Mammon and Co.

by E. F. Benson

It will be remembered that he had formed two companies, Carmel, and Carmel East and West, with capitals respectively of three hundred thousand and five hundred thousand pounds. Carmel East and West had exhibited remarkable fluctuations, as Kit knew to her loss, Alington, and Jack following his advice, to their gain, and the way in which this had been worked was simplicity itself. The shares had been issued at par, and had risen almost immediately to twenty-five shillings. This Alington was disposed to put down partly to his own reputation and as the result of reports from the mine, but chiefly—for he was modest even when alone—to the effect of his noble body of directors. He as vendor had fifty thousand shares fully paid, and at this point he sold out, unloading very carefully under several names, and taking a very decent little profit for a man of simple tastes and butler-like appearance. The natural effect of this extensive sale was to cause the shares to drop, and the downward tendency was accelerated by unpromising news from the mine, which followed immediately on his sale. The ore, as stated in the prospectus, was refractory, and extracting it was both costly and yielded a very small percentage of gold. Mr. Alington, whom several large holders and substantial City men consulted about this time, was not sanguine. The results were bad, there was no denying it. Three weeks of a dropping market brought the shares to the condition they were in on that day of November on which Kit sold out for the first time, and they closed at thirteen and ninepence sellers, fourteen and threepence buyers. This seemed to Alington to be low enough for his second step, as he did not want the market to lose confidence altogether. He sent a telegram out to his manager in Australia, Mr. Linkwood, laconic, but to that intelligent fellow perfectly comprehensible:

"New process.—Alington," it ran.

He also sent one to Mr. Richard Chavasse:

"Invest."

The next morning he received from Mr. Linkwood the following reply:

"Carmel East. Ninety per cent. of gold extracted by Bülow process. Strong support by Australian markets.—Linkwood."

Now, the evening before certain large purchases in Carmel East had been made in England, not by the names under which Mr. Alington had previously unloaded, for the weakness of such a course was obvious, and he followed them up the next morning by a very large purchase in his own name, and by the publication of his telegram from Mr. Linkwood. He also saw several business men, to whom he gave a full explanation. He had telegraphed, he said with absolute truth, to his manager to try the Bülow process, and, as they saw, it had yielded admirable results. Instead of twenty, they got ninety per cent. of the gold out. Concerning the strong support of the Australian markets, they would no doubt receive further news by cable. He had no information later than that telegram which he had published.

The effect of this on a market already predisposed to go a-booming after Westralians was natural and inevitable. The shares went up nearly a half during the day, and next morning when a further private cable, instantly made public, recorded that that shrewdest of financiers, Mr. Richard Chavasse, had bought to the extent of forty thousand pounds, they ran past thirty shillings.

A week later they stood at two pounds, owing to steady support from private investors. There was a spurious report that a dividend might be expected, so extraordinary successful had the month's crushing proved to be, and this was the unfortunate moment selected by Kit to make her second purchase. Simultaneously Alington, who for a week past had been very carefully unloading, telegraphed to Jack to do the same, and sold out largely under his own name. A week passed, and the shares moved slowly back, depressed by these large sales, though there was still a considerable demand for them in England. Then came another telegram from Australia, saying the mine looked much less hopeful. The vein which they had been working so successfully for the past two or three months came suddenly to an end, owing to a dip in the strata, and if struck again, it could probably be struck only at a much deeper level. This would entail considerable development. Following on this came large sales in Australia, Mr. Richard Chavasse (in consequence of a wire from England) being among them, and the shares went down to nineteen shillings. Then the possibility of a war between England and France depressed them still further, and they subsided quietly to fourteen shillings, where, for all that Mr. Alington at present cared, they were at liberty to remain. Thus closed the first act of the great deal, leaving a suspicious market.