"In going over the contract, I found that the options expire on July first, instead of August first, as he said. It was then I called you up, for the whole scheme hit me like a flash. Don't you see it? If I worked for him, I'd draw a salary, and a good one—and nothing more. But if I should interest sufficient capital to step in on the first day of July when those options expire, and buy up the whole tract, where would McNabb be?"
Orcutt tapped thoughtfully upon his desk pad with the tip of his pencil. "I wonder," he muttered aloud, more to himself than to Wentworth, "I wonder if John has made a slip at last?"
"That is just what he has done! And he is so cocksure of his ground that he didn't even glance at the papers to refresh his memory—I doubt if he has looked at them since he made the deal."
The banker eyed the younger man shrewdly. "And in case I should interest myself in the proposition to the extent of organizing the capital to swing the deal, what would you expect out of it?"
"A share in the business, and a salary of ten thousand a year."
"You don't want much!" exclaimed Orcutt.
"Not any more than you could well afford to give me. You don't realize what a big thing this is—it's going to take a lot of capital to swing it."
"About how much?"
"You'll have to get your figures on the paper mill from someone that knows more about it than I do. The pulp-wood will cost, I imagine, somewhere between six and ten dollars an acre. McNabb's options call for purchase at five dollars, and he told me he could not renew at that figure. But even at ten dollars, there is a mint in it. You will have to pay down ten percent of the purchase price in cash."
Orcutt whistled. "Ten percent of the purchase price, at say, ten dollars, would be half a million. Besides the cost of the mill and the interest on four million and a half!"