“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. I have brought you—” he took two bits of paper from his pocket-book, fingered them uncertainly, and finally returned one to his pocket. He went on: “Ten millions.”
“Is that all to-day?” The president not only was not nonplussed, but actually smiled.
He was a great man. Even his enemies acknowledged it.
“That’s all. You see, I’ve been depositing a little every week in the Eastern National Bank. But I’ve decided to increase it to a million a week, and I wanted to ask you if the Dry Goods National also is to be trusted.”
“Great Heavens, man! When are you going to stop? Where is the mine? Can’t I buy stock in it?” The president spoke jocularly. He had, on hearing the young man’s words, determined to solve the mystery if it took fifty thousand dollars. It had ceased to be merely a mystery. It had become a menace. This made him calm.
“I don’t own a share of mining stock. Do you think mines are good investments?” But the young man asked this altogether too innocently.
“Your mine would be.” The president gazed fixedly at the spectacled eyes. Grin-nell hesitated.
“I’ll deposit this, then,” he said. “Good-morning.”
But Mr. Dawson, thinking of disturbing possibilities, did not answer. The young man with his deposits of nineteen and one-half millions—and more to come—troubled the president. With that much cash, Grinnell already was a potential disturber of finance. With much more he could be infinitely worse—to the public and to the great moneyed interests. He could call suddenly upon the bank for his entire account, some day when money was tight, and stock pools needed it as a man’s lungs need air, as a man’s heart needs blood; and the stock-market would be convulsed, and guiltless millionaires suffer. Or, he could mistakenly lend it at such low rates of interest as would “break” the money-market, and help fools or gamblers, but grievously reduce the bank’s profits. Or, he could so misuse it as to foil some stock-market plan of Mr. Dawson’s, or of his associates. There was no limit to the possibilities of mischief from an unknown but even greater supply. Money is a commodity, governed, like all other commodities, by certain conditions. Fancy a man who suddenly announces—and proves it conclusively—that he has an unknown number of millions of bushels of excellent wheat; imagine the effect not only on unfortunate bull gamblers on the Board of Trade, but also on thousands of hard-working farmers. But the young man’s case was far worse. It was not alone his possession of much money; it was his having the gold itself! Money is only money, but gold is more: it is the measure of value. To disturb that was to disturb finance, commerce, and industry. The working-world would cease to labour, cease to breathe. In what would a millionaire’s affluence or a labourer’s poverty be measured; in what would men buy and sell, pay and be paid, if the young man’s supply of gold should be so great as to disturb the value-measure of civilized people? No world-disaster in all history could compare with this!
Dawson’s mind, keen, imaginative, was made feverishly active by the stimulus of fear. Clearly, there was but one thing to do—important, urgent, vital!—to learn all about the young man, and the source and extent of his gold; to make him an ally; to share in that wealth; and, in the meantime, to reduce to a negligible minimum the possibilities for mischief against the bank which that young man and that wealth had created.