“Well, I guess so.”
“On a time loan?”
“No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say.”
“That is not much,” objected Jerningham.
“No, it isn't. But—May I ask you a question?”
“Two if you wish,” said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles.
“Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold you have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your boxes?”
This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash the trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them.
“Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson,” said Jerningham, with that curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not really understand—“let me tell you this: The time is coming—and coming within a few months!—when good, hard gold is going to command a premium just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in 1896. I am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take advantage of—”
“But present conditions are utterly different—”