The other sighed.
“I have reached the point where I think a hundred thousand is an enormous sum,” he said. “However, you know your own business best, Cartwright. But I want to be satisfied in the matter in which we are associated together, that my liability does not exceed my power to pay. And there is another matter.”
Cartwright guessed the “other matter.”
“Well?” he asked.
“I was looking over your titles this afternoon,” said Maxell, “and I see no reference to the old Spanish working. I remember that you told me a Spaniard had taken up a considerable stretch of country and had exhausted his capital trying to prove the reef—Señor Brigot, wasn’t that his name?”
The other nodded curtly.
“A drunkard—and a bad lot,” he said. “He’s broke.”
Maxell smiled.
“His moral character doesn’t count so far as the details go; what does matter is that if your theory is correct, the reef must run through his property. What are you going to do about that?”
“Buy him out,” said the other.