The Golden Ledger : Vol.4

Chapter 301: Money Makes the Wheels Turn

“Once Rising Star is listed on the Exchange, can its shares really shoot up to sixty million dollars that fast?”

Clara looked at him curiously. The whole thing always felt a little unreal to her.

Sixty million dollars, and her family still held sixty percent of the shares.

Add in the value of all their other concerns, and even in Bay City they could just about be counted among the first rank of wealthy families.

“Who knows,”

Caleb said. “After all, someone’s given his word on it. And with what the Rising Star Theatrical Company took in last year, sixty million isn’t really stretching it.”

Clara finished straightening his clothes, and the two of them got ready to go to work together.

From now on, they’d often have to travel back and forth between Sterling City and Bay City.

He still drove that top-of-the-line Hooper state landau he’d bought for thirty-six thousand dollars.

His wife drove a sky-blue Kimball cabriolet drawn by a matched four-in-hand of powerful grays.

That rig wasn’t counted as expensive. On the road, it came to around ten thousand dollars.

But for looks, among the smart two-seat carriages, it truly had no rival.

Caleb had no idea why she’d taken a fancy to the Kimball cabriolet all over again.

Her last one had already been given to her sister, Winnie.

Of course, his wife hadn’t bought just the one carriage in Bay City.

There was also an open-top Hooper landau and a blue Kimball grand saloon carriage.

That one had cost around twelve thousand dollars. Kimball was certainly no lesser name than Hooper.

Ordinarily, they simply drove whichever one they felt like.

Their two headquarters buildings weren’t far apart, just a few minutes by carriage or about ten minutes on foot.

His wife was preparing the opening festivities for Cloudwater’s two flagship parlors here.

He, on the other hand, was busy with everything at once.

The key was to spend the money in hand in the most sensible way.

He was still putting money into the Sunburst Department Stores.

That project was his main money magnet.

Once he’d given Chauncey Shaw another four million dollars, they could open as many as eight great department stores in Bay City. Counting the ones in Sterling City, that would make sixteen.

Once they were all up and running, the yearly profits could be held at around two million dollars.

When those had opened, they could apply to have the department stores listed on the Exchange as a company of their own.

As for the buildings and property inside, those would all be stripped out, of course, and handed over to Sunrise Property Management, which would hold every last share.

After putting in that money, he’d still have three million dollars left over.

It was all enough to make a man’s head spin.

When Antler Coffee House had started running short of funds, he’d set aside another million dollars for it.

If he put up a million, then Tabitha Lane, on her side, naturally had to raise eight hundred thousand.

She’d already begun thinning out the shares to bring in some other people to share the load.

For someone like Caleb to put two million dollars into a single project in so short a time, the risk was too high, and so was the cost.

If it succeeded, though, the more you put in, the more you took out.

It was all in proportion.

Setting up in coffee truly cost a great deal more than selling sodas.

No wonder Tabitha had said early on that running coffee houses was at least ten times harder than running soda parlors.

Now he understood.

Antler Coffee hadn’t even begun to turn a profit. The houses the company ran itself hadn’t made a cent, so who would come and buy an agency at a time like this?

The pace of growth couldn’t stop. All they could do was keep pouring money in.

Luckily, he now had the means to do it.

With another two million dollars put in, Antler Coffee was expected to have around sixteen hundred houses by March of 1876.

Four million dollars invested in all.

Plenty of money was the heart of keeping his companies growing fast.

Without that much of it, neither the department stores nor Antler Coffee could ever have grown so quickly.

It could only be said that money was the engine that drove every kind of growth.

Without it, nothing at all could be done.

Chapter 302: Rain on the Umbrella

“In the crowd, you and I meet, come to know each other, and torment each other.”

The sky was in no mood to cooperate. It let loose a pounding downpour.

Caleb drew up every glass window of the big Hooper landau and set the little music box built into the coach to playing.

He was enjoying the fine mechanical music cabinet of a top-class luxury carriage, the kind that cost as much as a house.

The Hooper’s padded walls kept the noise out remarkably well.

Sitting inside in rain that heavy, he could scarcely hear a thing.

The streets were jammed. At this hour of the morning, plainly everyone was crowding along on their way to work.

He was no exception.

But even as he rode to work, he was thinking.

Even after setting aside four million dollars for the Sunburst Department Stores and another million for Antler Coffee…

He meant to take both names onto the Exchange in 1876.

Only a listing on the Exchange could set off the random multiplier of the good old Golden Ledger.

His affairs now seemed to have entered a virtuous circle.

It was a little like the days when the Pelican Telegraph Company and the Great Western Express Company ruled the wire trade.

Using the money from the random multipliers, he kept hatching new projects.

He even used the larger sums to push larger projects still.

Then he turned those projects into companies listed on the Exchange.

After that, he could take on greater projects yet.

In all of this, his job was to build good teams and a good way of doing business.

Only good teams could carry good projects.

It was late November.

No matter how he spent it, he still had more than two million dollars in hand.

And he hadn’t finished cashing out his Bobo’s shares yet.

He expected to draw out roughly another four hundred thousand dollars.

That would be next month.

There was one other very profitable project too: Cloudwater’s Splendid Night Gala.

He arrived at the Group’s building.

Caleb drove into his reserved stall.

If the Hooper were any longer, he’d probably need a coachman’s certificate to drive it.

Besides the thousand people transferred from Sterling City, the Bay City headquarters had taken on more than two thousand locals.

The whole twenty-two-story sky-scraper now held about three thousand employees.

That didn’t count the shop staff. It meant only the clerks and office workers at headquarters.

There were umbrellas kept inside the Hooper.

The old watchman came over himself to open his door and held a black umbrella over his head.

In rain that heavy, not a single drop touched Caleb, the president of the company.

Having money certainly earned a man the goodwill of everyone around him.

The ground-floor reception hall had taken on six college trainees, who mainly looked after receiving visitors and keeping appointments inside the building.

When Caleb walked in, they greeted him warmly.

“Good morning, Mr. President.”

He only nodded in reply. It wasn’t that he didn’t care to talk with them.

It was that he shouldn’t. The workplace was a little frontier town all its own.

And here he was something like the King of All the Gunslingers. Whenever he was even a little friendlier to someone, the others would take it that the person was about to rise straight to heaven.

Then a whole crowd would come swarming around them.

There were six steam elevators going up and down, and quite a few employees stood waiting in the hall.

When Caleb stepped into one, everyone else stayed outside to wait.

Out of courtesy, they wouldn’t come in with him.

Well, then. He went up alone.

Hugh Gordon and Chet Fuller were waiting for him upstairs.

Chet’s view was that since the Fat Lamb had been listed, it was time Hugh got serious about finding a wife and settling down.

And stopped running around with the dining-car girls off the railroad. It wasn’t funny anymore.

Caleb wasn’t really eager to meddle in such things. He always felt it wasn’t his place. But he’d promised earlier, so he couldn’t help it.

“Old Walker, why is it so hard to find a woman who isn’t greedy for money?”

“Well, they sure ain’t after you for a middle-aged fellow with a beer belly!”

Caleb gave Hugh’s stomach a slap. “You’re not young anymore. Why hang on to such fanciful ideas? Ten years younger, and you might’ve had a chance.”

“It’s mainly that girls that age are still mostly innocent. But once they’re past twenty-five, the first thing they ask is how much you make a month, and whether you’ve got a house and a carriage.”

Chet was sitting with them and thought Hugh was being far too fanciful too.

When it was time to play around with women, you did everything you could to let them know how rich you were.

Now that you wanted a wife, you didn’t want the money-hungry kind.

If he really had no money, then at his age, he’d only be able to look for divorced women.

Even for a second marriage with children in tow, they’d start by asking four hundred dollars for the bride price.

And as for being rich, age was no distance at all.

Even at sixty, a rich man was still a darling in the eyes of women.

“All right, all right, never mind about me,” said Hugh.

“I’m dead set on finding someone serious. The trouble is, the women I find are all too unreliable. The minute I let on a little about who I am, they can’t wait to jump into bed with me. If I married that kind of woman and one day ran out of money, wouldn’t she run off faster than a jackrabbit?”

Huh… Caleb could hear a mighty strong confidence in those words.

This fellow needed a dose of reality, or he was past saving.

“I know a woman who definitely wouldn’t be greedy for your money. Why don’t you try courting her?”

“Who?”

“Evangeline Frost.”

“Who?” Hugh dug at his ear. He knew his own limits perfectly well.

Caleb was plainly bringing up a goddess to knock him down a peg.

“Forget it. A woman of the Fairy Sister’s caliber, you might stand a chance courting her. She wouldn’t give me a second glance.”

Hugh asked him, “Old Walker, when are you going back to Sterling City?”

“Tomorrow. I won’t be here much longer. Things are about taken care of,” said Caleb.

“That four-hundred-thousand-dollar hotel for Cloudwater’s employees in Sterling City, the one we started last year, is nearly finished. I need to go look it over.”

“All right. Anyhow, you just keep getting richer and richer. I can’t even imagine what you do all day with that much money.”

Hugh grinned. “Tell the truth. Do you brush your teeth with champagne every morning?”

“Forget it.” Caleb went to make himself a cup of tea. “You can’t feel it yet. But if I told you that once you reach a certain level of wealth you start taking on responsibilities to society, you surely wouldn’t take me seriously.”

“That’s true.”

Hugh clearly didn’t feel anything of the kind, but he asked anyway, “I haven’t seen you give much to charity either, have I?”

Apart from his hometown, Caleb had never given a single cent to society at large.

Caleb looked at him seriously. “Charity. Do you know how many hands two hundred thousand dollars has to pass through before it reaches the people who truly need it?”

“I’ll tell you. Out of two hundred thousand, it’d be doing pretty well if even twenty thousand got used for what it was meant for.”

He paused, then went on, “Besides, all my employees, do they all drive fine carriages and live in mansions? No, they don’t.

“As a businessman, my first responsibility is to see that my own people live a good, happy life. If you can’t even do right by them and you go giving money away just to make a name for yourself, you’re putting the far ahead of the near. It’s pointless.”

“The company belongs to everyone. It’s not something I could raise up by myself. So every cent it earns has to go first toward making their lot better.”

“When they don’t have to worry about money anymore, then we can think about giving some away to earn a little name outside!”

Hugh felt his understanding went pretty deep. It certainly wasn’t something he could match.

No wonder Old Walker never gave to outside causes.

In his eyes, maybe his own fame counted for far less than truly making his employees happy.

That was also why he kept raising his employees’ wages.

Mind you, the Fat Lamb now had close to forty thousand employees.

Every eating house had no fewer than thirty.

Even a scrubwoman was paid fifteen dollars a month for an eight-hour shift.

One day off a week, with board and lodging provided and full membership in the company’s sick-benefit club besides.

Benefits like those were unmatched in the trade.

The good thing about paying well was that the employees truly gave themselves to their work.

You didn’t even have to push them. They solved problems more eagerly than anyone.

The employees cared more about your business than you, the boss, did, because they were afraid of what would happen if your house went under.

The reason was simple. Once your house collapsed, where would they find another place that gave them such benefits?

The advantages were plain, but the drawbacks were just as plain.

Business was so good that the tables kept turning over faster and faster.

Yet each house’s net profit hovered around three percent.

It never went any higher.

Mind you, an ordinary eating house’s gross margin was at least sixty percent and up.

That meant if a dish was priced at twelve cents, leaving aside labor, rent and other costs, the cost of the food alone would never come to more than thirty-five percent of the price.

With margins that high and business that good, the net profit was stuck at three percent.

Two thousand dollars in takings a month netted only sixty.

The main reason was that labor cost too much.

Far more than the average for the trade.

Before the listing, Tabitha Lane had come to talk about just that.

The money men had suggested cutting the Fat Lamb employees’ benefits in half.

Just by halving those benefits, each house could keep a net profit of over two hundred dollars a month.

That came to about twenty-four hundred a year, and they had more than a thousand houses they ran themselves.

The yearly profit could reach around two million dollars.

Under those conditions, the listing could have started from an estimated valuation of twenty-four million.

At least twice what it was now.

Caleb simply wouldn’t agree.

If he really did that, wouldn’t he be selling out the welfare of tens of thousands of employees for the benefit of one man?

Which mattered more, his making more money, or forty thousand employees being able to work at the Fat Lamb in peace and security?

Without a doubt, he chose the latter.

When you had more money than you could ever spend and still thought of nothing but making more, with no regard at all for your employees’ welfare, a boss like that would surely become a public enemy, even a target, in this land.

With that much money, could you really sleep at night?

Most likely it would end with him taking the money and running off abroad.

He certainly didn’t want that. He was a man who had risen up out of this land.

And having made his money here, in the end it had to go back to this land.

Hugh still found him hard to understand.

As for why the Bay City Exchange had turned its back on Bobo’s, apart from someone scheming behind the scenes, the more important reason was a report put out by a banking house, which compared the pay of Bobo’s employees with that of other names in the same trade.

It was more than double.

To put it this way, other outfits paid a soda-parlor girl six or eight dollars a month at most.

And that was for a ten-hour day.

At Bobo’s, it started at thirteen dollars, for the same eight-hour day.

And at the end of the year they could get about three months’ wages as a bonus.

Benefits like those, in the end, were bound to come back and squeeze the brand’s room to survive.

What it meant was that the company wasn’t working for capital.

It was serving its employees.

A company that served its employees was turning its back on capital, and naturally, capital would turn its back on it too.

Every one of Caleb’s companies set wages far above the norm for its trade.

Even though the money market didn’t favor it, he hadn’t touched that.

All he could do was keep studying and improving his names and serving the market.

If a brand couldn’t even keep up basic benefits for its employees, he didn’t think it was worth keeping going.

A great many people came to him asking for donations, from every sort of society and association.

He turned down every last one.

With that money, wouldn’t it be better to build a charity hotel for his employees in Bay City?

And that was what he did.

Caleb put six hundred thousand dollars into building a hotel in Bay City devoted to his employees’ welfare.

Staying here cost far too much. Employees’ parents came from far away, only to leave feeling small because a night’s lodging cost the better part of a dollar.

He simply wanted to change that. He couldn’t serve the whole public, but surely he could at least serve his own people?

Caleb had Blanche Whitney post an official notice on the Group’s staff bulletin boards.

He felt that at his level, true luxury shouldn’t be for himself or his family alone.

It should be aimed at his tens of thousands of employees in the Bay City region.

Only that way would it truly be accepted by the company, the employees and society.

The six-hundred-thousand-dollar charity hotel would also need at least forty thousand a year for its upkeep.

That was what luxury truly meant.

Chapter 303: A Hotel for the Home Folks

Caleb went back to Sterling City.

He and his wife Clara attended the completion ceremony for Cloudwater’s charity hotel, built for the company’s own people.

A four-hundred-thousand-dollar hotel for employees’ welfare was something no one in the country had ever done before.

On the day of the ceremony, not only did a great many of the Group’s senior men come, but a good number of the district’s officials came to take part in the hotel’s opening as well.

It had taken more than a year, and at last it was finished.

Caleb shook hands with the Stonewell District officials one by one before they began posing for the commemorative photographs.

Whatever else could be said, the Rising Star Group had got its start in Stonewell.

Now they had also put money into the Cloudwater Academy, the charity hotel and other training and welfare facilities for employees here.

It was always some help to Stonewell.

The hotel had three floors, with eighty-nine ordinary rooms.

It also had a dining room, a gymnasium and all sorts of rooms for amusements, properly furnished.

It meant that visiting employees and their families could stay contentedly while enjoying the plain food, drink and entertainment provided inside.

Right after the ceremony here, the Bay City side announced an investment of six hundred thousand dollars to build a hotel for its own employees in Bay City.

Six hundred thousand was plainly more than Sterling City’s, and the building would undoubtedly be larger.

Since it was a charity project, the price of the land wouldn’t be too high, and it wouldn’t be in the heart of the city.

It stood out in the more remote Goldhill district, where six hundred thousand dollars would build something nearly the equal of a true grand hotel.

The Rising Star Group looked after its employees’ welfare well beyond the office door. It didn’t only provide full doctoring for parents and close family.

It also spent heavily on lodging and meals.

As everyone knew, the Rising Star Group’s main businesses were concentrated in the four great cities.

Anyone who’d been to such cities knew you could get by cheaply on food and drink once you arrived.

But if you wanted somewhere to sleep, it started at over forty cents a night.

Ordinary country parents wouldn’t dare to come. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to spend that kind of money.

So they could only wait for the midwinter holidays, when their children living far off in the cities came home for a few days.

The parents didn’t travel far. Earning money was hard, and yet the children had no choice but to leave home.

This investment by Rising Star was hailed in the papers’ letter columns as the most meaningful protection of employees’ welfare there was.

Because it truly let parents now and then come to the big city and see their children.

And mind you, once the hotel was built, everything in it, food, drink and amusements included, was free of charge.

It was all paid for by the Group or by him personally.

The yearly expense would come to no less than twenty thousand dollars.

Beyond the hotels, he cared even more about schooling.

Lodging, doctoring and schooling.

Those were the three great unavoidable expenses of life.

Caleb still had a million and six or seven hundred thousand dollars in hand, and if you counted the shop employees, his people in Sterling City already numbered over ten thousand.

He’d often heard his grandfather talk about the old days.

Back then, a big government-chartered works was like a little town all its own.

It wasn’t only about making money. It had infant schools, nurseries, a works infirmary and all sorts of other welfare facilities.

With lodging taken care of, the next thing to think about was schooling.

That same day, Caleb also announced an investment of a million dollars to build the Group’s own charity school in Stonewell.

From infant school through primary school to grammar school.

The whole course, all of it covered.

Young working parents who couldn’t spare the time to look after their children could send them to the Group’s own school.

They’d hire the best teachers and serve the best meals, to see that their employees’ children were properly cared for within the Group.

While the parents worked with their minds at ease, their children would get the care that suited them best.

The truth was, once a man reached his level of wealth, he needed to think about giving something back to society.

It was like putting on a golden suit of armor, the kind the old saints wore in church paintings.

The thicker the gold, the safer his personal fortune and property would be.

In other words, it would protect his family and property from the envy of people with bad intentions.

That was why he chose charity within his own house.

He used what he’d built to help the nearly one hundred thousand employees of his own companies get the rewards they deserved.

And the benefits.

Putting four hundred thousand dollars into a charity hotel in Sterling City and a million into a private school for the Group: the two were one and the same.

Naturally, charity schools for his own people would be built in Bay City too.

For now, he couldn’t afford to spend twenty million dollars and more on charity all at once. First, he didn’t have enough money.

His fortune hadn’t reached that level yet.

Second, doing it would draw a bit too much attention.

First he’d finish the basic welfare in Sterling City.

After holding Cloudwater’s Splendid Night Gala, he’d think about what to invest in Bay City.

But no sooner had he made this string of announcements than Sterling City was the first to be thrown into an uproar.

“The autumn hiring at the colleges is over. When the spring hiring comes round next March or April, Rising Star will come to our college, won’t it?”

“I don’t know. Same question here.”

“They ought to. I hear the Rising Star Group’s growing awful fast. They’ll likely need a whole crowd more people.”

“I’m so sad. Last time I made it to the second round and then got cut.”

“By next March or April, even if Rising Star doesn’t advertise a thing, I’d guess at least a hundred thousand people will send them letters of application.”

“Blast it, just thinking about that number makes me feel hopeless.”

“I’ll just say it quietly: don’t set your heart only on Rising Star. The other great corporations of the world are good too.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Rising Star isn’t the best. Try your luck with the great corporations of the world as much as you can.”

Everyone underneath chimed in to agree.

Such an obvious trick of reverse persuasion, and who knew how many people it might fool.

Next year, if Rising Star still hired only around fifteen hundred,

Chapter 304: Share and Share Alike

then it would be like whittling a hundred letters of application down until only your own was left.

Only then could you get into Rising Star without a hitch.

Was that even possible?

One chosen out of a hundred. That was nearly as hard as winning a government clerkship, wasn’t it?

And a government clerkship only paid what it paid, after all.

The Group had everything taken care of, and the wages were unbelievably high. What more could anyone want!

No wonder the whole college was going to Rising Star’s personnel office for clever tips.

Whatever happened, they had to give it a try.

* * *

First he’d put six hundred thousand dollars into a charity hotel in Bay City, and then he’d laid out a million in Sterling City to build a private school for his own people.

Caleb felt a thin layer of gold shining over him, though of course it was only a feeling.

With that golden glow about him, he felt a good deal safer.

Whenever someone came to him asking for donations, he could simply say it had all gone into building the school for his own people.

At the end of November, there really were a great many things to keep him busy.

Blanche Whitney brought out a financial statement. It was the year-end bonus the Group paid its employees at this time every year.

The particular sums and figures needed his signature as the big boss.

Only then would they be added to the employees’ wages in January.

The Group was plainly growing faster now. Not only had Bobo’s been listed on the Exchange, the Fat Lamb had completed its listing too.

And he’d already thrown four million dollars into the newly founded Antler Coffee.

Not to mention the Sunburst Department Stores. Every time they went into a new city, it took millions of dollars straight off.

Without anyone quite noticing, his little secretary could now walk out anywhere and catch everyone’s eye.

At meetings she could take the best seat and look very grand indeed.

Blanche said, “Uncle, counting Bobo’s, the year-end bonus set for the Fat Lamb’s shop employees is three months’ wages.”

“This here is the year-end bonus report worked out by Group headquarters. The particular sums are awarded according to each employee’s rank.”

Caleb took it, looked it over and said,

“Leave the shops’ alone, but we have to change headquarters’. Look at Chauncey Shaw. His salary’s already over twenty thousand dollars. Giving him another two thousand and some as a bonus doesn’t really make much difference.”

“Besides, the higher the rank, the higher the pay. If we set it simply by rank, what the ordinary employees get is actually very little, not even worth their while.”

“The point of a year-end bonus oughtn’t to be widening the gap in income even further. It ought to let the people inside the company feel the Group’s good will.”

“Take this report back and figure the year-end bonuses equally for everyone.”

Giving two hundred dollars to a senior man meant nothing.

But for an ordinary employee, it could make his life better right away.

At the very least, he could have a good, happy new year.

Figured equally, it became quite simple.

Leaving out the shop employees, who got three extra months, and counting headquarters and the Bay City branch, the total number of employees was about six thousand five hundred.

And this year the total year-end bonus set for headquarters employees was around eight hundred thousand dollars.

Split equally, very nearly everyone would get a hundred dollars.

The senior men wouldn’t think much of it, but the ordinary employees and new hands would be absolutely thrilled.

Less than half an hour later, Blanche came back.

But this time she brought a problem with her.

“Uncle, there are fifteen hundred trainees newly taken on in Sterling City who’ve only just joined the Group, and the same number in Bay City. These people shouldn’t share in the year-end bonus, should they?”

By the rules, the year-end bonus was for those who had worked a full year.

If they left out the new trainees and the other new hands who hadn’t completed a year, then out of the eight hundred thousand dollars, the longer-serving people would each get at least four hundred.

That would certainly be a huge sum.

The figure of eight hundred thousand had been set by Caleb.

Not to mention that the Group was already very profitable.

The money didn’t come only from him. It was drawn from the profits of all the different concerns.

The Sunburst Department Stores, for instance, contributed two hundred thousand dollars to the bonus without feeling the slightest strain.

The Rising Star Theatrical Company was the same.

It only meant that he, the biggest shareholder, earned a little less and let his employees have a little more.

Taking four hundred thousand less himself, and letting thousands of employees have a happy new year.

Why not?

After thinking it over, Caleb still said,

“Let them share in it too. It’s not easy being new. We ought to give them a little more encouragement.”

Dividing the year-end bonus equally.

That was a first for him as a business owner too.

The senior men certainly wouldn’t mind, since most of them could enjoy the company’s dividends.

A hundred dollars or so in their hands didn’t mean all that much.

But handed out to people who’d only just joined the Group, especially those fresh out of college, who hardly had a cent to their names, it was definitely enough to set up the boss’s picture at home and worship it.

And if anyone dared write to the papers grumbling about their boss, they’d charge straight into an endless war of letters, arguing until the other fellow started doubting his own existence.

* * *

The last day of November.

The Rising Star Group published its year-end bonus report for 1875 in the Sterling Gazette and on its own notice boards.

And it announced that on January 18, 1876, it would hold the Group’s first annual gathering in Sterling City.

The employees of the Bay City branch would all come to attend as well.

The Group would pay back all their lodging and railroad fares.

It was the first official gathering of the whole Group in the three years since it had been founded.

About seven thousand people were expected to attend.

The Group also officially opened entries for performances at the gathering, inviting employees from every department to sign up and take part.

Whenever the president’s office put out a notice, the employees of the subsidiary companies could find it right away.

Chapter 305: Bonus for the Greenhorns

A bell rang in the corridor as the notice went up.

Still in their training period, Wanda Zell and Lucy Quincy began to pick apart every word of the announcement from the president’s office.

The year-end bonus was easy enough to understand.

It was a benefit the company gave its employees at the end of the year.

At present, the Group’s headquarters had about six thousand five hundred employees, counting the branch in Bay City.

The year-end bonus came to a full eight hundred thousand dollars.

And the Group ran about six thousand shops of its own.

That included the Fat Lamb, which had already been listed successfully,

Bobo’s, which had finished its listing, and Rising Sun Fresh Market, Rising Sun Fruit, the Sunburst Department Stores, Antler Coffee and the rest.

The year-end bonuses to be paid out by the shops came to more than two million dollars altogether.

That had already been set aside ahead of time out of the shops’ operating profits, so it wouldn’t be any burden on the Group’s finances.

There was a reason the profits of places like the Fat Lamb always hovered around three percent.

All told, the Group was handing out about four million dollars in bonuses this time.

It was fair to call it staggering.

Wanda and the others weren’t too concerned about that. What they cared about was the next sentence.

They cared about it very much.

This year’s year-end bonus would be distributed to the Group’s new employees and trainees as well.

Wanda rubbed her eyes in disbelief, then took out her pencil and wrote a note on the board in the trainees’ common room:

“Has everyone seen the year-end bonus notice?”

“What about you?”

“I have. What do you make of it?”

“Are you saying trainees get a year-end bonus too?”

“That can’t be right, can it? We haven’t been taken on permanently yet, and we haven’t been with the Group a year. Could the president’s office have added an extra line by mistake?”

It wasn’t that she meant to doubt it. She just couldn’t believe it.

It made no sense.

“Are you silly? What do you think the Rising Star Group is, and what do you think the president’s office is?”

“Notices from the president’s office always carry the highest orders from the big boss himself, and the auditors check them before they go out. Who would dare make a joke of the big boss’s orders?”

“The thing is, I’ve never heard of trainees getting a year-end bonus. Have you?”

“Sisters, good news! A trainee from our college got sent over to the sixteenth floor of the Rising Star Theatrical Company. She happened to run into Secretary Whitney in the staff coffee room, there on business, and Secretary Whitney said the trainees’ bonus was entirely the big boss’s own decision.”

“You all know the big boss of our Group is the one and only god. Whatever he says goes.”

“???”

“???”

A whole row of big question marks at the bottom.

Wanda and Lucy had been lucky enough to be sent to train at the Sunburst Department Stores.

They were mainly responsible for recording and keeping track of goods coming in and going out, as well as entering and correcting the detailed purchase orders, price lists and other papers for all kinds of merchandise.

“Is that even possible?”

“Our wages are high enough already. Getting another hundred-dollar bonus on top, I’m afraid my old roommates at college will turn green with envy! (a little drawing of a silly grinning face)”

“The big boss really is a god forever (a little drawing of a face laughing its head off)”

“The one and only idol of us trainees.”

“Speaking of which, the big boss has made some mighty big moves this past month. First six hundred thousand in Bay City for a hotel for employees, and then right away a million in Sterling City for a private school for employees. I can’t help feeling it’s not only about improving our welfare.”

“What do you know about it? At the big boss’s level, there are far too many people after him for donations. Besides, it’s the end of the year, when every office is taking stock. This is the big boss’s way of getting on good terms with the government.”

“Forget it, let’s not talk about it. We don’t even make twenty dollars a month. Us discussing the big boss’s doings is a bit comical.”

“Right. The big boss must have his reasons for what he does. Just tell me whether you’re looking forward to it, all right?”

“Of course I am. My parents are coming to Sterling City in a few days to see a doctor. I already put in to have them stay at the hotel at Cloudwater, and it was approved right away.”

“As long as there are rooms free, the requests get approved on the spot.”

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely. But please don’t try it for fun. If you reserve a room and then nobody stays, you’ll keep some other employee’s family from getting one.”

Well, then… After passing notes on the board for a while, Wanda was finally sure that trainees would get the benefit too.

She looked up her parents’ address and went straight to the telegraph office to wire them.

News that good had to be shared with her parents, of course!

It was also to let them know how lucky she’d been to find work at a truly remarkable great concern.

There was still a month and a half before the year-end bonus would be paid.

Most of the employees were already looking forward to that day.

* * *

November, 1875.

Several important things had happened.

Caleb’s summing-up of that month’s work came down to one word: luck.

The month had begun with Bobo’s, already listed, successfully crossing over into a partnership with ice cream.

That had made it something one of a kind in the soda trade, leading the field by a long way. Then the Fat Lamb completed the crucial step of its listing on the Exchange.

The Fat Lamb was the first eating-house name he’d ever backed, and it had taken three years to reach this dazzling step.

That was quite something.

The third and most crucial step was formally settling the goal of growing together as one body.

With the Rising Star Theatrical Company as the heart that drew the crowds, it would throw its full weight behind its concerns and their names and projects, and they would all go forward together.

The plan he’d laid out at the start had turned out to be a great success.

Of course.

Along the way, others had imitated it again and again, starting with Walter Yancey, who’d copied the Fat Lamb by launching his own Gathering House stew houses.

It too had begun with drawing crowds and pouring in huge sums of money.

The pity was, because its prices were too high, after pulling in a first wave of customers it had been driven out by the market.

Later, the big star Bonnie Yale had copied Bobo’s in Bay City in exactly the same way.

A star’s following could certainly drive a company’s early growth, but to beat the market over the long haul, what mattered most was the customers’ good word.

Neither of them had won the customers over in the end.

From imitation to failure had taken less than a year.

After getting the money from the Fat Lamb’s listing,

Caleb had indeed put a million and a half dollars or so into hotels and schools for his employees, but most of the money still went to pushing the Sunburst Department Stores and Antler Coffee out across Bay City.

As the Group grew bigger, he never believed it was his own ability that had earned him everything.

Quite the opposite.

He felt it was the growth of the age that had given him everything.

Everyone ought to stand in awe of the age and keep a constant watch on himself.

Never let pride and arrogance feed a blind confidence in himself, and never turn a deaf ear to the opinions of the people below.

Of course.

Last month, he’d done something that surprised everyone.

A young man with a doctorate from Yale had joined the Group, and in less than a month he’d written a ten-thousand-word critique of the Group’s plans for its future.

He’d also leveled harsh criticism at Caleb himself on a great many points.

To that doctor, the Rising Star Group was nothing but a loose heap of parts.

If they didn’t follow his plan, the Group would only go on rotting.

After receiving this long critique, Caleb’s answer was to fire him.

The fellow was a lunatic.

The Group was surprised, all right, but Caleb had Blanche put up a special notice on the Group’s official boards to explain.

It made everything perfectly clear to everyone.

In short, Rising Star welcomed any reasonable suggestion from any of its employees.

But it would never put up with a habit of empty talk and battle plans drawn on paper.

Take a shop, for example, that hired a waiter one day.

He hadn’t even learned the job of waiting tables yet, but he spent his days thinking about what the boss ought to be thinking about, even presuming to criticize the boss’s work without really understanding it, just to show how he stood out from the crowd.

A fellow like that could only be said to think far too much of himself.

The Group had set clear rules for employees’ suggestions: take them up one level.

Departments that worked together could offer suggestions, but, more important, everyone should mind his own job and offer improvements that had to do with his own post.

As the Group grew so fast, it was bound to take on some graduates of the top colleges.

But if those people would first work hard at their own posts, and stay with the Group a year or two and see it grow, then they’d be welcome to propose which way it ought to go.

Those who hadn’t even done well at their own jobs yet and came offering the Group seven great strategies and eight best methods were doing nothing but loafing on the payroll.

After this notice, the new trainees at the Group finally understood what kind of employee their big boss liked.

In the end, being practical was the key.

Only by being practical could anyone truly get solid results.

Chapter 306: The Suitor Shown the Door

The December sun was warm, but the air was cold.

For once Caleb was at home, and he played with the children.

Joy was a year and a half old, and she even had a tiny tuft of hair on top of her head, tied up like a little calf’s horn with a bit of ribbon.

Tying up that thin little head of hair had been quite a struggle.

Little Chubby had grown round and plump, not much like her sister at the same age.

When Annie was small, she hadn’t been nearly that chubby.

She’d made herself plumper later on, but Joy was different.

Her chubby little face was especially adorable.

“Dada.”

“Come here, let Daddy hold you.”

Caleb picked her up, and Little Chubby giggled with delight.

Before long, Annie came home too, her school satchel on her back.

After December came the New Year, and after the New Year came the Midwinter Festival.

What she looked forward to most was the long midwinter holiday, because she got a whole month off school.

“Pa, you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, huh?”

“Time on my hands? Can’t your pa take a rest?”

Annie sat down beside her father and even pulled an apple-flavored stick of candy out of her pocket, her little sister’s favorite.

Once it was tucked in her mouth, Joy would play quietly for half an hour.

She was really easy to look after.

“Pa, how are we going to spend the holidays this year?”

“Going home, of course. Where else do you want to go play?”

Annie tilted her head and thought, couldn’t come up with anything just then, and said with a giggle that she’d tell him once she did.

Caleb couldn’t be bothered with her.

In truth, whether they went back to the village this year seemed to be up to them, mainly because all the relatives had already come to visit in October, for his sister’s wedding.

Grandpa and Grandma had stayed and enjoyed themselves here for half a month.

As for Grandma Martha, it seemed she’d taken her Konigsberg racing phaeton out to do the marketing.

She probably wanted to go back.

They’d see when the time came.

If they didn’t go back, they’d simply bring all the family’s relatives to Sterling City for the holidays.

His younger sister Katie came over with gifts in hand. She’d been very happy lately, because of a happy event in her own family.

Harry Linwood had been moved from that little-known school in Sterling City to the city’s School Board.

It was only a start, as a junior clerk in the office for the primary schools, but a leap from a primary school straight to a body like the School Board counted as a promotion by any measure.

Katie was very happy, and now and then she’d bring something over when she came to visit him.

Having a family of her own really did make a difference. She’d settled down.

“Brother, do you think Harry can get ahead in a place like the School Board, the way he is?”

“It’ll be hard.”

Caleb told her the truth. “In a place like that, everyone’s sharp as a tack. Your Harry works hard and can take hardship, but he’s a bit too straightforward. He needs more seasoning.”

He didn’t want to talk about it any further.

In a great many jobs, it all came down to seniority or having the right connections.

Without either one, as the men in charge would say, young people shouldn’t be afraid of hardship and should spend more time sharpening their skills down at the bottom.

That was what they said to you at thirty.

At forty, they said you needed patience.

At fifty, you were the one asking the men in charge whether there was still a chance for you.

That was probably how it went.

Caleb didn’t know whether Harry could get ahead. Working at the School Board might not pay any better than teaching, but it certainly carried more standing.

His sister Katie was in no want of money, so the wages didn’t matter to her.

Grandma Martha came back too, with a hen she’d bought outside. The market sellers had told her it was a genuine barnyard chicken from the country.

She’d decided to buy it mainly to make soup for her two little granddaughters.

After half a year of growing, the vegetables up on the courtyard terrace were ready to eat.

The vegetables from the courtyard mansion tasted no different.

The taste was about the same as anywhere else. They didn’t get any better for being grown on prime ground.

Now that Katie was expecting, Grandma often stewed hen soup for her.

It wasn’t even five o’clock yet.

His wife, Clara, surprisingly, came home early too, in her red Ferrara Royal.

Her mother, Margaret, never said it openly, but in fact she’d always been urging Winnie to marry soon.

“Husband, my sister’s bringing her beau over in a little while.”

“The actor?”

Caleb felt that compared with his sister Katie’s choice, Harry, his sister-in-law Winnie’s choice of partner was plainly a lot less reliable.

Harry might not be rich, but his good points were his honesty and uprightness and the true devotion he showed his parents.

But Winnie’s beau, well, let’s just say that was a more complicated story.

He was courting her because her brother-in-law was the boss of the Rising Star Group.

Clara knew that.

But she knew even better that, with her family’s standing, it was impossible for her sister’s love life to be free of money matters.

Most of the men who courted her would have had an eye on her family from the very start.

Winnie’s beau was only a third-bill player, signed to a small company.

He’d played the second male lead in a play she’d put money into.

The only thing about the man that didn’t sit badly with Clara was that he was quite manly, not like the prettified, powdered boys so popular in the trade just now.

Without anyone quite noticing, Winnie had reached twenty-six. It was about time for her to think about settling down.

Clara had come home early this time just to look him over along with her.

Winnie was very nervous. It was the first time she’d ever brought a beau to meet her brother-in-law.

Thinking about the stir the Rising Star Group had made lately, she grew more nervous still.

In a single month, her brother-in-law had given one million six hundred thousand dollars to set up welfare projects for his employees.

In the theater world, he was the first ever to do such a thing.

On top of that, he’d handed out some four million dollars in year-end bonuses across the Group.

That was even more unheard of.

There was no other boss in the theater world who could afford to give so much to charity.

It showed just how high her brother-in-law stood in the theater world.

“Are you two planning to marry now?”

Winnie nodded.

Caleb looked at her beau and said, “So what’s the story with you? You threw over the old sweetheart who kept you and brought you up?”

The theater world wasn’t a place where you could rise on acting skill and real talent alone.

To go from a poor country boy to a third-bill player didn’t happen without someone behind you.

That someone was an actress in her forties who’d taken a fancy to him.

Her standing in the trade wasn’t all that high, but she’d been in it a long time and had plenty of seniority.

She’d begged countless people to raise him up from an unknown nobody to the third bill.

He’d even got to play the second male lead in a play starring his sister-in-law.

“Big brother, I truly love Winnie.” Sam Haskell was startled. He hadn’t expected to be asked such a question the moment he arrived.

His legs were a little shaky, mainly because the man in front of him wasn’t someone he could easily fool.

“Isn’t that the very same thing you told your last old sweetheart?”

Caleb sipped his tea coolly, making it plain he had no liking for a man who’d lived off a woman.

Because once he’d got to know Winnie, the fellow had cut off the old sweetheart who’d helped him rise, clean and thorough.

The only reason Caleb didn’t throw him out straight away was that eight out of ten men in the theater world were just like him.

There was nothing new under the sun.

That said, if his sister-in-law still wanted to go on with him, he wasn’t going to bother anymore.

You couldn’t say his family’s judgment of people was poor. At least Katie had chosen Harry, and she seemed quite happy with her little life.

As for this fellow, he plainly had a flaw in his character.

“Big brother, I’ve explained all this to Winnie, and she’s forgiven me,” Sam hurried to explain.

Caleb replied, “She may have forgiven you, but does that mean you get to walk through the Sutton family’s door?”

“Don’t try your little schemes in front of us. That’s not called sincerity. It’s called stupidity.”

“You know perfectly well that with the Rising Star Group’s standing in the theater world, we could lay bare every one of your little games in less than three minutes. So you’d better come clean yourself.”

“You threw over the actress who’d backed you with her whole heart, and you gave her all your savings from these years so you’d get a name for being sincere, kind-hearted and true to your humble roots.”

“Who gave you the nerve to play such foolish tricks in front of us?”

Winnie’s face went deathly pale. She’d never imagined that her beau, who’d seemed so sincere, had been calculating from the very start.

The honesty he’d shown her had been only what he wanted her to see.

Clara was furious too. She’d never approved of her sister courting anyone from the theater world.

Now that this had happened, she was even less likely to let the thing go on.

“Get out. You should never have set your sights on my wife’s only sister.”

Caleb took a pencil and a blank telegraph form from the side table and wrote a message right in front of them. “Don’t you know that if this fails, all you can do is go back to the country and start farming again?”

He laid the form on the table.

Caleb had written just three words to Blanche: Ban Sam Haskell.

Years of effort gone in an instant over one crooked desire, vanishing like smoke into thin air.

A third-bill actor in the theater world wasn’t all that prominent to begin with.

Still, earning a few thousand dollars a year was easy enough.

He’d at least have counted as a success in life, someone the folks back home could look up to.

Instead, all he’d been able to think about was squeezing his way into a wealthy family.

Just like those fired-up young men of business, his nights were filled with dreams of success, of rising above everyone else and slapping the faces of all who’d ever looked down on him.

He’d underestimated the price of getting into a wealthy family.

Sending him back to the country was something Caleb, as he was now, could do with ease.

“Big brother, I…” Sam still wanted to explain.

But Zach Ames, who’d just come in the door, dragged him straight out.

He was tossed outside like a clown thrown out of the ring.

As for Winnie, the stern-faced Clara had already pulled her into the other room for a good talking-to.

If she dared go running after that man, Clara’s standing as her older sister would be nothing but a joke.

A man who betrayed once might betray again and again.

Their family could accept someone with no money or standing coming into their home, but they would never accept someone with a serious flaw in his character.

Least of all someone whose intentions no one could fathom, stepping through the Walker family’s door.

Chapter 307: An Allowance Spent in a Day

Winnie was called into her sister Clara’s room.

She’d cried her eyes out, and though the scolding had died down and her eyes were swollen and red,

Margaret went on to scold her all over again.

In the old days, a woman’s marriage was like being born a second time.

Whether it turned out well or not decided the whole quality of her life afterward.

How could they not seize the chance to give Winnie a good scolding?

A man who’d stab you in the back was worse even than a skirt-chaser.

Nine men out of ten had a roving eye, and the tenth simply couldn’t get his hands on a real beauty.

Caleb went and sat on the front steps again, and the Little Terror, Annie, came to join him.

“Pa, I really understand you.”

“What do you understand?”

“How lonesome it feels to have so much money you can’t spend it all. I kind of get it.”

Annie was pretending to be grown-up again, but Caleb didn’t buy it.

The little rascal had just got her monthly allowance of four hundred dollars and spent every cent of it on a new little violin.

It had cost exactly four hundred dollars.

After her splurge that day, she was doomed to pinch pennies for the rest of the month.

Pretending she couldn’t spend all her money, she was plainly angling for more.

Caleb certainly couldn’t agree to that. He didn’t expect her to take up the fine habit of saving.

But at least she ought to spend with a plan, not the way she did now, going through a whole month’s allowance in a single day.

For the rest of the month she’d have to make do with nothing but her three meals a day.

“It’s true, I’ve got money to spare.”

Caleb said wistfully, “There’s only eight or nine hundred thousand dollars left in the account, and next month I have to pay the deposit on the great ocean steam yacht. You think it’s easy being your pa?”

“Pa, are you really buying a great ocean yacht?”

Annie was thrilled. She’d only mentioned it offhand last time and never expected it could really come true!

“Bought it. It’ll take at least three years to be delivered. What’s there to get excited about now?”

“Oh, oh, oh.”

Even so, Annie was still very happy.

She asked about her aunt Winnie, and Caleb told her the truth. She wasn’t much surprised.

At her fine private academy she had plenty of classmates who fawned over her, never mind her aunt, who moved right in the circle her father looked after.

There was nothing so outrageous that something more outrageous wasn’t waiting.

When supper was ready, the family still had to come out and eat.

Winnie was on her best behavior now. After her brother-in-law had run the fellow off like that, she wouldn’t dare go chasing after anyone.

She was as meek as a kitten, quietly licking her wounds.

Clara was troubled too. Her sister was even harder to manage than Katie had been.

Their family certainly didn’t want her marrying into the theater world, and outside it there didn’t seem to be any suitable match.

She’d have to introduce her to some reliable people.

That night, Clara tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep.

Caleb patted her on the backside. “What are you doing? You’ve let all the warmth out from under the covers.”

“It’s only because I’m worried about Winnie.”

“What’s there to worry about? These days, what girl hasn’t had a beau or two?”

“She’s not your sister, so you don’t care, is that it?”

“How could I not care? Let’s sleep, let’s sleep. I’m telling you, that Annie spent her whole month’s allowance on the very first day, and today she even tried hinting around to get more out of me. You can’t give in to her!”

“I know, I know. You don’t need to remind me. But she did spend it all on a little violin she loves. Shouldn’t we think about giving her a little more?”

“You must be joking. If she can go through a month’s allowance in a day now, one day she’ll be able to go through a year’s worth in a day. She absolutely cannot get into a bad habit like that.”

Caleb felt that more and more people were living from one payday to the next, mainly because they had no notion of money.

They always thought there’d be more coming once it ran out.

Little did they know that when the time came that they truly needed it, they’d understand what money was worth.

Annie’s case was different. Once she came of age, she’d inherit the rents from Sunrise Property Management.

Millions of dollars in rent every year, going into her hands alone. If she kept spending money with no plan, no amount would ever be enough.

With his talk to distract her, Clara stopped thinking about her sister’s troubles.

When you had no money, you wanted to earn it. But once you had it, you found out life still held plenty of disappointments.

Like her own sister bringing home that beau.

That month they also had to get ready for Cloudwater’s Splendid Night Gala, and Clara was really quite busy.

This year’s Splendid Night was sure to be much grander than last year’s.

The whole gala would be held as a grand, lavish evening reception.

Clara asked him, “Which star did you actually invite?”

It was about time to announce the program of stars.

Caleb simply said: Marsh.

Lorenzo Marsh, awarded the medal of the London Music Society as the finest male singer of 1871, a true star famous the whole world over.

With a star that great, inviting one or two was enough.

To get him to come, Caleb had spent a whopping hundred and twenty thousand dollars, more than the Four Great Balladeers put together.

The man was famous the world over.

Besides him, there was also Tessa Swan, the world-famous songbird.

For the same fee of a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, it had taken a full half year to secure her.

With these two on the bill, the other stars at home were only small fry.

It wasn’t meant to belittle the popular singers of the home theater world, but compared with the very greatest performers in the world, the gap was a wide one.

Clara was surprised, but then she calmed down.

With both of them appearing at the same gala, it would be unheard of in the country’s beauty trade, never mind the sensation it would make in the papers.

The next day,

Clara told Margaret not to give the Little Terror any more money.

She could just take some snacks along to school every day. Annie huffed. She wasn’t without ways of making money.

With her little violin and her big eighteen-carat gold begging bowl, she had plenty of valuable things.

But the family had a clear rule: nothing bought for you could be pawned off on the sly.

And she listened to her mother.

Old Grandma Martha drove her to school in the Konigsberg racing phaeton she used for her marketing.

Chapter 308: Lights Over the Embarcadero

Keeping a Konigsberg racing phaeton worth over sixty thousand dollars at the house was rather a waste.

It got used every day for running errands like buying groceries.

As for Caleb, he went to work at the Rising Star headquarters.

This month, his wife had set aside two million dollars for Bay City, just to open thirty to thirty-five luxurious Cloudwater parlors.

Cloudwater’s Bay City company had already been founded. It just didn’t have many employees yet.

Once the two million had been spent, there ought to be about a thousand.

Most of the money on his wife’s side went into Cloudwater.

Oddly enough, ever since they’d sold off all those houses in Sterling City, prices there had kept on soaring.

Following his lead, not only had all his friends stopped speculating in town lots, even the Lathams and the Suttons in Sterling City had stopped playing the property market.

Instead, they’d sold off all the houses they had lying about.

Some had put the money into shares on the Exchange, while others had somehow been swindled out of a bit.

Anyway, there were all sorts of stories.

He didn’t even bother to ask.

When he arrived at the Group’s building, Frankie was standing at the entrance, full of spirit, on duty as a guard.

A little guard drawing twenty-four dollars a month.

His mind would forever be that of a ten-year-old. He simply couldn’t manage anything complicated.

So all he could do here was work as a guard.

Luckily, it wasn’t tiring work. As for his wife, who was perfectly ordinary, she helped out in the company’s staff dining room.

The couple had both been given work here.

When he saw the Hooper coming, Frankie would still shout from far off, just as he had as a boy standing at their grandpa’s house, calling out “Big brother!” when he saw his elder cousin coming home.

Now, at twenty-five or twenty-six, he still did the same.

But after he’d started working here, his wife had reminded him again and again not to shout “Big brother” at the company’s front door, for fear it would make a bad impression.

His wife was a pretty good sort.

Frankie gave her a steady home, and she always looked after him with her mind at peace.

When the two of them came to Sterling City, Caleb had given them a small but decent apartment.

It wasn’t far from the Group’s headquarters, only about a fifteen-minute walk.

Frankie could never get a driving certificate, but his wife could.

Last month, once she’d got hers, he’d bought her a Brewster mountain wagon.

Living in Sterling City, the couple had a pretty decent life.

After Caleb had drawn up the carriage, Frankie even ran over and saluted him with a proper army salute he’d just learned.

Caleb straightened his cousin’s guard’s uniform. Frankie’s trouble came mainly from his grandparents’ marriage, for they had been close cousins.

Ordinarily, if nothing went wrong with the children of such a close marriage for three generations, there was nothing to worry about.

But it was in the third generation, with Frankie, that the doctors found at the age of six he’d been born simple.

“Do a good job,”

Caleb encouraged him, and Frankie chuckled, just the way he had when he was little.

Caleb was busy getting upstairs to work, so he didn’t stop to chat long.

* * *

The Rising Star Theatrical Company’s listing on the Exchange had reached its last stage and was expected to be completed this month.

Once it was listed, he’d be the boss of a company worth tens of millions of dollars on the market.

His influence would be beyond compare.

This month, his main responsibility was getting ready for Cloudwater’s Splendid Night Gala, as well as the music festival in Bay City before its opening.

In Sterling City, the point was to look after their patrons, so naturally they held private parties.

They couldn’t advertise it or make it public.

In Bay City, though, the aim was to make Cloudwater known and win new patrons.

Blanche came to find him. “Uncle, here’s the list of stars for Cloudwater’s music festival in Bay City.”

Cloudwater meant to hold its own music festival in Bay City, called the Starlight Night.

Caleb took the list and saw three names confirmed among the very top singers: Jasper Cole, Wes Fenton and Andrew Laidlaw.

The rest were of the first rank too, just not of their legendary standing.

Of the two million dollars his wife had put into starting the business, more than two hundred thousand was for advertising.

In any company, advertising always took up a certain share of the spending.

By now, the Rising Star Theatrical Company had gathered plenty of experience putting on big music festivals and concerts.

Caleb said, “Handle everything to the same standard as Antler Coffee’s before. Hand out coffee and parasols on the grounds, and send running bulletins over the wires of the three big telegraph companies.”

The Bay City headquarters also had several thousand employees, including several hundred from the Rising Star Theatrical Company’s branch.

Their main task this month was to make the Cloudwater music festival a success.

Once Blanche had the list, she notified the Bay City branch to officially begin advertising in earnest across every paper and board.

Cloudwater was about to march into the Bay City market in full force.

With the resources it had now, it had no need at all to be quiet about its debut.

It would simply drop into Bay City like some great behemoth.

* * *

At the Bay City headquarters, when the notice from the president’s office came, Ellie Jarvis, who’d been transferred there, officially began the full advertising campaign.

First, at a hefty price, they took the most expensive advertising space on the Delmonico Building on the Embarcadero.

The Delmonico Building was the golden landmark of the Bay City Embarcadero.

It had become famous all over the country for its great display of gas jets spelling out “I Love Bay City.”

Its enormous illuminated transparency was a hundred and eighty-seven feet wide and two hundred and seven feet high, over thirty-eight thousand square feet in all.

It was hailed as “the most expensive signboard in the world.”

In the midst of Bay City’s magnificent night scene and its lights, it caught every eye.

The companies that advertised there were usually the ones that weren’t short of money.

They advertised not only on the Delmonico but also on landmarks like the Citizens’ Bank Building and the Grand Plaza Arcade, the busiest spots in the bustling heart of Bay City.

The monthly fee for the Delmonico Building was fifty-four hundred dollars, for a half-minute picture thrown up by the great magic lantern every night, thirty times a night.

Cloudwater had no need for such methods. Its entrance into Bay City was far more direct and bold.

They chose to take the best hours of the evening all to themselves, showing nothing but their own pictures for half an hour every night.

Chapter 309: The View from Yancey’s Carriage

Each showing cost twenty-four hundred dollars.

At the same time, Cloudwater threw a grand party for young folks along the Embarcadero.

Spending nine hundred dollars every day, it invited three thousand people to enjoy harbor excursions on the Bay City steamers.

And it gave away a paper fan printed with the Cloudwater crest and Antler Coffee’s patterns.

There were no restrictions at all. It was simply first come, first served.

Meanwhile, it also plastered its notices for the Cloudwater New Year’s Eve Star Music Festival of 1876 on countless illuminated signboards all over Bay City.

For a while, it seemed the whole of Bay City was buzzing with news of Cloudwater.

This high-toned name from Sterling City had finally landed in the Bay City market in a manner grander than anyone could have imagined.

Driving his Hooper past the Delmonico Building on the Embarcadero, Walter Yancey looked up and saw this most unwelcome sight.

The failure of the Tomcat Circuit hadn’t touched his way of living.

After all, he was old Yancey’s only son.

Even after losing more than four million dollars, he was still living quite well.

It had been half a year since the Presidents’ Class of 1874 had graduated, and in that time the twenty-odd classmates had scattered to every part of the country, each with business stories of his own to tell.

Only this Caleb Walker seemed to be on a winning streak.

He was in the papers everywhere.

One day Bobo’s was listed on the Exchange; the next, he’d taken over as president with an iron will, and not only driven the share price back up to its first offering within a month, but kept right on going, unstoppable.

He’d proved to the money market once again that he, a born capitalist, was astonishingly bold.

Indeed, the classmate Walter had once looked down on could no longer simply be called a man of business.

He had become capital itself.

Bobo’s had just been listed, and Antler Coffee was making a strong showing in places like Sterling City and Bay City.

Overnight, it had turned up on every prime street corner.

Antler Coffee was yet another shop-and-drink project in which he’d teamed up again with Tabitha Lane.

Walter knew that, of course.

What surprised him, though, was that since Antler Coffee had opened, there’d been no word of it raising any money.

With its prices and the pace at which it was spreading, no one would be surprised to hear it was losing fourteen or sixteen thousand dollars a day.

A project that burned cash like that, and yet apparently he had no need at all to spread the risk with other people’s money.

That could only mean he was supremely confident.

Walter also knew perfectly well that, with Caleb’s present reputation among the money men, if he wanted to start a project, raising a few million dollars would be child’s play for him.

Loads of people wanted to put money into him.

The reason, of course, was that he was reliable, and his projects had a way of succeeding beyond all expectations.

Even the Fat Lamb, which Walter had once copied, had been listed successfully.

The fact was, in the old-fashioned trades, the man had already worked out a set of methods of his own that truly worked.

These days, the concerns he’d brought to Bay City were plainly growing more numerous all the time.

The Sunburst Department Stores, the Rising Sun Fresh Markets and the Rising Sun Fruit stores, which nobody else knew about, were all his.

And now even Cloudwater, famous in Sterling City, had landed in the Bay City market with such a show of strength.

And over on the East Shore, across the water, the twelve-story headquarters building Cloudwater had bought for a million eight hundred thousand dollars stood majestically in a spot swarming with famous companies.

As for the Rising Star Group, it was even more outrageous.

Its headquarters building of twenty-odd stories had come at the steep price of three million two hundred thousand.

Any company that could spend millions on a headquarters in a prime location like that was famous for its success.

For a moment Walter was so awestruck that he sat there staring blankly.

He didn’t even notice the drivers behind him shouting and cracking their whips to get him moving.

“Walt, do you know about that company called Cloudwater?”

The young lady beside him asked. She was a pretty music-hall darling whose picture cards sold in every penny-paper shop.

She looked innocent yet alluring.

She was the girl he’d been courting for over a week.

She knew how to win his favor, and she was no fool at reading a room either.

Walter said offhandedly, “It’s run by a classmate of mine from the Presidents’ Class.”

“So it’s your classmate, Walt. No wonder they spend like there’s no tomorrow. I hear they’re doing mighty well in Sterling City, and they’re opening two flagship parlors on the Embarcadero on the same day. That’s why there are notices everywhere,” she said.

Walter gave her a cool glance. No one could tell what he meant by it.

Ever since she’d become his sweetheart, her fame in the papers had shot sky-high.

Perhaps knowing that this rich young man would never marry her in the end, she’d used her newfound fame to start a mail-order dress business of her own.

“Thriving” didn’t even begin to describe how her dress business was doing now.

No wonder so many people craved fame. It turned out that drawing a crowd really was worth money.

But the things she valued, Walter simply didn’t care for.

Just as he’d once mocked Caleb for selling sodas, saying it was only fit for the children’s table.

As it turned out, business wasn’t about big or small. It was all about how you ran it.

That small business of selling Bobo’s sodas, hadn’t it been listed on the Bay City Exchange with a market value of as much as ten or twelve million dollars?

Calling it the first share of the soda trade was no exaggeration.

Back then, surely no one in the class could have imagined Caleb selling sodas would get to this point, could they?

The most he’d done in Sterling City was sell fruit and run the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

Who’d have known that inside a year he would make a listed company out of a soda business?

And the most outrageous part of all was that Bobo’s president was a college girl who hadn’t even graduated yet.

She was still in her last year of college.

That storybook tale had made the lady president enormously popular with young people, the college crowd included.

It also kept the talk about the Bobo’s name from ever cooling off.

The first share on the Exchange of a name made famous by the papers.

He reckoned the brand’s market value would grow further still.

A soda business, and yet it had become a company worth twenty million dollars.

It was beyond anything he’d expected.

Chapter 310: The Bell Rings for Rising Star

To smooth its landing in Bay City, Cloudwater’s hefty advertising campaign ahead of its opening was in full swing.

Three thousand people a day on excursion steamers along the Embarcadero, huge pictures on the Delmonico Building’s transparency: all of it showed off the new name’s strength.

However, all that stir still couldn’t match the sensation of the news from the Exchange’s listing committee on December 12.

After nearly a year, the Rising Star Theatrical Company had officially been listed on the home Exchange.

That day in Bay City, when the Rising Star Theatrical Company rang the opening bell, it was a gathering of stars.

Lily Hayes, Mae Darling, Belle Lowry, Walt Jennings, Shenton and other top stars all came together to open the market for the Rising Star Theatrical Company.

Several theatrical companies had been listed over the years, but few had ever had such enormous influence.

As its financial report, published the very next day, showed, the Rising Star Theatrical Company’s takings for 1875 had reached a stunning seven million four hundred thousand dollars.

On the touring circuits, it had enormous hits in “Flora of the Crimson Peaks” and “Three Lifetimes.”

In grand spectacles, it had once again proved its flawless eye for investment with “Charlie Lott’s Troubles.”

Its net profit for the year had soared to two million four hundred thousand dollars.

That was far beyond many long-established theatrical houses.

It truly stood head and shoulders above the trade.

The shares were offered at five dollars, and in less than a week they climbed so fast that the Exchange halted trading at the day’s limit five days running, driving the price up to around eight dollars and forty cents.

Just one week after listing, the Rising Star Theatrical Company had become a prodigy of the trade, with a market value of over forty million dollars.

It was a thunderbolt in the theater world.

The people at the Hartley Brothers Theatrical Trust came over and felt a deep sense of looming danger.

As for Bonnie Yale, the newly hot leading lady who’d risen to fame in less than two years, she’d coined more than a few famous sayings in the trade.

She herself felt very exposed. Who knew why better than she did?

When Bobo’s had been listed, she’d done everything she could to wreck it.

Now even Rising Star had been listed, without a single move against her.

Either they truly didn’t care, or they were waiting for the right moment.

She was no innocent when it came to the unwritten rules of the theater world.

People who could grow their businesses to such a height were surely not the gentle, forgiving kind.

She’d thought about apologizing first, even about keeping someone company late at night if she had to, willing to pay whatever it took.

But the real trouble was that she couldn’t even get a meeting with them.

That was quite a fix.

* * *

Sterling City, the Rising Star Group.

With the Rising Star Theatrical Company’s successful listing, the streets for three miles around were decked with red bunting.

It wasn’t his doing. Nearby shopkeepers and other companies had put it up of their own accord, as a gesture of good will.

They had nothing to do with the theater or its productions, but now that you’d hit a market value of forty million dollars right after listing, they really did have to come and congratulate you.

Back when the Great Western Express Company was listed in Hampton, the whole town had celebrated its big day.

That was a show of real clout.

Compared with that, his three miles of bunting hardly counted.

In a couple of days it would all have to come down.

Caleb just went on working as usual at the Group, seemingly untouched by the listing.

But it was understood that with the successful listing, his standing in the business world had shot up dramatically.

He could never match the Big Two, who always stood at the center of the stage.

But he could get a ticket that was somewhat closer to theirs.

“Somewhat” meaning a few dozen yards away.

They spoke on the platform, and he applauded from the audience.

At gatherings of tycoons, his job was pouring the tea.

If that was how things stood, there really wasn’t much to brag about.

Getting things done right was the true road to success.

The Rising Star Theatrical Company’s listing marked the end of a three-year stretch. Most of his concerns would now have to start paying territorial taxes on their profits like everyone else.

There was nothing to complain about. Getting three years free of taxes had been a big win already.

With the listing a success on his side, the mood inside the Group was jubilant.

Mae Darling brought in a new script. Her popularity had soared since “Three Lifetimes.”

Now there were plenty of scripts looking for her.

She’d sifted through them and picked a modern-day society romance.

The investment was three hundred twenty thousand dollars, with an expected return of a hundred and eighty percent.

Profitable, but not overly so.

Caleb still gave it the go-ahead. He’d noticed something else.

Compared with last year, the cost of putting on touring plays had climbed far too quickly.

For instance, his earlier investment in Lily Hayes’s show, the grand production “Flora of the Crimson Peaks,” had cost less than two hundred thousand dollars.

Now the first-rank productions usually ran between four and six hundred thousand.

Mae’s three hundred twenty thousand counted as fairly good value.

Mainly because it was a modern-day play that didn’t need much stage machinery or painted transformation scenes.

Naturally, that saved on costs.

Looking at the cost breakdown for the play, out of the budget of three hundred twenty thousand dollars,

Mae alone took a fee of a hundred and twenty thousand.

At her level, fees only went up.

Even Bonnie Yale, known for her poor acting, could ask a hundred and sixty thousand.

Never mind Mae, the queen of the touring stage.

Besides her, the leading man took thirty percent of the budget.

That meant the fees for the leading man and lady alone ate up about seventy percent of it.

It was outrageous, no lie. But he had the theater world’s power of analysis behind him, so he wasn’t afraid of losing money.

But companies without that kind of insight would lose money on at least ninety percent of their plays at such lopsided costs.

No wonder the theater world was rife with unspoken rules.

With losses that frequent, what else were those green new bosses after?

Who else would ever put money in?

If actors’ fees kept climbing like this, he felt the trade was really just throwing money away.

Most of the profits went into the pockets of the top players.

Chapter 311: The Second Season of Hopefuls

He was only a small boss with one theatrical company, and he naturally couldn’t change the way things stood.

The real cause of it all was still the fierce fight among the Big Three at the very top.

The three great touring circuits, the Pelican, the Union and the Imperial, none of them able to swallow the others, kept right on burning money.

Unless they lost millions upon millions of dollars a year, they’d have been too embarrassed to publish their annual reports.

Their money-burning game was also what drove the strange, swollen pay in the trade.

Of course, it was mainly concentrated among the players at the very top.

Caleb sent for Blanche Whitney. Last year they had held a training class for new talent and picked out one new actress, Belle Lowry.

This year he’d decided to hold the training class again.

If they could turn up another Belle Lowry, that would be fine indeed.

“Uncle, are we still only keeping one girl this year?”

“No, let’s keep three.”

Caleb said, “Not everybody can be the lead. We need to bring along a few for the supporting parts too.”

Blanche understood.

Last year they had only taken on about