“All right. The investment, as you can see, is safe,” Puchol continued. “I would put my fortune in it, if I had one. There are a lot of newspapers bought; all the financial reviews are predicting a rise.”
The clerk took out a folded review and handed it to Cæsar, who read:
“We are assured that the plan of the Spanish Minister of Finance must make foreign securities rise considerably. Northerns will follow the same path, and there are indications that their rise will be very rapid and will cover several points.”
“The field is going to be covered with corpses,” said Cæsar.
Señor Puchol burst out laughing; Cæsar invited him to dine with him, and gave him a sumptuous dinner with good wines.
Puchol was absolutely vain, and he boasted of his triumphs on the Bourse; it was he who guided Recquillart in the dealings he had with Spaniards, in which they had plucked various incautious persons.
“How much will the Minister’s operation amount to?” Cæsar asked him.
“Nobody can prevent his making three hundred thousand, at the least. With the increase he has ordered you to make, it will come to six hundred thousand. We will gobble up the two points it falls.”
“I don’t know if there may have been some new order while I was in the train coming to Paris,” said Cæsar.
“No, his operation is all arranged,” replied Puchol, and he got out a note-book and consulted it. “It will be like giving away bread. We are going to sell ten millions of Foreigns and five hundred Northerns on the seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the twentieth.”