The Golden Ledger

Volume Seven

The Picture-Card Kings

Chapters 601–700

Chapter 601: Money in Many Baskets

Sam Yardley and Harriet Young’s wedding turned out to be a grand affair indeed.

Sunflight Steam Carriage Works sent a great crowd of its key engineers and draftsmen to attend.

Caleb Walker, who had been the matchmaker, now found himself standing up as the officiating witness for the couple as well.

That called for a few celebratory drinks.

Time flew, and soon it was Lantern Night. After eating the sweet dumplings of the season at home, Caleb was ready to go back to his regular working routine for the year of ‘78.

His wife had long since been rushing about all over the country by rail, and he could hardly go on idling at home.

The year of ‘78 was sure to be the best year of all, whether for the theater business, the town-lot market, or the picture-card trade that was all the rage now.

In January, the Rising Star Theatrical Company launched a massive talent contest, officially opening the search for a new crop of stage idols.

This year the price of town lots and houses went on climbing to the skies, and it was arguably the last chance for ordinary folks to sell out at a profit.

Prices and the clearing of unsold houses had reached heights never seen before, and a turning point of tremendous proportions was bound to come soon.

Caleb even sent an open letter around the Group, cautioning all his employees against buying in on this last wave of rising prices.

In plain words, he was telling them not to be the last man holding the bag at the highest price in history.

If you guessed the land market wrong, ten years of hard work could go for nothing, and that was no joke.

He couldn’t stand on a soapbox and shout warnings to the whole public the way Mr. Mason did, but voicing his opinion within his own group was no trouble at all.

It wasn’t only the land trade. The theater business, too, was coming up on its last great blaze.

Even the Tick-Tock picture parlors, not two years old yet, saw their crowds swell enormously this year.

Countless young people flocked to them, hoping to change their lives by posing for picture cards.

It truly became the easiest way for a new generation to leap from one class of fortune to another.

The picture-card darlings had become an undeniable force of the age.

There was good in it and there was bad.

The good was that a young person could realize his dream of riches within a single year, something impossible for the past ten or twenty years.

It gave most young people a fair shot.

The bad was plain to see. Ask around, and more and more young folks, even schoolchildren, no longer dreamed of becoming teachers or men of science when they grew up.

Instead, they wanted to be picture-card darlings.

The business of the darlings truly exploded that year.

Seen from that side, this year really was the finest and most dazzling of all.

By attending Sam Yardley’s wedding, Caleb had come to be seen as a boss who valued men of science and invention.

He followed that up by sending round a notice within the company: any engineer of the middle grades, from the fourth grade to the sixth, who got married would receive a wedding gift of a thousand dollars from him personally.

The doctors’ bills for any grave illness of a man’s parents, wife, children or other close kin would be paid out of a medical fund he had set up himself.

Technical experts of the seventh and eighth grades would enjoy complete medical care from him not only for themselves but for their entire families.

And the same went for a two-thousand-dollar bride gift upon a first marriage.

A young fellow roasting meat skewers on a street corner had posed for a couple of picture cards and become a darling of the parlors, earning tens of thousands in a year, riding in a Hooper coach and marrying a rich, beautiful darling herself.

Whereas men of research who had studied and toiled for decades would need a whole lifetime to earn that much.

To some extent, this had an overwhelmingly bad effect on society.

Though he owned two huge enterprises in the business of darlings himself, he said as much in his New Year’s address.

Because the darlings could not strengthen a company’s true competitive power, nor could they take part in the country’s commercial contest with the rest of the world.

All they contributed was a poor example for the young.

It was science and invention that formed the foundation of a strong country.

The great powers of the future would surely meet head to head on exactly this field.

And so, at the start of the new year, he issued three notices stressing the central place of engineers and research men throughout the whole Group and its companies.

He even gave them ample pension funds, complete medical care, and a handsome purse for marriages and births.

Of course, this applied to first marriages only.

Sunflight Steam Carriage Works had been in business nearly two years.

The company now had more than sixty thousand key technical men, and besides its main base in Bay City, it had research centers spread across Sterling City, Riverport, Pueblo Springs and other places.

Sunflight, with more than two hundred million dollars poured into it, was now entering the last critical stage.

It was no more than eight months away from trials and the unveiling of its first horseless carriage.

After half a year of trials, his greatest trump card, Sunflight, would make its debut on the stage of the country’s industrial rise at the end of ‘78 or the start of ‘79.

For this, Caleb once again sold off ten percent of the Rising Star Theatrical Company’s shares, raising twenty-four million dollars. He set aside sixteen million of it to add to Sunflight’s research budget for the second quarter of ‘78.

He knew that unless a company of invention laid by enough money in advance, all its research would be limited to the work in front of it, and it would never be able to concentrate on preparing for the next five or even ten years.

That was why Caleb always deposited the full sum Sunflight needed for research into the company’s account at least two quarters ahead of time.

This concerned the future of the whole enterprise, and he would not be careless in the slightest.

Even if it meant selling the Rising Star Theatrical Company’s shares down to just enough to keep control, he would spare no effort.

He now held only twenty percent of the Rising Star Theatrical Company, the company that had grown up alongside him.

And its value on the Exchange still stood at three hundred and twenty million dollars.

That was probably as high as it would go; simply not falling would be victory enough.

Even with its dominant place in the theater world, reaching a value of four hundred million dollars wasn’t realistic.

Unless the Rising Star Theatrical Company could produce a spectacle that sold out houses all around the globe, which was rather unlikely.

So he too had to sell at the historic peak.

And move that money into shares with better prospects of rising.

The remaining eight million he would put entirely into the Penny-Pool Mail Order Club’s coming listing on the Exchange, to make sure his three percent stake wasn’t diluted.

He favored long-term investments and was keen on putting money into the great giant companies.

Like the Penny-Pool Mail Order Club and the Merchants’ Delivery Union, in each of which he now held three percent.

Another giant was the Tessler works, of which he still held only two percent.

When Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages, one of his own ventures, finished its listing, he would surely increase that stake, at least to three percent.

The place of horseless carriages in the home market was too special. Barring accidents, Tessler’s share price was bound to rise over the long run.

With a fortune the size of his, there was no need to invest in a great many things.

Concentrating on a few giant companies and holding them for the long haul was the fundamental thing.

As for why he didn’t invest in the Big Three, the reason was simple.

They had already grown to the very ceiling of the home market. If they didn’t break into markets abroad, it would be a typical case of fighting among themselves.

Their share prices couldn’t keep climbing the way they had ten years before. And as for the big shares on the home Exchange, like the great Kentucky distillery whose single brand of bourbon was worth more than two billion dollars, he still couldn’t make sense of it.

Still less would he tie his own fortune to them.

After ‘78, he needed not only to set the Group’s strategy for the next five years, with science and invention at its core, but also to quickly rearrange his own holdings in a new round along the way.

The Rising Star Theatrical Company was at its historic peak; when it was time to sell, you sold.

Putting that money into research and into raising his stake in the Penny-Pool Mail Order Club, which was going onto the Exchange, was plainly more worthwhile.

As for the other listed companies in the Group, the Fat Lamb Dining Company, Bobo’s Soda Parlor, the Sunburst Department Stores, the Snack Dash lunch counters and so on, he held only five percent of each.

No more selling there; they only needed to run steadily.

Of his original stock in Antler Coffee House he had kept only five percent, but after the bear raid by Muddy Waters & Co., he’d bought back fifteen percent on the open market.

Antler Coffee House was going out into the world, and its share price was far from its peak.

His fifteen percent of scattered shares wasn’t ready to be sold yet either.

The Rising Star Theatrical Company, like the Rising Star penny-serial parlors, had twenty percent left in his hands.

The Rising Star Theatrical Company could make one big sale a year at most; any more would easily cause a panic on the Exchange.

So there would certainly be no more selling this year.

The Rising Star penny-serial parlors still had half a year after listing during which his shares were locked up.

They were expected to be sold properly in the second half of the year; that holding, too, had to be turned into cash when the time came.

Penny serials were too easy for anyone to get into to support long-term growth.

As for his shares in New Summit Vaudeville, only eight percent were left, and selling them meant little.

He’d just wait for the right moment to sell off the extra three percent.

That would also set off the Golden Ledger’s random multiplier. Adding both sides together, it should come to six or eight million dollars.

However, the most valuable stake he held had now become the Rising Star Picture-Card Company, which he’d begun nurturing two years ago.

After waiting so long and pouring in many millions, Tick-Tock had at last risen to prominence.

His eighty percent stake was now extraordinarily valuable.

Speaking of the Rising Star Picture-Card Company, one could hardly avoid mentioning another failed investment.

Pelican had refused to give up its share of the picture-card windfall and had spent heavily to prop up its own Pelican Peep-Show.

Even he had thought that with Pelican Telegraph’s strength they’d manage at least a third of the market, but the Peep-Show had turned out more hopeless than a do-nothing.

Even with such a fine “parent,” it still couldn’t stand on its own two feet.

His investment of a million dollars had gone entirely down the drain.

He had already moved all the darlings’ teams from the Pelican Peep-Show to the Rising Star Picture-Card Company and New Summit Vaudeville.

He had given up on the Pelican Peep-Show completely.

He’d had more than one or two failures over the years, but none as bad as this.

Not only had he not gained a single hair from it, he’d wasted a huge amount of men and resources.

Now all that was left was to cut and run while things were going south, and stop playing this game with them.

Pelican must have been even more frustrated.

Never mind the money, even the crowds they’d steered toward it were beyond imagining.

They’d nurtured the project like their own child, and yet it had turned out like this…

Once his most important holdings were sorted out, the next step was to push forward the listing of Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages, another venture he’d nurtured for three years.

Once he had that money, he would buy Tessler shares.

Although he and Tessler were destined to be rivals, that didn’t stop him from making money off Tessler’s stock.

A horseless-carriage company established more than a decade ago had been brought into a land that treated horseless carriages like its own child.

Its future price was hard to imagine; Caleb wouldn’t be surprised if its value passed fourteen billion dollars one day.

Under such circumstances, how could he not increase his stake?

Once his holdings were rearranged, he needn’t worry much even if great storms rolled in over the next three to five years.

After all, he’d moved his money into so many baskets, and all of them were still rising fast.

His ability to weather risk was stronger than anyone could imagine.

Chapter 602: Secondhand Carriages and a Cricket Invitation

Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages had got its start on the very day his sister was married.

On his side, the venture had first received four hundred thousand dollars in financing, and after that he put another three million dollars into the project.

One after another, it brought in big investors like Tabitha Lane and Nathan Pembrook.

By now, Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages had raised nearly eight million dollars in all.

For the whole secondhand-carriage trade, that was an enormous sum.

Buying a carriage meant taking a loss, since a new carriage often had to be marked down thirty percent the moment it rolled out of the shop.

* * *

But a secondhand carriage carried no purchase duty, and it had already lost value from the price of a new one.

So long as you didn’t buy a carriage that had been in a smash-up or soaked in a flood, choosing a secondhand one was still a very sensible, money-saving thing to do.

The only obstacle holding back the trade was the question of customers’ trust.

Many secondhand dealers bought up flood-soaked carriages at rock-bottom prices and then sold them to customers at the going rate.

Over time, a great many people had lost all trust in the secondhand market.

Caleb’s demand of Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages was that it solve the problem of customers’ trust.

It was to offer a three-part guarantee: repair, replacement and refund.

Once that problem was solved, holding up a company worth several tens of millions of dollars on the country’s volume of secondhand carriages would be no stretch at all.

After receiving his investment, Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages quickly outstripped its rivals.

The basic logic of these new wire-and-catalog companies was simple: at first, you spent money to win customers.

Then you used that huge crowd of customers to raise big money on the Exchange.

Then you used that money to quickly wipe out your competitors and set new rules of the game.

Whether it was the Dart Hack Line or the Merchants’ Delivery Union, both had risen by following exactly this formula.

The only difference was how much money was burned.

With his backing, Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages hadn’t met a single rival worth the name.

Those old-fashioned secondhand dealers with their yards and sheds weren’t enough to challenge it.

Eight million dollars was plenty to dominate a niche market.

Nurtured for nearly three years, Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages was just a step away from making a real profit.

But companies like these weren’t valued by their profits; they were valued by their number of customers and their place in the trade.

Jessica Jardine, the earliest co-founder of Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages, had once been the college beauty his brother-in-law Harry Linwood had worshipped from afar.

From the moment she received his financing, her fate could be said to have changed tremendously.

Caleb’s standing on the Exchange was now no lower than that of the Great Western Express Company or Jardine Dry Goods by Mail.

He only held back from investing in the small traditional trades because of his position; that didn’t mean his say in those trades had disappeared.

Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages had been his first investment in these new-style companies, followed by the Merchants’ Delivery Union and the Penny-Pool Mail Order Club.

Jessica had set up the headquarters of Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages in Sterling City, and Bay City also had a large branch.

She no longer held many shares in Melon Seed, but once it went onto the Exchange, they could still be worth a few hundred thousand dollars.

That was far better than working for somebody else.

On the last day of February, she finally brought the Melon Seed team to Bay City to meet Caleb Walker, Melon Seed’s very first backer.

And to hand in a detailed report on the past few years of business.

Though Jessica was now co-founder of a great company and the biggest woman boss in the secondhand-carriage trade, she was still very nervous and uneasy about meeting Caleb, just as she had been when she first asked Harry Linwood to arrange a meeting with him.

Back then, he had been a theater magnate who held sway over half the crowds in the theater world and its first-rank stars.

The projects he invested in afterward could get onto the Exchange within a year, firmly establishing him as the foremost backer of traditional trades.

In the papers, he’d even been nicknamed “Uncle Bicycle,” on account of his backing the Plain-Folks Belle, Autumn Carrow.

Looking at Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages, it was certainly the slowest-growing of all his ventures.

Not only had it failed to earn a single cent in three years, it had burned through millions.

Still, he had never once meddled in how they ran it.

Perhaps there was no need. At the Rising Star Group’s present size, putting money into eating houses or plain storekeeping would probably be seen as bullying the little fellows.

Just as he himself had said, what did traditional eating houses or retail amount to?

A married couple would work their fingers to the bone to save a few hundred dollars to open a little shop, laboring day and night.

He’d walk in and put down millions at a stroke.

Ordinary folks simply couldn’t play that game.

That was the real reason the authorities had sent out a circular forbidding the Great Western Express Company, Jardine Dry Goods by Mail and the Merchants’ Delivery Union from going into the vegetable-selling business.

Left unrestrained to compete with vegetable peddlers, big money would squeeze ordinary people’s living space without end.

Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages was all right. From the moment it received his financing, Caleb’s demand had been that it cure customers’ distrust of secondhand carriages.

The year 1878 was not only the last chance to sell out of the land market, but perhaps also the last frenzy of big money.

He insisted that Melon Seed Secondhand Carriages finish its listing and let him cash in before the times changed.

Jessica had come to see him and reported honestly on how the business had been run over the years.

According to the figures, Melon Seed’s sales made up more than half of all the secondhand carriages sold by catalog and wire.

It accounted for fifteen percent of the country’s whole secondhand-carriage trade, about one-seventh.

Even without a cent of profit, a value of more than twenty million dollars was certainly no problem.

In reality, that was indeed so. Caleb asked her to go to the Empire City headquarters.

There she was to get in touch with Gilbert Gould and Tabitha Lane, who would oversee Melon Seed’s listing and financing.

The Rising Star Group had a very complete team of money men in Empire City, and so long as the figures met the standard, the listing could be finished quickly.

There wouldn’t be many surprises. He was no longer the man he’d been three years before.

A great number of moneyed tycoons bound to the Rising Star Group had grown into towering trees, and pushing through a few listings worth several hundred million dollars for them was really not too difficult.

Only outsiders found the process as hard as climbing to heaven.

Once the listing was done, Jessica herself could live free of money worries.

He himself still owned half of Melon Seed’s shares, and how much he could take out depended on its value at listing.

Caleb didn’t trouble himself about it any further.

This June, the great international matches that the whole world followed would begin, when the touring Australians came to play England.

It was the foremost game in the world, and also the biggest thing in the world to bet on.

When the time came, who knew how many people at home would go crazy over it?

Unfortunately, our own national cricket was a problem of world-class proportions.

Every year they shouted that they’d get into the great matches, and every year they ended up watching from the stands.

Wanda Zell came to see him with a document. “Mr. Walker, a gentleman from the Cricket Association would like to arrange a match in Bay City between the Leicester Rovers and our national eleven.”

He had poured a fortune into England just to earn the right to buy a club, and then spent more than twenty million dollars on the Leicester Rovers to buy world-class cricketers like Kit Mabry and Dickie Debney.

In last year’s County Championship, his newly bought Kit Mabry had outshone everyone, and in the Challenge Cup the Rovers had been unstoppable.

As a result, Sunflight Steam Carriage Works, which had tied its advertising to the Leicester Rovers, also gained considerable fame around the world.

Antler Coffee House, which had joined later, did the same.

“Have our national eleven play against them?”

Caleb said oddly, “Our national eleven against a champion English county club? If they really played, wouldn’t it be like playing against children? Is the gentleman hoping we’ll go easy on them to boost the confidence of the crowds at home?”

“He didn’t say anything specific, only that he hopes you, Mr. Walker, can spare some time to talk it over in person.”

“Forget it. Just turn it down!”

Caleb said, “Let’s not get mixed up in cricket at home, and we don’t need any entanglements with them. I can’t raise a home-grown cricket king, but buying a world-class one for the club is still quite possible.”

His purchase of the Leicester Rovers was no great secret.

Many took him for a great lover of the game, and the Cricket Association often sent him invitations.

He had never attended a single one.

Silas Pryor had indeed done splendidly in the game at home, but when the tide went out, it left nothing but trouble behind.

The men at the top always said the country lacked young people playing the game.

Yet down at the bottom, a mother whose child loved cricket had to pay hundreds of dollars just to get him into a slightly more proper local club.

And to rise any further, the payments never stopped, driving the child’s mother half out of her mind.

In the end, only rich men’s children and the children of officials could afford to play.

If that could be improved, it would really be something.

He had to admit that even with the Golden Ledger at his side, he couldn’t do anything about cricket at home.

That was harder than holding a conversation with Julius Caesar.

Every confident tycoon who went into it came out cursing.

Silas Pryor was the exception, and that was why he was so impressive.

Chapter 603: Buy, Buy, Buy

At the end of 1877,

Mr. Pryor officially announced that he was going into the horseless-carriage business.

And he declared his philosophy of carriage-building: buy, buy, buy; merge, merge, merge; loop, loop, loop; big, big, big; great, great, great.

Those five lines could basically be understood as Mr. Pryor’s road to building carriages.

When the country had wanted its cricket to rise, Mr. Pryor had played cricket with gold.

Inspiring.

* * *

From then on, he ran wild in the world of business, borrowing from the banks until his hands went limp from signing.

The land he held was past counting, too.

And with the land market soon to hit its turning point, the country was throwing its weight behind the horseless-carriage industry, preparing to replace the land trade with a new carriage industry.

He strode in with great swaggering steps, full of confidence.

Wanting to meet Caleb had its purpose, too. After all, the biggest spender in the horseless-carriage market right now was Sunflight Steam Carriage Works.

As the saying went, outsiders watched the show, and insiders watched how it was done.

According to the figures, about five thousand seven hundred horseless passenger carriages were sold in 1877.

That was sixty-nine percent more than in 1876.

Meanwhile, two hundred forty-seven thousand ordinary horse-drawn carriages were sold in 1877, which meant horseless carriages made up no more than five percent of all carriage sales.

With that sort of market share, dozens of horseless-carriage companies had sprung up in just a few years.

Among them, countless companies had cheated the government of its subsidies by faking their sales figures.

Which meant that even that share of less than five percent held a great deal of water.

Against figures like that, the Rising Star Group had genuinely invested nearly two hundred million dollars.

Many people couldn’t work out how he could ever realistically earn it back by selling carriages.

Even Pryor, who had always been good at playing with money, couldn’t figure out what Caleb was really planning behind the scenes.

So he’d wanted to invite him over under the pretext of cricket to talk.

Pryor himself was perfectly clear about his own aims: whether it was cricket or now horseless carriages, the point was to keep the story going.

It made it easy for him to get land cheap and to get loans from the banks.

Actually earning back two hundred million dollars by selling carriages would take forever.

Relying on that five percent share of the market?

Don’t be ridiculous.

Once Silas Pryor went into horseless carriages, what a commanding air he had!

He flaunted his wealth right in people’s faces.

And he made sure the whole country knew through the big papers and the wire services that he was a spender of the grandest kind.

Pryor confidently claimed that within five years he’d make his horseless carriages the biggest in the world.

What did that mean?

Ezra Musgrave had become number one in horseless carriages only because Pryor hadn’t stepped in yet.

Now that Pryor had arrived, the number-one spot had to be his.

Listen to that slogan; what boss wouldn’t be stirred by it?

Mr. Pryor even declared he would set aside six hundred million dollars for building carriages, and suddenly everywhere you turned it was all about Mr. Pryor building carriages.

A force nothing could stop.

Even Sunflight Steam Carriage Works, which had already poured hundreds of millions into horseless carriages, looked insignificant against such an extreme contrast.

What was called being full of vigor and conviction, this was it.

Even the moneyed circles joined in his frenzy.

Caleb opened the morning paper and there he was; he picked up the weekly and it was still him.

The force and reach of Mr. Pryor’s publicity were without equal.

The horseless-carriage world was heating up, and he wasn’t the only big man picking up speed.

The Bannerman Group had gone into carriage-building in 1877, setting up Bannerman Carriages the same year.

It bought fifty-one percent of the Corliss Carriage Company, an offshoot of the Cherry Valley Wagon Works, for thirteen million two hundred sixty thousand dollars, and later raised its stake in Corliss to sixty-three percent.

The name Bannerman might not mean much to many people, but the ruthless money that fought the country’s first great battle for control of a company and drove Vanguard’s old chief out, you ought to remember that.

Yes, that one. He’d gone into the horseless-carriage arena too.

The rich and daring Zeke Bannerman even loudly announced a “Five-Year Plan.”

Bannerman Carriages put more than a hundred million dollars into Corliss, and announced its ambition to build Bannerman Carriages into a mighty concern within ten to fifteen years.

At first, the move itself had been spectacular, until Mr. Pryor announced his investment of six hundred million dollars.

At once, it overshadowed everything else.

Mr. Pryor single-handedly overshadowed the entire horseless-carriage industry.

Even those distinguished titans were overshadowed, never mind the newcomers crossing over from the wire trade into carriage-building.

It only proved that some people had even deeper pockets.

Mr. Pryor roared, “Who else is there?”

Those who’d been making waves before now went quiet and kept out of his way.

He was formidable indeed.

As the leading tycoon of the land trade, such stature was only to be expected.

Not only was he everywhere in the papers, but the cricket world, too, was promoting Mr. Pryor’s move into carriage-building.

This circle was getting livelier.

Caleb, however, paid them no attention and concentrated on his own work, promoting Sunflight around the world by way of the Leicester Rovers.

Once the great international matches began, Sunflight would make use of its players, Kit Mabry and Dickie Debney, for its advertising.

If those two could make it smoothly through to the deciding matches, and if one looked further ahead, to winning the series or the gold medal for the season’s finest cricketer, then whatever Silas Pryor could shout about with his clubs at home would look small beside the great teams of the world.

Advertising was only a way of building a name; what really mattered was the carriages themselves.

There was no doubt that money was one of the essentials of building carriages, but it wasn’t the only one.

Invention, a store of talent, building a name and selling in the market were all indispensable parts of carriage-making.

Within two years, Sunflight had laid out its complete industrial foundation in accumulators, motors and electrical control gear.

It had also bought a century-old carriage-and-engine works in Russia for tens of millions of dollars to perfect the basic patents for building carriages.

That included such critical groundwork as the tuning of the running gear and the design of the carriage frame.

In addition, it had invested thirty million dollars in self-acting steering aids, setting up a research team of nearly ten thousand men.

It had also finished building Sunflight’s great all-in-one works at a cost of twenty-four million dollars.

Along with ten million dollars a year for a worldwide research center for the makers who would supply its parts.

To put it simply, among all the newly founded horseless-carriage companies, none could compare with Sunflight.

Sunflight’s goal wasn’t Silas Pryor. However much he boasted, the only one Sunflight meant to surpass was Tessler.

And it could only be Tessler.

Within two years, Sunflight had completed the whole industrial layout of the horseless-carriage field.

It also had the most experts in the trade; he simply kept it under wraps.

Only when the first Sunflight carriage had finished its trials and officially gone on sale would he turn his efforts to promoting it at home.

For now, the focus was on making Sunflight a name known the world over.

Whether it could sell abroad wasn’t important yet; being known the world over would help break down a great many prejudices against home-built carriages.

Starting from the top and working down was the core strategy for Sunflight’s carriages.

Mr. Pryor was making quite a stir now, but his future looked uncertain if he couldn’t produce good carriages.

He’d left himself no way out.

As for Jasper Trent, who had been just as loud before, and who was supposedly “coming home next week,”

it had been a year, and there was still no sign of his return.

Meanwhile, he kept coining new catchphrases abroad.

He was also the first businessman ever to say that building a carriage was harder than flying to the moon.

By insiders’ accounts, he turned out an average of one carriage a year.

And even that was done by buying someone else’s existing model and altering it.

Mr. Pryor was in the limelight now, but it was the aftermath he ought to fear!

Caleb wasn’t particularly worried about him. His main concern was that a good many of his own employees had bought houses from Mr. Pryor before they were built.

They hadn’t even seen the houses yet, but the loan payments had already begun.

If Mr. Pryor failed at carriage-building, his game of robbing Peter to pay Paul might not hold up.

How it would all end was impossible to predict.

Chapter 604: The Boss Goes Undercover

When an era changes, everyone has to turn around in good time.

Caleb Walker, who had begun restructuring his Group back in February, did so, and so did Silas Pryor, who had announced six hundred million dollars for building carriages.

On the first of March, Caleb received a special guest at his headquarters.

This was the land tycoon who had topped the papers’ list of the country’s richest men several years running. Old Wanderley’s glorious history could be traced all the way back to the fifties.

“East and west, north and south, everybody goes to the Gulf Coast to get rich”; “set yourself a small target first”; “wherever there’s a Wanderley Arcades, there’s the heart of town,” and so on.

All those sayings had come from Old Wanderley.

Old Wanderley, a former army man, had suffered the greatest Waterloo of his life the year before.

Probably a great many people had no idea why Wanderley Arcades had suddenly taken such a nosedive.

Apart from some reasons that couldn’t be spoken aloud, the key issue was that Old Wanderley had moved a great deal of money borrowed from the banks overseas.

In 1877 alone, he had planned two projects worth two hundred eighty million dollars each.

One was an investment around Kuala Lumpur in the Malay States, and the other in the Dutch East Indies.

Looking over Wanderley’s investments through the years, it could be said they had been concentrated mainly overseas.

If all that money had been his own, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

The key was that all of it had been borrowed from the banks, with debts running as high as eight hundred million dollars.

Under such circumstances, the authorities wouldn’t let him easily move such a great sum of money abroad.

Once the banks tightened their lending, Wanderley’s days of strain arrived.

Since the year before, Old Wanderley had begun selling, not just hotels and department stores and the like, but many of his finest properties as well.

He’d come to Caleb hoping to get Wanderley Commercial successfully listed on the home Exchange this year.

If it succeeded, all his debt troubles could be smoothly settled.

If not… as early as June of the year before, the Comptroller of the Currency had named Wanderley Commercial in an inquiry into the risks of buying up companies abroad.

A company whose debts were over seventy percent of its assets, spending five hundred sixty million dollars on investments abroad in a single year, what was that for?

Perhaps nobody could help asking that question.

Unfortunately, Caleb’s present strategy was to tighten his grip on his money and proceed with caution.

However tempting the offer, he wouldn’t spend tens of millions on it.

He wouldn’t let pride lead him into grabbing what looked like a big watermelon only to lose his own stronghold.

Old Wanderley was bound to go home disappointed.

Caleb couldn’t possibly spend tens of millions on marked-down properties that meant nothing to him.

Old Wanderley now had two great mountains pressing down on him, and whether he could recover depended on his own skill.

Those who were still expanding now might face a great disaster in a few years.

Never mind the land trade; the age of everyone founding new ventures on the wire was nearly over, too.

The waves of the times came surging one after another.

No one could guarantee he’d always ride on top of the waves, and he was no exception.

When he’d finished meeting Old Wanderley, Wanda Zell brought over his calendar for the next few days.

Apart from meeting people, it was more meeting people, mostly local officials.

A smaller part were tycoons of business like himself.

“Mr. Walker, the various vice-presidents below hope you’ll meet these local officials. It would help their work a great deal.”

“Without my seeing them, they can’t carry out their work?”

After answering, Caleb struck some of the names off.

“In a couple of days my daughter starts school, and I don’t have time to meet so many people. Also, let it be announced that I’ll be away for a long spell, during which I’ll see no one except on special business.”

“Very well,” said Wanda Zell, holding a thick folder. “Mr. Walker, may I ask where you’re planning to go?”

“The Group’s reorganization is nearly finished. If I stay here every day, I’ll have to see this man or that one, so I might as well disappear for a while. Where to? That depends on where my daughter likes to go.”

All right, then… The big boss only showed up at the Group’s headquarters at critical moments; the rest of the time he was looking after his daughter.

As for the details of the trip, she’d naturally hear about the next steps in due course.

There was no need to ask too much just now.

The Rising Star Group’s growth was completely on track. From here on, all he needed was to turn Sunflight Steam Carriage Works into one of the five hundred greatest companies on earth, and his career would be halfway complete.

Caleb drove his plain black Folkes buggy home, and as he passed Old Yoder’s Bakery, he still bought two big rolls.

That old couple had worked hard all their lives, only for their son to be whipped into line by his wife.

Never mind spending decades of their savings; the wife wouldn’t even let them move in.

If his little third one, Luke, ever ended up like that, it would make his blood boil.

In the steam elevator, he ran into the rich man’s son who had stolen his neighbor’s girl. The fellow still looked mighty pleased with himself, apparently unaware that his father’s fellow shareholders had reported him.

Maybe one day he’d be arrested for embezzling and misusing the company’s money.

Why did Caleb keep running into these good-for-nothing wastrels?

His little third one, Luke, was sound asleep, and for once his Little Scamp hadn’t come to pester him.

The Little Scamp spent all day clinging to her grandmother and asking ten thousand whys.

That age was really too much to handle.

As for her big sister, Annie, after getting the passbook with four hundred thousand dollars in it, she hadn’t spent a cent.

Really strange.

If you asked her why, she said she didn’t know how to spend it yet.

She’d thought of giving a little to charity, but the very next day she read in the papers about Miss Mamie Gough, the young woman who’d flaunted her silks and carriages while claiming ties to a great relief society.

She was quite angry.

She even wanted to get back what she had given.

Spending money was no easy task.

Instead of giving to charities, it was better to give directly to people who really needed help.

Sadly, she couldn’t find any poor children around her anymore.

Such children would never appear at the Bay City International Academy.

For the first time, Annie felt the trouble of having too much money to spend. Caleb told her not to rush and to find a way slowly.

As for himself, he wanted to experience different sides of life.

He’d count it as gathering experience for his daughter.

Even when Annie asked him about it, he didn’t say exactly what he meant.

“Dad, do you still need to experience life?”

“Of course I do.”

Caleb said, “Life is long. Apart from selling California oranges from a cart and driving a freight wagon, I’ve done just about everything except work for somebody else.”

“Dad, you want to work for somebody else?” Annie’s eyes went wide.

“I might try it for a while. Since the start of this year, the Rising Star Picture-Card Company has been growing fast. I might go in on the quiet for a spell and see what an employee’s daily life is like at the same time.”

“Will you take me with you?”

“Of course I will.”

Of course, Caleb wasn’t going just to see an employee’s daily life. The most important thing was to have his daughter cross ten thousand mountains.

Only by experiencing more could one see the road beneath one’s feet more clearly, and understand which road one ought truly to take.

To be a good boss, how could one not know what it was like to be an employee?

He had to teach his daughter himself; leaving it all to her teachers wasn’t enough.

Chapter 605: Down to Pueblo Springs

Two days later, his wife Clara came back from Shell Harbor on the express.

In a few more months, the Cloudwater Academy would graduate ten thousand beauticians who’d been in training for two years.

With a graduating class that large, his wife had already begun expanding into eight of the great cities the year before.

She’d been busy with it until now. The parlors had all been fitted out; all that was left was to air them out and place this batch of trainee beauticians.

Caleb was sitting in his tea room, reading the dispatches in the evening paper over a cup of tea, when Clara knocked, came in and asked what he was looking at.

Caleb said, “The news about the Palmetto Steamship Line going under.”

“Didn’t that already blow up last year?”

The Palmetto Steamship Line was one of the largest privately owned shipping concerns in the country. In earlier years it had been hooked on buying up and expanding everywhere.

Last year it had come out that its total debts were a billion and a half dollars, with debts running to seventy percent of its assets; it simply couldn’t pay.

Only then did everyone realize how far this great shipping concern had gone.

“Yes, the crisis was last year. The local authorities are probably looking to rescue it this year.”

Caleb folded up his paper, turned his head and said, “The age of growing without restraint is over. The blind expansion of the past can’t fit this new age anymore. Every business has to aim for quality now and find its way along that road.”

“Mm.” Clara nodded, agreeing strongly. “It’s lucky you proposed last year that the Group tighten its strategy, or we might easily have fallen into the same pattern of blind expansion.”

“We’ve tightened up, but a great many companies haven’t.”

Caleb began telling her about some of the people he’d met in the last couple of days, including Old Wanderley, who’d topped the papers’ list of the country’s richest men for many years.

Having grabbed two big overseas projects he never should have, he’d thrown his whole strategy into disorder, leaving the group short of money.

Before, a listing had been a sure thing; now it was hard to say, and he’d have to cut off a limb to save his life.

Besides him, Silas Pryor had also tried to invite him through some men of the cricket world, though what exactly he’d wanted to discuss was unknown.

But what was certain was that Silas Pryor was still expanding wildly, and his group paid out huge dividends every year.

The signs were far too obvious.

It wasn’t only the land trade that was tightening. Ever since the business of the express companies selling vegetables, the new wire-and-catalog companies had also come under fierce public scrutiny.

The direction was plainly starting to change.

The authorities would no longer back the so-called new wire economy, but would turn to supporting businesses that genuinely looked outward.

That is, companies that earned their money abroad.

Companies that relied only on earnings at home would find it hard to get the government’s support.

It was a strong signal, and one they had to answer with a strategy of their own.

Clara paid no mind to those matters and brought up another subject. “Topping the papers’ list of the richest men is a dangerous line of work. Apart from Lucius Kingsley, it’s a miracle if anyone who gets on it manages to retire without trouble.”

Heh… Caleb chuckled. “The real magnates lurk under the water. How could some newspaper expose them so easily? And if we’re talking about men who top the lists in public, who can beat Lucius Kingsley?”

That was true indeed.

Going to Empire City as often as they did, they naturally knew that in 1859 Lucius Kingsley had cleared about two hundred million dollars just by selling a European telegraph company.

After that, he had ridden the rise of the land market back home to perfection.

Just by buying land at the bottom, nobody could say clearly how much money he had.

The richest men from back home on the papers’ list, the top five put together, might not even come close to having as much money as he did.

That was no exaggeration at all.

“You’ve come back at just the right time. There’s something I want to talk over with you.”

“What is it?”

“I’m thinking of taking Annie and the Little Scamp down to the Gulf Coast for a while.”

“What for, if there’s nothing pressing down there?”

Clara asked him, puzzled, and Caleb said,

“It’s precisely because there’s nothing pressing that I want to go. There are two reasons. One, I hope it’ll broaden their horizons, and two, Tick-Tock has grown too fast this year, and I want to spend some time at the Rising Star Picture-Card Company.”

They had grand houses everywhere, and moving was as easy as play.

In Pueblo Springs, too, they had a huge flat worth several hundred thousand dollars that they’d never once stayed in.

The Rising Star Picture-Card Company, their own family business, had had many millions poured into it, and it had been growing fast for nearly two years now.

Never mind Sunflight; this was certainly the Rising Star Group’s biggest business in picture-card darlings, with the greatest promise of cashing in later on.

Surpassing New Summit Vaudeville, which had grown out of the Kwik-Peek halls, would be no problem at all.

It was quite likely that its value would pass two hundred million dollars.

So Caleb really had to go there and get to know the Rising Star Picture-Card Company.

“Can you manage alone, taking both of them with you?”

“What’s there to manage? Won’t you be coming down often too?”

All right, then… The two little ones were about to start school.

Their ability to adapt was no problem at all; they’d been running around from Sterling City to Empire City before.

Going to the Gulf Coast now, they’d fit in right away. It was only that they still weren’t very good at speaking the harbor patois.

Learning the patois early down there wasn’t a bad thing either.

There wasn’t much to pack at home. As for the little third one, Luke, he was only half a year old and didn’t understand anything; they’d just leave him with Martha and Margaret for the time being.

Caleb called Annie and the Little Scamp over and asked if they’d like to go down to the Gulf Coast.

Both agreed without even thinking.

They didn’t bring a single thing. For rich folks, moving house was like playing.

Only people without money found it hard. Besides, they already had a big house down on the Gulf Coast.

This time the priority was getting them into school. The Little Scamp would carry on at infant school, and Annie would be in the second half of the fifth grade.

Enrolling them was no problem.

Don’t ask for details; asking for details would only show how many strings had been pulled.

As for the family, they all moved into the ten-thousand-five-hundred-square-foot luxury flat at Number One Pueblo Bay.

It was the place his wife had bought a couple of years back and had never once lived in.

It had cost four hundred thousand dollars when she bought it, and now it was worth close to eight hundred thousand.

The luxury of the place needed no introduction; it was basically the top of the line among grand flats.

Anywhere in the world, for that matter.

It had an enormous balcony with an open-air swimming pool, and a very special glassed-in observatory with a great brass telescope.

It was lovely to watch the sea from up there and feel the mystery of the stars.

That feeling was beyond compare.

For the Little Scamp it was simplest of all. She’d always found the four-bedroom, two-parlor flat in Bay City too small, not enough to hold her.

A flat of ten thousand five hundred square feet, that was enough room for her.

She could make as much noise as she liked, with no need to think about the neighbors.

In a few more months, when summer came, she could finally soak in the pool as she pleased while watching a huge magic-lantern show.

Coming down to the Gulf Coast had been the right thing.

So long as she didn’t have to live with the little third one, she got to stay in a big house.

“Dad, is it just the three of us living in this house?”

What the Little Scamp really wanted to ask was, weren’t they supposed to hire a few maids?

She’d cry all day if it were her turn to clean such a big house.

“Your mama will be here in a few days. We’re not going to hire any maids, but finding someone to look after you won’t be a problem.”

Caleb had Sylvia Shore transferred from Empire City to Pueblo Springs to look after the two little ones day to day.

Not too busy, but not too idle either.

Chapter 606: The New Man From Bay City

Number One Pueblo Bay stood in the South Hill district, with Empire City across the water to the south and the new Machine Works Park to the north.

To the east lay the Fairfield commercial quarter, and to the west, the Front Bay.

The district gathered industries of world rank and was meant to be the base for the headquarters of the five hundred greatest companies on earth.

The prosperity of the city was on full display here. His wife had not only bought a grand flat she’d never lived in, she’d also bought two racing sulkies with matched Arabians, the newest model, that she’d never once driven.

Considering that both were racing rigs, fine and dashing to drive but not so handy for taking children to school, he ordered two Hooper “Cullinan” mountain coaches delivered to the building for the daily trips to and from school.

Annie was still enrolled at a fine private academy, and the Little Scamp went to the best infant school in town.

Most of the children there came from rich or distinguished families.

What was interesting, though, was a story that had broken on the Gulf Coast a few days before:

It was about a young lady teacher at an infant school with thirty-two children in her class.

She’d managed to become sweethearts with the fathers of thirty-one of them, pocketing several hundred dollars in holiday gifts alone.

A woman like that was a gifted talent, a master at managing her time.

With skills like those, why carry on with the parents when she could easily make money teaching?

The only father she hadn’t taken up with was said to be the one who never came to the school.

Talk about not being picky at all.

Pueblo Springs had a large population of newcomers, and those who’d come down from the Southern Territory for work made up one-sixth of the whole.

Caleb himself came from the Southern Territory. It was rather comforting to run into folks from home wherever he went.

As for Annie and the Little Scamp, their ability to adapt was extraordinary.

Children who stepped down from a Hooper coach naturally didn’t feel the least bit inferior.

They acted like leaders wherever they went.

When Caleb took the children to school, he brought Sylvia Shore along. If he was busy, Sylvia handled the school runs.

Besides that, a whole team of bodyguards had naturally been arranged for their safety.

The family spent two hundred thousand dollars a year on guards’ wages alone.

That was the one expense that absolutely could not be skimped on.

Sylvia had come to look after the two little ones. Her post hadn’t changed, but her standing in the Group had risen considerably.

She didn’t know what had made the big boss suddenly rush down to Pueblo Springs, but so long as she obeyed and did as she was told, all was well.

In truth, apart from having the Big Scamp and the Little Scamp start learning the harbor patois early, Caleb had come to Pueblo Springs mainly to understand the Rising Star Picture-Card Company from the ground up.

That is to say, the business of picture cards and their darlings as it stood now.

Unlike Kwik-Peek, Tick-Tock had grown this far without any way of making a profit.

If you spoke of profit, it came only from the paper flowers and tips customers bought for the darlings when they performed live in the halls.

The headquarters of the Rising Star Picture-Card Company was in the White Cloud District of Galveston, and the Rising Star Group’s southern headquarters was there too.

But Pueblo Springs had its own branch for the darlings.

Not only Pueblo Springs; Bay City, Sterling City and eight other cities of the second rank all had branches of the Rising Star Picture-Card Company for its darlings.

The company was spreading all across the country.

The picture-card business had risen on every side. Though Caleb had poured many millions into it, he wouldn’t claim to truly understand the trade.

Still less could he claim to understand the young people of today; he only knew the times were moving too fast.

Even he had to get down into the trenches to really come to grips with this young business of darlings.

It wasn’t enough to invest without understanding how the thing worked.

The rise of the picture cards had gone beyond anything he’d expected; while every other business declined, the business of darlings stood out.

The Rising Star Picture-Card Company could well become the second great concern in his hands to be worth more than two hundred million dollars.

That had to be taken seriously.

Today Caleb didn’t drive the Hooper coach to work; he went in the racing sulky with its matched Arabians.

Other men who lost their jobs in middle age ended up running deliveries; when he lost his job in middle age, he drove a racing rig with Arabians.

That was right: he was now playing the part of a middle-aged man out of work, come here to start over from scratch.

The Pueblo Springs branch of the Rising Star Picture-Card Company was in a new twelve-story office block, the tallest in the Fairfield commercial quarter.

Its offices there took up five floors.

These included the darlings’ department, the performers’ department, the newcomers’ department and the guild for live hall performances, among others.

It had no fewer than two thousand staff, and its darlings numbered over a hundred.

“Are you the new man transferred from Bay City?”

He was received by a young lady clerk from the personnel office named Betty Quarles, twenty-nine, in black-rimmed spectacles, a white shirtwaist and a narrow black skirt.

Her looks rated an eight, but her figure a full ten.

One had to wonder what secret corsetry she used; the effect seemed almost unnaturally generous.

“Yes, I came from Bay City.”

“Oh.” Betty glanced at his letter of application and then said, “You’re thirty-five this year. To be honest, that’s a bit old. Our line of work tends to prefer younger people. Still, looking at your experience, you’ve worked in the theater business before, so you ought to just about manage.

“Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll put you on the newcomers’ team first, where you’ll be in charge of managing and planning for newcomers.”

The business of darlings, after all, meant constantly signing up good-looking ordinary folks.

Then they went through a whole series of professional polishing, the fixing of a stage character, and the making of their picture cards.

To turn them into darlings, and in the end, to start making money off them.

When it came time to make money, the newcomers had to start earning for the company.

By contract, the company took charge of their early training, and whether it was endorsements or advertising later on, the Picture-Card Company and the darlings split the takings fifty-fifty.

That contract was counted one of the best in the trade. Rising Star companies never made money by bleeding their people.

It was just a pity that the Rising Star Picture-Card Company, relying on Tick-Tock to grow, had to put up four million dollars a year to cover its operating losses.

What did that mean? It hadn’t even reached the point of fully earning its keep yet.

And with so many people signed, it was only normal to lose millions a year.

Being put on the newcomers’ team wasn’t bad either, Caleb thought to himself.

Betty also explained the newcomers’ department in Pueblo Springs to him. It wasn’t just one or two people.

There were thirty-six teams in all, each divided into four squads, and each squad had two newcomers, a planner and a cameraman.

The planner was in charge of what the pictures showed and how they were managed, while the cameraman, as the name suggested, specialized in taking and arranging the picture cards.

The pay of the newcomers’ teams was also the lowest, commonly called “the floor.”

Because the company made no money from them, it had to spend a great deal training them.

So they all got the floor wage, about sixteen dollars a month.

Once a newcomer reached a certain number of admirers, they began to be promoted.

Those with five hundred thousand up to a million admirers were promoted to the third-rank performers’ team.

With a floor wage of thirty-six dollars, plus their own share of the takings.

They could easily earn six hundred to a thousand dollars a year.

The best-paid performers’ teams took the specialist road, that is, drawing a particular kind of admirer.

Because their admirers were so concentrated, these performers had the greatest power to make money.

The worst-paid teams generally took the road of light amusement, that is, wiggling their hips and dancing saucy little dances to draw in the leering old goats.

Those were no good for advertising or selling goods; the only way they could make money was through the flowers and tips tossed to them when they performed live in the halls.

They were the least valuable sort of performer.

Whether it was the newcomers’ teams or the performers’ teams, everything was strictly arranged by rank.

If you wanted to earn a high income, it was simple: just climb up rung by rung like a boy at a county-fair greased-pole contest, and the world was yours.

The biggest difference between the business of darlings and the old trades was that this one didn’t care about seniority.

You might be unknown for three years and then famous overnight.

And then in three days you could earn what an ordinary man wouldn’t make in eight lifetimes.

That was the business of darlings, and the most attractive trade of all for the young.

Because it didn’t require patiently climbing the ladder step by step, as the old trades did.

What this trade prized was fame overnight.

When Betty had finished her introduction, she took him to meet the people, that is, the two newcomers he’d be in charge of.

For a planner wanting to get ahead, it was simple.

Raise a great darling with over ten million admirers, and his yearly bonus would start at four thousand dollars.

In a word, if you had the ability, the Picture-Card Company was really not short of money.

The big bosses up top had wealth beyond imagining.

Here everyone could enjoy the fairest climbing game there was.

If you wanted to reach the peak of your life, just go all out and never stop.

“Oh! I nearly forgot. You’ve just been let go in middle age. I shouldn’t be getting you all fired up like this.”

Betty also posed for picture cards herself. A lady clerk who didn’t want to become a great darling wasn’t a good lady clerk.

Compared with her post in the personnel office, being a darling paid best of all.

What if she became a great darling just by shouting out loud?

Though that wasn’t very realistic, look at the darlings who made tens of thousands a year.

Yesterday they were tightening bolts in a factory; today, with a snap of the fingers, they were driving a Pagano racing sulky from Modena.

In this trade, there was no such thing as impossible.

It really was a trade bursting with life.

Chapter 607: A Haircut at the Everlasting Beauty

The two newcomers assigned to Caleb were real greenhorns.

One was named Jenny Jessop, born in 1860, only eighteen this year and still counted a minor.

If she’d been signed by the Rising Star Picture-Card Company, she must have had something special about her.

Not only was she pretty, she could also dance a fine buck-and-wing.

She was quite shy, though, and didn’t like to talk much.

The second one was Maisie Holt, whose looks rated eight and a half and whose figure rated at least nine and a half.

Long legs, a slim waist, and a pert little behind.

Her smile was quite sweet too; a company in the business of darlings naturally never lacked for beauties.

Both of them had been in another squad before their planner managed to get them switched out.

Because there was a girl in that squad who sang exceptionally well and would likely become famous faster.

The cameraman in their squad, Zeb, was only twenty-two, not very old but already quite experienced.

His picture-taking was still quite professional.

Now they’d come to the planner of the third squad of Team Eighteen.

Jenny Jessop and Maisie Holt both looked at him with serious faces.

One had thirty thousand admirers, the other just over twenty thousand; both were eager newcomers.

“Let me introduce myself. My name is Caleb Walker.”

“I’m Jenny Jessop.”

“You can call me Maisie.”

Since they’d been put in the same squad, they ought to work together as a team.

In the future, if one of them rose, the whole squad would prosper.

Competition inside the Rising Star Picture-Card Company was quite fierce. Any planner who failed to help a newcomer reach a hundred thousand admirers within a month would have all his bonuses withheld, leaving only a little base wage.

If there was no breakthrough after three months, both the newcomer and the planner would have to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

A private concern couldn’t afford to keep too many idle hands.

So once you were put in a squad, pulling together was essential.

At least on the surface, pulling together was necessary.

Caleb had run New Summit Vaudeville himself before, and had stepped in a few times after investing in the Picture-Card Company, but he’d never really visited it after that.

Most of the people who knew who he was were at the Picture-Card Company’s headquarters in Galveston, which he’d deliberately avoided.

There was no special reason for it; he simply wanted to understand how the Rising Star Picture-Card Company worked at the bottom.

Working at a company in the business of darlings, your hours were very free.

The most important thing for newcomers was to catch the public’s eye quickly.

Normally the company didn’t care where you went; it only looked at your final results.

So when Maisie suggested going out to eat, everyone agreed, except Jenny, who hesitated a little.

“There’s a decent little eating house downstairs. How about we go there and split the bill?”

“No need to split it. It’s my first day here, so it’s my treat.”

“That’s fine, then.”

Unlike Jenny’s shyness, Maisie was an outgoing girl who found it easy to chat with others.

“Uncle, do you have a rig? If you do, we could go a bit farther to eat. The places around here are awfully dear.”

Jenny really didn’t have much money; she wasn’t famous yet. Getting by in big Pueblo Springs on nothing but the floor wage meant she had to scrimp hard.

It was different once you were famous.

“It’s standing downstairs. I’ll take you!”

Maisie and Jenny picked up their bags and went down with him. They figured the new planner probably drove a cheap little Harrington buggy, only to find it was a racing rig with a matched pair of Arabians worth several thousand dollars, the newest model, with a second seat behind that could just squeeze in four.

Maisie’s eyes went round with surprise. “Uncle, did you come here to experience life?”

“Not really. I’m here to do a good job!”

“Doing a good job pays for this rig’s oats?”

Fine rigs weren’t just dear to buy; their yearly upkeep came to no less than two to four hundred dollars.

Add the feed and the stabling, and it easily started at four hundred.

It was no exaggeration: even if someone gave Maisie a rig like this as a gift, she couldn’t afford to keep it.

It drove beautifully, and sitting in it felt even finer.

A young man driving a pair of Arabians would have no troubles in love.

Caleb had no intention of showing off; this was the plainest rig he had in Pueblo Springs.

Buying a Folkes buggy and keeping it at Number One Pueblo Bay would have looked even more out of place.

The four of them went to a fancy restaurant, ate, and then talked over how to become darlings quickly.

It was different from when he’d first invested in New Summit Vaudeville; back then, simply flaunting wealth for the public could quickly win admirers.

Many of the top darlings had started out that way.

Now the trick had been worn out by countless people, and plain showing off no longer drew the young.

Admittedly, even Caleb was struggling to keep up with how fast the picture cards were changing.

It had been a while since he’d last spent an afternoon dropping pennies into the cabinets at a Tick-Tock parlor.

He only knew the trade was renewing and changing by the day.

They hadn’t become famous yet, and countless newcomers were eagerly pouring in to become darlings.

The pressure in the trade wasn’t small.

Jenny and Maisie didn’t have many good ideas; they could only hope to lean on this “uncle” with the racing Arabians.

Caleb looked them over. Setting everything else aside, it was quite necessary to take these two young ladies to get tidied up a bit.

The girls were pretty, but they were still somewhat lacking in how they dressed.

He supposed it was because they were broke.

“I’ll take you both for a haircut first.”

He’d never had his hair cut around here and just picked a big parlor nearby, with the sign “Everlasting Beauty Hair Parlor” prominently displayed over the door.

The moment you walked in, you were greeted with a “Welcome!”, followed by a question about whether you had a membership card.

Then they called for the different hairdressers through a brass speaking trumpet.

There were no more than five hairdressers, yet their prices were divided into six different grades.

The highest was the “Stage Stars’ Private Hairdresser,” at two dollars and fifty-eight cents a cut.

Below that came the parlor manager, the director, the head dresser and the ordinary dressers.

The prices were shocking at a glance.

The rich man, Caleb, simply said to go with the best.

The attendant in charge of greeting them understood at once, gave someone a look with his eyes, and immediately got things started.

Jenny had an especially quiet nature, and girls like her were well loved in real life.

But they didn’t stand out much in the picture cards.

The hairdresser decided to give her a head of bright, flamboyant red hair.

As for Maisie, her strength lay entirely in her figure.

The key was how best to show it off and set it off.

The two of them spent the whole afternoon in the parlor, and when they came out they looked all right.

It was just the price.

Jenny and Maisie were certainly shocked when they saw it.

The prices for cutting and dyeing were more or less normal, but the key was the price of the hair treatment.

Hadn’t they said it was only a little over twenty cents?

It turned out twenty cents was just the smallest unit they charged, wasn’t it?

Neither girl had especially thick hair, yet the parlor claimed to have used over two hundred units.

That one item alone came to nearly sixty dollars.

Stories of hair parlors fleecing people were getting more common. Back in Bay City he had someone who saw to that sort of thing for him.

But plainly they’d stumbled into a trap here.

“Fleecing customers this badly, you must not want to stay in business long, eh?”

“You can’t just say whatever you like. You were the ones who asked for the best.”

Fine… Caleb didn’t care to argue with them; there was no need.

After he left, the parlor manager celebrated the attendant who’d handled the greeting and the bill, cranking up a hand organ good and loud and setting off a string of firecrackers.

That, too, was a typical trick of hair parlors.

Overcharging customers wasn’t the frightening part; what was frightening was leaving them no recourse after they’d been fleeced.

Not long after he left, a large man in a suit came into the shop carrying a small cup and asked them to look after it for a bit.

But somehow they managed to break the cup.

How did it break? When the boss had it in for you, did you really think you could get away?

Of course they had to pay for it. It came to just over two hundred thousand dollars.

Caleb didn’t care about the aftermath; one thing was certain, that parlor couldn’t stay in business.

This sort of thing was fairly rare in Pueblo Springs, but it was most rampant in Hampton.

A saying had even started going around in the papers: “Don’t get your hair cut in Hampton.”

As he took the two young ladies back, he actually had a few ideas in mind.

Not any strange ideas, just thoughts on how to make them famous quickly.

He didn’t mention them yet; he’d think them over when he got home and then decide.

Coming here with his standing, if he couldn’t make these two young ladies famous, he’d be too embarrassed to speak of this experience back at headquarters.

When he got home, Sylvia had already brought Annie and the Little Scamp back.

The enormous flat of ten thousand five hundred square feet really was huge.

It even had several studies, plus a private little theater with a magic lantern, a gymnasium and a games room, and more besides.

March was still a bit chilly elsewhere, but down on the Gulf Coast it was summer all year round.

The Little Scamp was already soaking in the open-air pool.

Floating gently in a little painted duck boat, in her bathing costume and cap.

“Dad, are you really going to be an ordinary employee?”

“Sure as can be.”

Annie came over curiously and asked him what it felt like to be an ordinary worker.

Honestly, he’d never feel that way again.

Because the pressure of money was gone, even though he wasn’t working at his own company in name, he couldn’t feel the daily life of ordinary workers; and yet he still had to do this job well.

“Your dad’s been given two greenhorns, and I’m thinking about how to make them famous.”

“That should be easy. Just have Aunt Lily pose for some picture cards with them. Aunt Lily’s so popular this year.”

Lily Hayes had starred in the historical play “Know Ye Not?”, and it had been received very well.

She was indeed famous now; she’d become the queen of the stage plays.

“But if we make them famous that way, what’s the point?”

Caleb asked her, “Didn’t you pose for picture cards yourself before? Do you have any tips you can share with your dad?”

She actually did have some; it was just a pity she’d never really had any admirers.

Little did she know it was all because her dad was holding her back.

His daughter couldn’t possibly become a picture-card darling, no matter how young she was.

Chapter 608: The Girl on the Black Stallion

In 1878, Tick-Tock’s motto was still “Capturing the Beautiful Moments of Life.”

The whole business carried no goods for sale and no advertising whatsoever.

Most people became famous by accident and faded away just as fast.

Countless people chased those surprises, but they were hard to manufacture on purpose.

By some unofficial count, at least ten million young people went to Tick-Tock every month hoping to become darlings.

That is to say, on average more than three hundred thousand young people poured in every single day.

* * *

Only a small fraction managed to become sensations.

And it was that small chance everyone was betting on.

Whenever a new darling appeared, everyone saw it, and that really got people’s blood up.

Everyone always thought he might be next.

To become a darling, you had to quickly find the character that suited you best and make your picture cards around it.

That alone could shake off ninety-nine percent of the newcomers in the trade.

Annie did understand picture cards; perhaps she was one of the main crowd of card-makers herself.

So she actually came up with a pretty good idea.

Never mind Jenny; Maisie could be made into a horseback beauty.

What did that mean?

There were millions of beauties in the Tick-Tock cabinets, but not a single one yet riding astride a black stallion like a range rider. If Maisie could be tied to horses, her admirers would surely soar without stopping.

Her reasoning was much the same as why she’d always had her little violin in her own picture cards before.

If it hadn’t been for Caleb keeping a lid on her, she’d have become a little darling long ago.

The Little Terror did have some talent in this line.

She was very eager herself, too, and was even thinking of making picture cards with him in the holidays.

That shouldn’t be a problem.

Having settled first on how to promote Maisie, Caleb went to work at the Picture-Card Company’s branch office the next day.

Betty Quarles, who was always spurring herself on and wasn’t content to be a clerk in the personnel office, was the first to arrive.

Mainly because she wanted the cameramen who were free to take a couple of picture cards for her too.

When she saw Caleb, she greeted him first and asked how he was settling in at the new company.

Caleb answered casually and then got busy with his work.

By the time Jenny and Maisie both arrived, it was already half past eight in the morning.

However, the second and fourth squads from the next team came over to share a peculiar story.

A lad from a bolt factory had gone to a barbershop for a haircut and happened to have his eyebrows shaped as well.

Then they’d charged him forty dollars. Of course, the poor fellow had nothing like that much money, so he’d gone to the penny papers for help.

When the reporters arrived, they interviewed him on the spot.

Unexpectedly, the fellow said he’d asked for eyebrows like Dalton Fayette’s and a dashing head of hair like Leon Lassiter’s.

But he’d ended up looking like Moe Dawes, the moon-faced clown of the variety halls.

And for that, the barbershop still wanted forty dollars from him.

Once the interview came out, the lad was famous in an instant.

Some pitied his plight, and others found him hilarious.

Oddly enough, the eyebrow lad shot to fame.

He gained hundreds of thousands of admirers overnight, with more to come.

Hearing this peculiar story, Jenny and Maisie felt they’d missed their own chance to catch on.

Hadn’t they just been fleeced by a hair parlor the day before?

If only they’d known to call the reporters for an interview, how awkward would that have been?

Once he was famous, that lad surely quit his job at the bolt factory without a second thought.

After that, he started performing live in the halls, and the amount of flowers and tips he received was astonishing.

Perhaps it was a gift from fate. If a man could seize a chance like that, it wouldn’t take long, just a month or so, to make at least several thousand dollars.

That was the lure of the business of darlings.

You never knew who the next lucky one would be, but so long as everyone was full of dreams, the trade was bound to thrive.

“Uncle, what’s our plan for today?”

“To take pictures, of course.”

Regret was regret, but the work that needed doing couldn’t be neglected.

Caleb took the two of them out to take picture cards, and even picked a spot by the sea.

He’d bought a black stallion, a tall, glossy creature that really stood out.

Especially when Maisie’s long legs straddled it, the curve of her hips was just too tempting.

In fact, this horseback persona suited her exceptionally well.

“You need to wear close-fitting clothes. Only close-fitting clothes will give the best effect.”

“Uncle, you really are here to experience life, aren’t you? We don’t have horses like this at our branch!”

Maisie might not be famous, but she knew a thing or two.

With so many top darlings in the Group, every gathering was filled with the clatter of racing rigs.

The stallion looked splendid, and his price was just as splendid: close to six hundred dollars.

“I borrowed him from a friend. From now on you just concentrate on taking horseback pictures.”

“All right, it’s a really good idea.”

Maisie was outgoing by nature, and she liked horses too.

Making herself known as a girl who rode astride was pretty dashing, too.

As for Jenny beside her, her naturally quiet nature together with her dyed red hair gave her a cool sort of beauty.

If she could switch between those two airs in an instant, she might become a sensation at once.

But how to do it?

Better to ask Zeb, who was in charge of taking and arranging the pictures.

He’d had professional training; he was bound to know something.

There were millions of pretty darlings, and without something to set you apart, it would be hard to become famous.

Caleb’s job was to give advice; Zeb did all the picture-taking.

The two girls in this newcomers’ squad were top-notch in looks.

But they didn’t have much talent.

A professional series of cards, from taking to arranging, couldn’t be done in just a few hours.

It took a great deal of going back and forth.

Maisie didn’t even have any lines; her part was to show off her perfect figure on horseback.

As she rode, she deliberately rose up in the stirrups and leaned forward, her hair flying and her curves perfect.

She had this one in the bag.

The key was that there wasn’t yet a horseback girl in the Tick-Tock cabinets, so being the first one would make fame relatively easy.

Compared with her, Jenny’s pictures were plainly harder.

Making the switch between two different characters within the space of a few cards was difficult even for a professional photographer, let alone an amateur like her.

Zeb took pictures back and forth for more than an hour and still wasn’t satisfied.

It was nowhere near the effect they wanted, until Caleb suggested keeping it simple.

Just go with a toss of the head and a change of outfit, and switch between the series with the change of dress.

Let her move casually between a quiet demeanor and a cool beauty; that would be much easier.

Just take one set of quiet pictures and another set full of cool beauty, and join them together.

No sooner said than done, and even Zeb was surprised by the result.

Was Jenny really this beautiful?

How could she look so coolly lovely in the pictures?

It felt as though she was on the verge of becoming famous.

Caleb looked at the stage name she’d used before, and it was no good at all, nothing distinctive about it.

He might as well change it to Little Blade.

As for Maisie, she needed a name that was easy to remember too.

Just call her the Rogue Boy.

Names like that were especially easy to remember and more likely to spread.

Chapter 609: Picture-Card Night

The craze for picture cards might not be only about looking at little series of pictures.

It was an age that belonged to the young.

Jenny Jessop, now renamed Little Blade, put out her first quick-change, head-toss series in March.

Moving easily between demureness and glamour, she gave a delightful thrill to the young people who liked such cards.

And then it caught on like a prairie fire.

It took off so explosively that the whole Pueblo Springs branch of the Picture-Card Company was astonished, and within just three days countless people had begun imitating her.

* * *

That brought even bigger crowds to her cards.

Unsurprisingly, Jenny became a sensation.

She rose so fast that she went straight from the newcomers’ department to the elite darlings’ department.

That meant she could soon become a great darling with tens of millions of admirers.

And that rise would be very quick.

Promotion to the elite department had clear benefits, such as access to the top stars of the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

With stars to shelter her future, she could also often attend the gatherings of the top darlings.

The benefits were beyond counting; if she agreed, she could at once enjoy the Picture-Card Company’s finest treatment.

Naturally Jenny was keen, but she hadn’t forgotten that it was Caleb who had made her famous.

So the first thing she did was ask his opinion.

Caleb told her not to hesitate. His purpose here wasn’t just to raise up a few darlings, but to explore how real, solid industries might draw on the crowds that flocked to picture cards.

He believed this would undoubtedly be a critical question for the traditional trades and for men of business over the next five to ten years.

Under a great many envious eyes, Jenny left the Pueblo Springs branch and went straight to the headquarters in Galveston.

Where her future would be secure.

In mid-March, another exciting piece of news went around the circle of catalog agents.

A smiling girl at a college in a small southern town had put up