“Some sort of prospectus! I think I have. There's a document there on the table might go before the House of Commons this minute; and the short and the long of it is, Bramleigh”—here he crossed his arms on the table, and dropped his voice to a tone of great confidence—“it is a good thing—a right good thing. There 's coal there, of one kind or other, for five-and-twenty years, perhaps more. The real, I may say, the only difficulty of the whole scheme will be to keep old Culduff from running off with all the profits. As soon as the money comes rolling in, he 'll set off shelling it out; he 's just as wasteful as he was thirty years ago.”
“That will be impossible when a company is once regularly formed.”
“I know that,—I know that; but men of his stamp say, 'We know nothing about trade. We have n't been bred up to office-stools and big ledgers; and when we want money, we get it how we can.'”
“We can't prevent him selling out or mortgaging his shares. You mean, in short, that he should not be on the direction?” added he.
“That's it,—that's exactly it,” said Cutbill, joyously.
“Will he like that? Will he submit to it?”
“He 'll like whatever promises to put him most speedily into funds; he'll submit to whatever threatens to stop the supplies. Don't you know these men better than I do, who pass lives of absenteeism from their country; how little they care how or whence money comes, provided they get it? They neither know, nor want to know, about good or bad seasons, whether harvests are fine, or trade profitable; their one question is, 'Can you answer my draft at thirty-one days?'”
“Ah, yes; there is too much, far too much, of what you say in the world,” said Bramleigh, sighing.
“These are not the men who want to do something for Ireland,” said the other, quizzically.
“Sir, it may save us both some time and temper if I tell you I have never been 'chaffed.'”