I thought I should sink through the floor when this met my eyes, and I was appalled when I read on and realized how many thousands of people would believe the plausible tale of villany The Gad had managed to construct out of a few innocent facts. Noah's plan was in brief stated to be a scheme for the impoverishment of innocent investors, by selling them shares of stock, both common and preferred, in his International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company. According to the writer of this infamous libel, immediately the vessel was finished at a cost of about $79.50, it was Noah's intention to incorporate his enterprise with himself as President and Treasurer, and Shem, Ham and Japhet as his Board of Directors, the capital being placed at the enormous sum of $100,000,000.
"This capitalization," said the exposure, "will be divided into fifty millions of preferred stock, and fifty millions of common, all of which will be sold to the public at par; subject to a first mortgage already existing, and held by Noah and his sons, which it is intended to foreclose, and the company reorganized, the minute the $100,000,000 of the public's money has passed into the treasurer's hands.
"Talk about your deluge!" continued the article. "This is indeed the biggest thing in deluges this little old world has ever known. The Preadamite Steel Trust is a dewdrop alongside of it. Noah gets the salvage, but the people get the water!"
Such was the attitude of the public toward my son's great project, and all I could ever get him to say in reply to these and other equally nefarious charges was, while he had intended to have quarters for every kind of beast on board his boat, he had now definitely decided to leave out Mastodons, Muck-Rakers and Yellow Journalists!
Verily there seems to be some foundation to the belief that devotion to the life of a seaman makes a man callous to assaults on his personal reputation!