Short Fiction · Chapter
A Tempered Wind explained
Jeff Peters recounts his partnership with Buckingham Skinner, a con artist who poses as a rustic farmer to secure small loans from loan companies.
What happens
Jeff Peters recounts his partnership with Buckingham Skinner, a con artist who poses as a rustic farmer to secure small loans from loan companies. They later form the Golconda Gold Bond and Investment Company, a fraudulent scheme that attracts investments from poor and vulnerable people. When a newspaper reporter exposes the scam, Buck and Jeff decide to return all the money to the investors, refusing to swindle the needy. They then flee, resuming their small-time hustles with a hair tonic and chill cure scheme.
Themes in this chapter
Deception and Appearance vs. Reality
Buckingham Skinner's farmer disguise and the Golconda Company's false promises highlight the theme of deception.
Crime and Consequence
The fraudulent scheme and its exposure, followed by the decision to return the money, explore the moral consequences of crime.
Social Class and Wealth
The investors are poor workers, old women, and children, contrasting with the con artists' initial greed and eventual redemption.
Characters to notice
- Jeff Peters
Narrator and partner in the Golconda scheme; decides with Buck to return investors' money.
- Buckingham Skinner
Con artist who poses as a farmer to get loans; later co-founds the Golconda Company and insists on returning the money.
Key passages
“The first time my optical nerves was disturbed by the sight of Buckingham Skinner was in Kansas City.”
I first saw Buckingham Skinner in Kansas City.
Jeff Peters introduces his first encounter with Skinner.
“I involve myself, as you perceive, in the loathsome apparel of the rural dub. Thus embalmed I am Jonas Stubblefield—a name impossible to improve upon.”
I dress as a country bumpkin and call myself Jonas Stubblefield.
Skinner explains his disguise for the loan scam.
“Me and Buck judged they'd been reading the papers, too. We stopped and looked at our stockholders, some surprised. It wasn't quite the kind of a gang we supposed had been investing.”
Buck and I realized the investors had read the exposé and were not the wealthy types we expected.
The crowd of poor investors surprises the con artists.
“We never allowed to swindle sick old women and working girls and take nickels off of kids.”
We never cheated vulnerable people like the sick, working girls, or children.
Buck justifies returning the money by stating their ethical boundaries.
“Plenty of the 'Shake-the-Shakes Chill Cure' labels... What's hair, anyway, if you have to shake it off?”
We have plenty of chill cure labels, so hair tonic can be relabeled as chill cure.
After the Golconda collapse, Jeff and Buck repurpose labels for a new scam.