"That I wouldn't deny at all," Jassy rejoined. "Aber who would you find stands willing he should invest in Volkovisk's music a thousand dollars? Would he ever get back his thousand dollars even, let alone any profits?"
"It's a speculation, I admit," Max commented; "but you take Richard Strauss, for instance, and if some feller would staked Strauss to a thousand dollars capital when he needed it, understand me, not alone he would got his money back but if we would say, for example, the thousand dollars represents a ten-per-cent interest in Strauss' business, to-day yet the feller would be worth his fifty thousand dollars, because everybody knows what a big success Strauss made. Actually the feller must got orders at least six months ahead. Why for one song alone they pay him a couple thousand dollars!"
"Well," Jassy asked, "if you feel there's such a future in it why don't you raise a thousand dollars and finance Volkovisk?"
Max laughed aloud.
"Me—I couldn't raise nothing," he said; "aber you—you are feeling sore at yourself because you are writing popular stuff. Here's a chance for you to square yourself with your art. Why don't you help Volkovisk out? All you got to do is to find out who is loaning this here Benson the ten thousand dollars and get him to stake Volkovisk to a thousand."
Jassy tapped the table with his fingers.
"For that matter I could say the same thing to you," he declared. "You consider Volkovisk's talent so high as a business proposition, Merech, why don't you get some business man interested—one of your bosses, for instance?"
He rose from his chair as he spoke and placed ten cents on the table as his share of the evening's expenses.
"Think it over," he said; and long after he had closed the door behind him Max sat still with his hands in his trousers pocket and pondered the suggestion.
"After all," he mused as Marculescu began to turn out the lights one by one, "why shouldn't I—the very first thing in the morning?"