"When we have made the line up to the station." Fisker understood perfectly that Mr. Melmotte did not ask the question in reference to any value that he might attach to the possession of such lands, but to the attractiveness of such a prospectus in the eyes of the outside world of speculators.
"And what do you want me to do, Mr. Fisker?"
"I want to have your name there," he said. And he placed his finger down on a spot on which it was indicated that there was, or was to be, a chairman of an English Board of Directors, but with a space for the name, hitherto blank.
"Who are to be your directors here, Mr. Fisker?"
"We should ask you to choose them, sir. Mr. Paul Montague should be one, and perhaps his friend Sir Felix Carbury might be another. We could get probably one of the Directors of the City and West End. But we would leave it all to you,—as also the amount of stock you would like to take yourself. If you gave yourself to it, heart and soul, Mr. Melmotte, it would be the finest thing that there has been out for a long time. There would be such a mass of stock!"
"You have to back that with a certain amount of paid-up capital?"
"We take care, sir, in the West not to cripple commerce too closely by old-fashioned bandages. Look at what we've done already, sir, by having our limbs pretty free. Look at our line, sir, right across the continent, from San Francisco to New York. Look at—"
"Never mind that, Mr. Fisker. People wanted to go from New York to San Francisco, and I don't know that they do want to go to Vera Cruz. But I will look at it, and you shall hear from me." The interview was over, and Mr. Fisker was contented with it. Had Mr. Melmotte not intended at least to think of it he would not have given ten minutes to the subject. After all, what was wanted from Mr. Melmotte was little more than his name, for the use of which Mr. Fisker proposed that he should receive from the speculative public two or three hundred thousand pounds.
At the end of a fortnight from the date of Mr. Fisker's arrival in London, the company was fully launched in England, with a body of London directors, of whom Mr. Melmotte was the chairman. Among the directors were Lord Alfred Grendall, Sir Felix Carbury, Samuel Cohenlupe, Esq., Member of Parliament for Staines, a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, Lord Nidderdale, who was also in Parliament, and Mr. Paul Montague. It may be thought that the directory was not strong, and that but little help could be given to any commercial enterprise by the assistance of Lord Alfred or Sir Felix;—but it was felt that Mr. Melmotte was himself so great a tower of strength that the fortune of the company,—as a company,—was made.