Ames chuckled. “Now we will begin to get real information,” he remarked. “Tell Miss Fagin you will give her fifty dollars a week from now on; but she is to deliver to you a carbon copy of every letter she writes for Stolz. And I want those copies on my desk every morning when I come down. Hood,” he continued, abruptly turning the conversation, “what have you dug up about Ketchim’s new company?”
“Very little, sir,” replied Hood with a trace of embarrassment. “His lawyer is a fledgeling named Cass, young, but wise enough not to talk. I called on him yesterday afternoon to have a little chat about the old Molino company, representing that I was speaking for certain stockholders. But he told me to bring the stockholders in and he would talk with them personally.”
Ames laughed, while the lawyer grinned sheepishly. “Is that the sort of service you are rendering for a hundred-thousand-dollar salary?” he bantered. “Hood, I’m ashamed of you!”
“I can’t blame you; I am ashamed of myself,” replied the lawyer.
“Well,” continued Ames good-naturedly, “leave Ketchim to me. I’ve got three men now buying small amounts of stock in his various companies. I’ll call for receiverships pretty soon, and we will see this time that he doesn’t refund the money. Now about other matters: the Albany post trolley deal is to go through. Also the potato scheme. Work up the details and let me have them at once. Have you got the senate bill drawn for Gossitch?”
“It will be ready this afternoon. As it stands now, the repealing section gives any city the right to grant saloon licenses of indefinite length, instead of for one year.”
“That’s the idea. We want the bill so drawn that it will become practically impossible to revoke a license.”
“As it now reads,” said Hood, “it makes a saloon license assignable. That creates a property right that can hardly be revoked.”
“Just so,” returned Ames. “As I figure, it will create a value of some twenty millions for those who own saloons in New York. A tidy sum!”
“That means for the brewers.”