A good sleep had refreshed Colonel Harris and at breakfast he appeared in a joking mood. While he smoked, he glanced at the Tribune and again examined Searles's letter of introduction from Messrs. Guerney & Barring. At nine o'clock promptly, Mr. Searles came and Colonel Harris exhibited to him a brief statement of the business of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., extending over the last ten years, and showing the company's annual profits.
"A very good business your company did, and you made large profits, Colonel Harris," said Searles. "And am I to understand that you have made in your statement a proper allowance for depreciation of values in buildings and machinery, also for all losses and cost of insurance, and that after these deductions are made the company's net profits annually amounted to an average of over one hundred thousand pounds, or a half million dollars?"
"Yes," replied the colonel.
And Mr. Searles remarked, "Colonel Harris, if your arguments last evening did not fully convert me to the decided advantage which Americans gain by protection, this statement of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co. does. A year ago, some Americans in London called our attention to your profitable plant, hence our first letter of inquiries. Your replies confirmed the report and so we cabled for this initial meeting between us.
"Messrs. Guerney & Barring have been most successful in financiering some of the largest business interests in the world, and thus they have achieved a splendid reputation. It was their wish that I should secure for them your most favorable terms with an option of purchase of your plant, the same to hold good for two months, or for a sufficient length of time to allow them to organize a syndicate, and float necessary debentures to buy the stock, or a controlling interest in your company, and so continue the business."
"Mr. Searles, we Americans are not anxious to sell, especially to foreigners, our best paying concerns. We ought to keep them under our own control. However, of late, I have been inclined to indulge my family in a little foreign travel, and myself in more leisure for books, and possibly for politics, believing that not enough of our good citizens enter Congress. I might, on certain conditions, name a price for all the stock of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co."
"Please state the price and the conditions."
"Well, let me think a moment. The capital stock of the company is not now as large as it should be.
Total Capital Stock $2,000,000
Par value of shares 100
Present Value per Share, 300
"The entire property and good-will of the Company is worth at least $6,000,000, and my "fixed price," as the English say, is $5,000,000."