“There are about to begin international movements of the utmost importance,” Allison told him. “There is a war scheduled for next month, which is likely to embroil the whole of Europe.”
The banking gentleman nodded his head almost imperceptibly.
“Mr. Chisholm advised me that your sources of information are authentic,” he stated. “What you tell me is most deplorable.”
“Quite,” agreed Allison. “I am informed that the company you represent and manage has the practical direction of the entire banking system of Europe, with the exception of one country. Besides this, you have powerful interests, amounting very nearly to a monopoly, in Egypt, in India, in Australia, and in a dozen other quarters of the globe.”
“You seem to be accurately informed,” admitted the banking gentleman, studying interestedly the glowing coals in Allison’s fireplace.
“If I can show you how a certain attitude towards the international complications which are about to ensue will be of immense advantage to your banking system, as well as to the interests I represent, I have no doubt that we can come to a very definite understanding.”
The solidly jowled banking gentleman studied the glowing coals for two minutes.
“I should be interested in learning the exact details,” he finally suggested.
Allison drew some sheets of paper from an indexed file, and spread them before the financier. It was largely a matter of credits in the beginning, extensions here, curtailments there, and all on a scale so gigantic that both gentlemen went over every item with the imaginative minds of poets. In every line there was a vista of vast empires, of toppling thrones, of altered boundaries, of such an endless and shifting panorama of governmental forces, that the minds of men less inured to the contemplation of commercial and political revolutions might have grown fagged. On the third page, the solid banking gentleman, who had not made a nervous motion since his grandfather was a boy, looked up with a start.
“Why, this affects my own country!” he exclaimed. “It affects our enormous shipping interests, our great transportation lines, our commercial ramifications in all parts of the globe! It cripples us on the land and wipes us from the sea! It even affects my own government!”