“Crumweather’s found a hole in the Blue Sky Act, or thinks he has.”
“Can’t we put him on the spot?”
“Not because of that. He’s too slick. He’s sitting back in the clear with a ten per cent rake-off. The officials of the company will get the jolt.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“The only thing to do,” I said, “is to find the stockholders and get them to sell their stock.”
He said, “Donald, that’s the first time I’ve known you to make an utterly asinine suggestion.”
Alta rushed to my defence. “Dad, it sounds perfectly feasible to me. Can’t you see it’s the only way?”
“Bunk,” he said, slouching down in his chair and chewing at his cigar. “The people who bought stock in that company bought it as a gamble, not as an investment, They’re looking forward to a hundred-to-one, or five-hundred-to-one, or five-thousand-to-one profit. Try to buy that stock at what they paid for it, and they’d laugh at you. Offer them ten times what they paid for it, and they’d think there’d been a strike, and you had inside information.”
I said, “I don’t think you understand what I’m driving at.”
“What is it?” he asked.