They both laughed upon this, and Glidden capitulated. Within forty-eight hours Wix had his four directors, all ex-traders who would rather make money than gamble, and each willing to put in a thousand dollars. As soon as they were incorporated they paid Wix his hundred shares for the old business, and that developing financier started out to sell the balance of the stock, on commission.
It was an easy task, for his fellow-directors did all the advertising for him. Practically all he had to do was to deliver the certificates and collect. It was while he was engaged in this pleasant occupation that he went to Gilman with a blank certificate for twenty-five shares.
“I think you said, Gilman, that if you could get your remaining twenty-five hundred dollars out of the La Salle you’d be satisfied, didn’t you?”
“Satisfied!” gasped Gilman. “Just show me how it can be done!”
“Here’s twenty-five hundred dollars’ worth of stock in the new company I’ve incorporated from the old one, and it’s selling—at par—like beer at a German picnic.”
“That would ruin me,” Gilman protested in a panic. “You must sell it for me or I’m gone. Why, Wix, this new state bank inspection law has just gone into effect, and there may be an inspector at the bank any day.”
“I see,” said Wix slowly, looking him straight in the eye, “and they may object to Smalley’s having loaned you that money on insufficient security. Well, I’ll see what I can do.”
Nevertheless, he let Gilman’s stock lie while he sold the treasury shares, and, the market being still so eager that it seemed a shame not to supply it, he sold his own!
There was now time for Gilman, and Wix, with an artistic eye for dramatic propinquities, presented his proposition to no less a person than Smalley, grinning, however, as he went in.