“It’s a crude maneuver, so crude that, as you’ve nothing but suspicions to go upon, it would be wiser not to mention them to anybody else,” he said. “After all, the jumpers may have been acting on their own account.”
“You believe they were?”
Stirling smiled. “I naturally don’t know enough about the matter to decide; but, in a general way, when I come across anything that seems to the discredit of any gentleman of importance, or big combine with which I may happen to be at variance, I keep it judiciously quiet until I have the proofs in hand. I find it an excellent rule.” Then he added in a suggestive manner: “You probably have had another rather more favorable offer since those jumpers failed?”
Weston admitted that this was the case and said that he had ignored the offer. He further stated that, as he had found the mine, he meant to keep it until he could dispose of it on satisfactory terms.
“That,” said Stirling, dryly, “is a very natural wish, but one now and then has some trouble in carrying out views of that kind. I’ve seen your prospectus. Any applications for your shares?”
“They’re by no means numerous.” And a flush of anger crept into Weston’s face. “If that were the result of a depressed market or of investors’ indifference I shouldn’t mind so much, but we are evidently being subjected to almost every kind of unwarranted attack.”
“Any mode of attack’s legitimate in this kind of deal, and there’s a rather effective one your friends don’t seem to have tried yet. Quite sure it wouldn’t be wiser to make what terms you can and let them have the mine?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t considered the wisdom of the course I mean to adopt. Anyway, it’s a simple one. If those people want that mine they must break us first.”
“Well,” Stirling said, “I guess if I were you I’d allot very few of those shares to what one might call general applicants. Locate them among your friends and Wannop’s clerks.”
“There are uncommonly few general applicants, and my friends are not the kind of men who have money to invest. The same thing probably applies to Wannop’s clerks. It’s quite certain that nobody connected with the Grenfell Consolidated could make them a present of the shares.”