? It’s only a little over one million six hundred thousand dollars. When I grow up, I can buy two of these every year without lifting a finger.”

She was telling the truth.

Evie read it as if it were all a dream.

“Young lady, are you serious?”

Sham swells were common as dirt in the picture parlors, and these were mighty boastful words.

She dearly wanted to take back that little paper flower.

“I’m Annie. I couldn’t possibly tell a lie.”

At last Annie had found a sister willing to chat with her, and she couldn’t let her go.

“Pa, where’s the driving whip for your Hooper landau?”

“What do you want it for?”

“Folks don’t believe I’m in Empire City. I want to drive your landau around Empire City a few times.”

Fine… Caleb had Zach Ames act as her coachman.

Zach took the three of them out, and even one corner of the coach house was luxury enough.

One top-of-the-line burgundy Hooper state landau for business, an open-top silver Hooper landau, a Brewster road coach, and the two Kimball cabriolets his wife loved most.

Annie snatched up the traveling key and ran, with Lottie scrambling after her, not caring one bit that the dispatches were coming through all a-jumble.

It wasn’t for nothing that her regulars kept following her.

Evie grew dizzy trying to make sense of the jumbled tape, but after a while it settled down, Lottie clipping into the Kwik-Peek box on a lamppost whenever Zach pulled up.

The summer breeze blew on Annie’s face, and both sides of the road were lined with lush green trees; they were plainly high up on a hill.

A mansion on top of the hills of Empire City?

What kind of family was this?

By the time Evie read on, Annie was already sitting in the back of the landau with the top folded down, and the ride was just too swell.

Sylvia and Ivy were with her.

A young lady’s daily life was ever so simple; even going out depended on the weather.

If the weather was fine, you rode in an open landau.

If the weather was bad, you rode in a big closed ranch coach.

Perfectly ordinary.

“This is just…” Evie was simply stunned.

“See, this is Empire City at night, the finest of all the thriving cities in the world, and the ocean’s right next to my house.”

When Annie saw several big yachts, she suddenly remembered that her family didn’t even own one in Empire City.

Her pa had spent nearly five million dollars on one, and it would take three years to build.

Come to Empire City and not go out on a yacht? What a waste!

“Uncle Zach, how come my pa hasn’t bought a yacht here?”

“This is only the second time the boss has come here. He probably hasn’t had the chance yet.”

In Empire City, owning a yacht was absolutely the mark of a wealthy man.

Some cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while others could be had for a few hundred.

“This won’t do. I was thinking of going drifting out on the sea in a couple of days. Ask my pa where we can get a big yacht right now. I want to buy one.”

Well, these were the young lady’s ordinary needs.

Zach wired Caleb, who thought it over and then sent word to the Group’s office.

They were told to take Annie to buy whatever yacht she liked.

Of yachts on the sea, the small ones were little steam launches.

The big ones were floating palaces; her family had already spent nearly five million dollars ordering one from abroad.

That was world-class luxury, opulent beyond imagining.

Annie wanted to buy one ready-made. Empire City had some, generally on the smaller side.

To buy a truly great ocean yacht, you had to deal directly with the builders and order one made to measure.

Evie read on, astonished, as with a single word the girl went off to the yacht dealers’ basin.

Chapter 411: A Toy on the Water

Evie Jenks hurried to fetch her roommates. Like her, they were staying on at the college to work over the summer, rather than going home.

She’d first taken the child for a little girl talking nonsense, but then the girl had casually brought out a Hooper landau, an open-top one at that.

And that wasn’t even the most outrageous part. After spotting several yachts riding at anchor in the harbor, the girl had simply decided to buy one.

One message to her father, and her father had said yes.

What kind of family was this?

“Miss.”

Two men from the Group’s office had arrived early to wait for Annie Walker, who took such first-class treatment for granted.

She saw nothing surprising in it. She’d come to look at yachts, and she was going to buy one she liked, no two ways about it.

The staff showed her the boats one after another, and the head of the yacht basin himself came out to receive her.

The cheapest thing there was a little steam launch costing over two thousand dollars, the kind you always saw in melodramas, chasing smugglers across the bay.

The most valuable was a middling-sized great yacht whose main saloon alone ran to more than a thousand square feet.

It even had its own gymnasium, a library, a little magic-lantern theater and every other first-class comfort.

What Annie liked best about it was the broad private balcony outside the staterooms.

To sit up there facing the sea with a cup of coffee in hand was simply too blissful for words.

At night, the balcony could even be closed off with shutters that rolled down at the turn of a crank.

The whole vessel had five master staterooms, and carrying a dozen or more guests would be no trouble at all.

This middling great yacht was a good four or five times the size of the one in Bay City.

Its luxury was past imagining.

“That’s the one! I’m going to tell my pa to buy it,” Annie said excitedly, clapping her little hands and running all over the deck without a care in the world.

The head of the yacht basin could barely keep his smile from splitting his face. The child saying so was as good as a signed contract.

Without real money behind you, he wouldn’t have troubled to show you around, let alone let you set foot aboard to look.

A possession worth over four hundred thousand dollars. If you weren’t born to it, you’d likely never own one in your life.

If you meant to beat the odds and change your fate, young fellow, just keep at it.

The asking price was four hundred forty thousand dollars, and there wasn’t much room to haggle over a thing like this.

If you could afford it, you bought it. If you couldn’t, nobody would bother pitching it to you any further, because there’d simply be no point.

Having got the toy she’d set her heart on, Annie didn’t even care about her little show anymore.

Sylvia Shore had no choice but to chase after her across the enormous yacht with the Kwik-Peek man in tow.

The young miss said buy, and the big boss hadn’t even stopped to think before buying it for her.

A life like this was beyond anyone’s dreams.

Before meeting Annie, Sylvia had never known that a girl not yet ten could live this way.

* * *

The negotiations for the great yacht would take a while.

In any case, that was the business of the Group’s Empire City office, and Annie needn’t concern herself with it.

If she wanted a ride, she’d have to wait another day or two.

But Annie truly loved the yacht, and she even sent a telegram to Clara in Sterling City to share her joy and happiness.

Clara wired back, telling her to spend less recklessly.

Annie nodded hard as she read it, then forgot all about it the moment she turned around.

What had Ma said?

She didn’t seem to remember anymore.

When she rushed back home, Caleb told her to go and rest at once. She hadn’t even noticed the hour.

It was nearly ten o’clock, and it was no good for a child to go to bed so late.

Before sleeping, Annie still found time to chatter away with Sylvia, and as they talked, drowsiness crept over her.

Once she was sleepy, she flopped down on the big bed and slept until she woke on her own.

The next day, Caleb had to attend his Presidents’ Class.

Six bodyguards were staying at the house, along with Sylvia and Ivy Hollins to look after her. There shouldn’t be any trouble.

He went off to his lessons with an easy mind.

The Empire City Presidents’ Class dealt mostly with the state of the world and with international finance.

There were twenty-one students in the class, and the enrollment fee was five thousand three hundred sixty dollars.

He knew quite a few of the people there, such as his old acquaintance Tabitha Lane, and Gilbert Gould, third-generation heir of the Gould family of Empire City.

Other notable figures included Dudley Hume, founder of the Kwik-Peek Company, and Hamlin Judd, head of the country’s biggest chain of stove, lamp and household-hardware stores.

All of them were people of standing; the rest came from land, toys, emporiums, manufacturing and clothing.

This Presidents’ Class was solid gold.

Counting Caleb himself, at least half of them were worth over twenty million dollars.

Those worth over a hundred million counted as the truly rich.

Hamlin Judd, Gilbert Gould and Dudley Hume were among them.

Men at that level were all exceedingly courteous when they greeted one another.

Caleb was rather modest among them, since the most valuable company he held on the Exchange was the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

Its shares were valued at a hundred twenty-four million dollars in all.

He owned fifty percent of them, and not long ago he’d sold his fresh-produce chain to the Great Western Express Company for three and a half million pounds sterling.

That had also set off a flurry of stories in the financial papers.

In July, Antler Coffee had been listed on the London Stock Exchange, with shares worth better than forty million dollars.

On top of that, over the past few months he really had poured better than eighty million dollars into horseless carriages.

Beyond doubt, he was one of the rising figures in the country’s business world.

Still, at his level, most men preferred to keep their heads down.

Dudley Hume even joked that his own Kwik-Peek halls had made Old Walker their biggest winner.

Of all the stars in the Kwik-Peek halls, New Summit Vaudeville’s girls made up half of the big draws.

Caleb courteously asked him to keep looking out for them.

To Dudley, compared with real capital, Chet Fuller was only a hired man, even if he made several million a year.

But Caleb was different. New Summit Vaudeville was his, and Dudley was very clear about that.

Both of them were big capitalists now, and the idea of working together for mutual profit appealed to everyone.

Dudley proposed outright to take a twenty percent stake in New Summit Vaudeville.

He couldn’t let Old Walker run so huge a business on his circuit and keep all the fortune himself.

Chapter 412: Player and Referee

Otherwise it would hardly be in his interest as the founder of the circuit.

After some thought, Caleb agreed all the same.

There was no way to refuse. With the halls in another man’s hands, that man could easily choke off the crowds sent your way.

Once the two companies were joined like this, every other music-hall darling was bound to be a minor player.

New Summit Vaudeville cleared six million dollars a year, and with a great selling hall about to be set up in Empire City, there was still room for it to grow.

Caleb valued the whole concern at a hundred sixty million, and Dudley Hume agreed at once.

He was a hands-on owner himself; how could he not know what New Summit Vaudeville was worth?

If not for his standing, it would have been impossible to buy twenty percent of it for thirty-two million dollars.

Hamlin Judd and Gilbert Gould also wanted to buy a share from him; both of them had big emporiums of their own.

Turning toward selling goods from the stage was seen as the way the whole trade was bound to go.

But Caleb refused to sell another share, whatever they offered.

In recent years Hamlin Judd had been merrily throwing money into baseball, and he asked Caleb whether he’d like to put some in too.

What a joke.

Given the level of play in the country’s ball clubs, he wouldn’t put in a dime.

Still, there’d always be others willing to.

That was simply how the Presidents’ Class worked. On the first day, everyone got acquainted.

Then they traded favors and connections. Bringing Dudley Hume into New Summit Vaudeville as a founding partner was like being both player and referee at once.

Any other music-hall darling who wanted to compete with him could have her act struck off the Kwik-Peek bills in minutes.

Caleb didn’t even mention that down in Galveston he was preparing yet another company for music-hall darlings, one meant specially to compete on Tick-Tock, which was opening its picture parlors in September.

The Sunburst Department Stores were to be listed on the Empire City Exchange this month, thanks in part to the Gould family’s efforts.

When Gilbert Gould heard that Caleb meant to open four great international emporiums in Empire City, he was very supportive.

That would raise the value of the Sunburst shares on the Empire City Exchange considerably.

Caleb planned to spend over six million dollars buying the premises for four great Sunburst emporiums.

That was something the Gould family could easily supply.

They owned a great many huge arcades in Empire City, any one of them worth tens of millions of dollars at the least, on a par with the Oriental Arcade the Kingsleys owned in Sterling City.

That was what a truly powerful family looked like. Outsiders had no idea how much they held in shops and commercial buildings, let alone how to reckon their fortune from it.

Gilbert Gould was the most valued member of the Gould family’s third generation, and he could certainly decide to sell off some of the family’s smaller properties.

For the Sunburst Department Stores to have the Goulds’ help in Empire City was a great boon to their future.

After all, the Goulds had been in the d