"That's so," said Fred reflectively and for a moment he was lost in thought. Then, as is his wont, he suddenly began to radiate the heat of a new inspiration. "I've got it!" he cried. "Listen here. You've only put half your capital into this business. You've got in the vault—how much is it? Twenty-five thousand in securities?"
I gaped at him in terror.
"Well," he ran on, "suppose you bring them over, deposit them with Sampson and Company against that much in ad interim certificates—or else borrow money on 'em. Don't you see?" he slapped his knee gleefully, "then we have those certificates on hand. We can pass 'em right out to fellows like Visconti, who come straight across, and so go on with the game. When we're through, all you've done is to lend yourself—the firm—twenty-five thousand in securities, given us a big lift and you put your securities back in the vault. Don't you see that?"
"No."
"Isn't that clear?" he asked in an injured tone.
"Clear as pitch," I answered truthfully.
"Never mind," he clapped me smartly on the shoulder. "You go bring your securities over. I'll make it clear. Of course you'll draw interest on the loan you're making the firm."
And like the mule I am, I dully complied. And now we are laboring on with the sale of the million in foreign bonds to people the majority of whom have not a notion whether Roumania is the capital of Rome or a Central American republic. "L'insuccess," declares Balzac, "nous accuse toujours la puissance de nos pretentious." But as I had no pretensions in this business, loss and failure would be doubly humiliating. What then, I ask myself again, am I doing in that galley? Meantime what remains of my slender possessions is hypothecated to the pretensions I had never entertained.
I have been house-hunting in the suburbs. It is idle for me to try to find either a house or an apartment in any region that would be suitable for both my means and the children in New York. So for two Saturdays and two Sundays I have been trudging the dreariness of the less expensive suburbs in quest of a house.
"What!" exclaimed Fred, when he heard of it, "not going to leave the Shoe?"