“Vy, you are, I guess, Mr. Vesblock, vot?” said the tall man, speaking with a German accent.
“That is my name,” I replied. I did not recognise the man; but his accent was familiar.
“Yess, yess, you are Mr. Vesblock. You remember, you have some chess blayed viss me, aboudt a year ago, berhaps?”
I remembered the foreigner with whom I had played chess, at a tea room where chess fiends gathered.
“My name is Leidman,” he continued. “I bring viss me Mr. Skillmore, who vould Mr. Cramer see a little aboudt a quite large idea vich he hass gott.”
I asked my visitors to be seated, and explained that Mr. Cramer’s return was very uncertain. I learned from them that they owned a patent, a very brilliant idea for a fire extinguisher which they desired to exchange for cash. Their scheme was a very simple and every-day one. To form a provisional company, into which a few men put very little money, then with the aid of good names, and a convincing prospectus, float a very large company, wherein the original promoters would get a great deal of stock for very little money, the small investing public taking all the risk of the venture. In these things the original promoters always make money, whether the subsequent stock-holders do or do not. The affair looked promising to me, but I had to admit that I had no money. This information was enough for Skillmore and Leidman, and they went on their way, while I turned again to my fur skins.
Among my friends was one Walter, the dearest, softest, best-natured and most believing chap I ever knew. He was nearly as big a fool as I was in the way of having an unbounded faith in humanity and the future. He was honest and straightforward himself, and of a sympathetic nature, and gave everybody credit for having the feelings he had, and for being governed by the same motives that moved him. He was quite as incapable of making money as I was, but, being wealthy, he could afford to be foolish, while I could not. He was one of several sons who had inherited very comfortable fortunes from a diligent and business-like father. He was in business, but only as a pastime. His partners restrained him from following his natural inclination to run an eleemosynary institution under the guise of business.
I dreamed much about the Skillmore patent, and at length mentioned the matter to Walter, who was immediately interested, not so much for himself, or what money he might make in the business, as for me. A few days after I had seen Leidman and Skillmore, they reappeared for the second time. They were evidently desperately hard up, and had not met with success in their search for money. After looking further into the matter I agreed to lay it before Walter, and when they left me I had a model of the patent, and an armful of sundry documents relative thereto.
My intentions towards my friends, acquaintances and other creditors have always been of the best and most honourable; but somehow or other I have never been able to give them anything but trouble.
Walter looked upon the patent and it seemed good to him. He was then presented to the German and Skillmore, which, of course, was the end of him. We started a factory in a small way, and the thing still seemed good to us all. Then the German began to see things large, and proposed to take out patents in every civilised country, and go to London and promote a gigantic company, to handle our idea the world over. If at this time I had listened to a still small voice I sometimes hear, I would have kept out of this thing, and held Walter back; but it looked very tempting. The fact that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain befogged my judgment, and besides, I could not know (and did not) that the matter would not turn out well for all. I only felt it, without any apparent cause.