The engineer nodded and Massingale went on.
"I was to have two thirds of the stock and they was to have one third. The hundred thousand for development we'd get at the bank, on my notes, because I was president and the biggest stockholder, with John Wes. as indorser. Then, to protect the bank accordin' to law, they said, we'd put the whole bunch o' stock—mine and their'n—into escrow in the hands of Judge Williams. When the notes was paid, the judge'd hand the stock back to us."
"Just a moment," interrupted Brouillard. "Did you sign those notes personally, or as president of the new company?"
"That's where they laid for me," said the old man shamefacedly. "We made the money turn before we was a company—while we was waitin' for the charter."
"Of course," commented Brouillard. "And they rushed you into it on the plea of saving time. But you say the stock was to be released when the notes were paid—what was to happen if they were not paid?"
"Right there is where John Wes.'s ten-dollar-a-bottle sody-pop stuff we was soppin' up must 'a' foolished me plumb silly; I don't just rightly recollect what the judge was to do with the stock if I fell down. I know it was talked all 'round Robin Hood's barn, up one side and down the other, and they made it look like I couldn't slip up if I tried to. And they made the borray at the bank look fair enough, too."
"Well, why wasn't it fair?" Brouillard wanted to know.
"Why, sufferin' Moses! don't you see? It hadn't ort to 've been needed. They was to put in a hundred thousand, and they wasn't doin' it. It figgered out this-a-way in the talk: they said, what's the use o' takin' the money out o' one pocket and puttin' it into the other? Let the bank carry the development loan and let the mine pay it. Then we could even up when it come to the dividends."
"So it amounts to this: you have given them a clean third of the 'Susan' for the mere privilege of borrowing one hundred thousand dollars on your own paper. And if you don't pay, you lose the remaining two thirds as well."
"That's about the way it stacks up to a sober man. Looks like I needed a janitor to look after my upper story, don't it? And I reckon mebby I do."