“‘Very well,’ I said to him, ‘it’s a six-months’ job. Don’t go into useless expenses. Take reps for your private office: that’s good enough.’”
The Judge, in a tone of Profound Surprise—You told him that?
The Upholsterer, in the Simple Accent of an Honest Man—Exactly as I am telling your Honor. He followed my advice; and I sent him red hot the furniture and fixtures which had been used by the River Fishery Company, whose president had just been sent to prison for three years.
When, after such revelations, renewed from week to week, with instructive variations, purchasers may still be found for the shares of the Tiffla Mines, the Bretoneche Lands, and the Forests of Formanoid, is it to be wondered that the Mutual Credit Company found numerous subscribers?
It had been admirably started at that propitious hour of the December Coup d’Etat, when the first ideas of mutuality were beginning to penetrate the financial world.
It had lacked neither capital nor powerful patronage at the start, and had been at once admitted to the honor of being quoted at the bourse.
Beginning business ostensibly as an accommodation bank for manufacturers and merchants, the Mutual Credit had had, for a number of years, a well-determined specialty.
But gradually it had enlarged the circle of its operations, altered its by-laws, changed its board of directors; and at the end the original subscribers would have been not a little embarrassed to tell what was the nature of its business, and from what sources it drew its profits.
All they knew was, that it always paid respectable dividends; that their manager, M. de Thaller, was personally very rich; and that they were willing to trust him to steer clear of the code.
There were some, of course, who did not view things in quite so favorable a light; who suggested that the dividends were suspiciously large; that M. de Thaller spent too much money on his house, his wife, his daughter, and his mistress.