"You will have to borrow a million then?"
"Yes—perhaps a little more."
"You have not met the man the bank will send to take your bonds?"
"No—but the bank is reliable and will make good—at least they must produce him before we start—that's what their underwriting means," he added.
"Howard, you have put up a hard problem. I might introduce the interrogation point and mislead you. I don't pretend to know much of business, especially of big business like yours—mine is looking for deluded men—sometimes women—who try to make violations of the Federal statutes profitable. All I can do is to give you my impression, and what facts I have that may bear on your case. Then you must decide for yourself." He nodded.
"I would like it better if you were hooked up with a straight American bank," I continued. "I mean one of the old-line National banks—but, after all, that may not be important. Perhaps you ought to let 'good enough' alone. You are making more money now than you can possibly spend. However, I can understand the lure of achievement—it's about all the real fun there is in living, without which a man is old at any stage, and would be better off dead and buried."
"That's it! You understand perfectly—make the so-called impossibility yield," he interrupted, his aggressive nose twitching, his eyes dilating with eagerness.
"Howard, there are three crises in the average life. The first one we all know as 'getting started.' This usually happens in the early twenties. You passed yours just after leaving me on the wharf at Savannah. You say you cried and wished you were dead. Another one comes about ten years later. Its form and length varies with the individual. But for a time it's usually a pretty bad experience. Men not only wish they were dead, but would try suicide were they out-and-out cowards. They believe they will be consumed by the heat and enormity of things over which they have no control. This period is not unlike the refining process of iron ore into good steel, and its formation into a perfect-cutting, useful instrument. It is a process that is melting hot, two thousand degrees and a blast behind it. Then come the blows to make the shape; then the grindstone, and the whet-stone to put on the final polish. There is another period in the late forties that you need not be concerned about now. However, Cleveland is going to be elected—the first Democratic President since the war—and that event may disturb things for a time."
Byng glanced up searchingly. "Go on," said he, abruptly.
"I know you didn't expect a sermon but you may profit by it now; at least you will recall it afterward, and with some relief, if you follow the trend of affairs logically. When I go after a man I want to know his age the very first thing. You are about thirty now?"