“Well, I’m inclined to agree with you, and, as I said before, I’m going to fire Greene a little later on. But no matter what we can prove against the young idiot, the fact remains that we have no insurance and therefore if the securities are not recovered the loss will fall entirely on us.”
“What about the money Mr. Stevenson and Gif’s father and Spouter’s father put in?” asked Jack.
“As they are now stockholders in the company, the loss will fall on their shoulders as well as ours,” answered his father.
“Did Spouter’s father put up the extra money that was coming from him?” queried Randy.
“He did—the day before the hold-up. He brought in some first-class railroad bonds, and they were among the bonds that were stolen. They had been placed in the office safe because we wanted to list them properly and take down the numbers, and then we were going to offer them to one of the bond houses because we needed the cash.”
“Needed the cash!” broke in Fred quickly. “In that case I suppose this loss is going to hit the company pretty hard?” and he looked at his father as he spoke.
“Yes, Fred, we might as well let you boys know the truth,” answered Sam Rover. “Just at the present time we are under heavy obligations to three banks here in New York, and that was one reason why we took in this additional capital from our old friends and Mr. Stevenson. As you know, we have been branching out, not only with our business here in Wall Street, but also with our mines in the West and our oil well holdings in the South, and all of those things cramped us a little for cash.”
“If the money isn’t recovered, what then?” asked Randy bluntly.
“We won’t talk about that just yet,” answered Dick Rover, but his tone showed that he was much disturbed.
“Of course you have notified Mr. Stevenson and the others?” said Jack.