“In regard to the shares to be held by directors, I would suggest five hundred,” began Mr. Crane.
“Das ist gut; dat shall be him,” muttered Mr. Vondenthaler.
“I’ll not object to that same,” exclaimed the Captain, “if you leave a thundering wide margin for the shares we may retain for our friends; for, to be plain with ye, gentlemen, my best friend in the world, and that’s Terence O’Brien, means to go in for this business in real earnest; and if I can’t invest capital that will take five figures to write, bedad I’d rather be out of it altogether.”
“Ten thousand, which I presume is the sum you hint at, Captain O’Brien, could not I think be objected to,” observed Mr. Bonus Nugget, as if £10,000 were a mere cab-fare.
“Mais oui, we will all demand so much as him, he is so small; n’est-ce pas, mon cher?” interposed Monsieur Guillemard, favouring Horace D’Almayne with a grimace indicative of the tenderest affection.
“If I might be allowed—if I might venture to suggest,” began Mr. Crane, timidly, “I would propose that, at so early a stage in the affair, no limit should be placed to the number of shares the directors may hold. I am, ahem! a—myself I am a man who has been tolerably fortunate in my commercial speculations, and might be disposed—in fact, I may say I am disposed—to embark an amount of capital considerably above the sum lately mentioned by Captain O’Brien.”
“Sir! your sentiments do you honour! Sir, I’m proud of your acquaintance; you’re not one to do things by halves, I see. I like plain speaking—the speculation’s a davlish good speculation, or you would not find such men as Mr. Vondenthaler and my friend Bonus Nugget in it. We’re going to give our valuable time and trouble to work the thing ship-shape; and bedad, sir, if we’re not to profit by it, I’d jist like to know who should!”
“Yes; that is all very well for you, O’Brien,” observed Mr. Nugget, speaking with an air of authority; “but I happen to know a thing or two. Mr. Crane, gentlemen, is—I say it to his face—able to go down to his bankers, and draw a cheque, which they will honour, for more money than any two of us could raise between us. Very well; now it’s no news to any of us to be told that ‘money is power.’ But if Mr. Crane thinks, because he can embark his £50,000,—or I believe I might raise the figure as high again without overstating the matter,—that he is going to ride rough-shod over the practical men who have started this scheme, and to take the lion’s share of the enormous profits that he is sharp enough to foresee must accrue, I for one beg to tell him I won’t stand it.”
“Ya! ya! das ist gut! Ve have not started to be shod rough by Cranes! Herr Bonus he knows a thing! das ist recht und gut! Ve vill not be roughed by Cranes!” muttered Mr. Vondenthaler through the thick hay-coloured moustachios invariably worn by Belgian capitalists.
“Mais oui, you have reasons, Monsieur Vondenthaler, mon ami: but if you yourself have mistaken, n’est-ce pas?” interposed Monsieur Guillemard, eagerly. “I am assured Monsieur Crane is not un homme comme ça; he shall not se promener a cheval—vot you call ride on a horseback ovaire us du tout; au contraire, zies grate skim whom we are zie undairetakers for, shall advance herself on his capital for zie goods of us all. Voyez vous, cher Monsieur Bonous!”