But Catenac now felt it time to interfere. “You do not understand,” remarked he, addressing Croisenois. “You will start a Company for the development of some native product, let us say Pyrenean marble, for instance, issue a prospectus, and the shares will be at once taken up by Mascarin’s clients.”
“Well, what happens then?”
“Why, out of the funds thus obtained we will take care when the crash comes to reimburse any outsiders who may have taken shares in the concern, telling them that the thing has been a failure, and that we are ruined; while Mascarin will take care to obtain from all his clients a discharge in full, so the Company will quietly collapse.”
“But,” objected the Marquis, “all the shareholders will know that I am a rogue.”
“Naturally.”
“They would hold me in utter contempt.”
“Perhaps so, but they would never venture to let you see it. I never thought that you would make objections; and whose character, however deep, will bear investigation?”
“Are you sure that you hold your people securely?” asked he; “and that none of them will turn surly?”
Mascarin was waiting for this question, and taking from his desk the pieces of cardboard which he took so much pains to arrange, he replied, “I have here the names of three hundred and fifty people who will each invest ten thousand francs in the Company. Listen to me, and judge for yourself.”
He put all three pieces of cardboard together, and then drawing out one he read,—