“Corbitt, must the gold held in reserve by the Bank of England be in actual sovereigns, or raw metal?”
“Either one or the other.”
“Suppose on the first of January the governor of the Bank of England were to announce that there are a hundred million pounds worth of gold in his vaults. What would be the effect on the country?”
“Stranleigh, there’s more in that question than perhaps you think. I have never been just absolutely certain that you are as ignorant as you pretend. Most men in the city would tell you that such an announcement might instantly relieve the crisis, but if nothing were said until the first of January, and the announcement made then, I am not sure but it would be almost as disastrous as the former panic. It would be like the sudden releasing of a powerful and compressed spring, and anything sudden and powerful is apt to disarrange machinery. I think the inevitable result would be the instant soaring of stocks to much beyond their actual value. That, then, would bring ruin to many of those that had been spared by the fall of stocks. We should have a very disturbed market until things subsided to their proper level. And now you will have to excuse me, Stranleigh. I must be off.”
The banker threw away the stub of his cigar, and marched out. Lord Stranleigh went over to one of the tables, and wrote several letters. Among them was a request for an interview at an early date sent to the governor of the Bank of England. Another was an order forwarded to Peter Mackeller in Cornwall. A third requested the honor of a meeting with Mr. Conrad Schwartzbrod. Then Stranleigh took the calendar of the dying year, and slowly counted the number of days remaining to its credit.
“I think there will be time enough,” he said to himself, as he completed the count.
Four days after the lesson he had received on the crisis Lord Stranleigh kept the first appointment he had made by meeting Schwartzbrod in the little business office of the town house. The young man was shocked at the appearance of the aged financier, and, much as he disliked him, could not but feel sorry for him. He seemed almost ten years older than when last they met. His face was haggard, drawn, pinched; his shoulders stooping under the increased burden which misfortune had laid upon them. The only unchanged feature was his eyes, and from them gleamed the baleful light of unconquerable hate.
“I received your letter from the club,” Schwartzbrod began. “I have come, you see, I have come. I am not afraid to meet you; you smooth, brainless sneak, you can do me no further harm. You have done your worst, and if you have called me here to triumph over me, I give you that pleasure, and freely acknowledge that you are the cause of all my misfortunes.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Schwartzbrod, but you are quite mistaken in what you say. The cause of your misfortune goes farther back than any action of mine. The beginning was on the day when you resolved to crush the Mackellers. They had helped you, father and son. They were innocent men, and honest. Each in his own way had assisted you to the possibility of almost unlimited wealth. That did not satisfy you. You determined to take from them their just compensation, and to fling them, paupers, into the gutter. It happened through one of those freaks of fate which keeps alive our faith in eternal justice, that the day you came to this resolve you were a doomed man.”
“That’s what you called me here to tell me, is it, you human poodle dog, you contemptible puppy, rich through the thefts of your ancestors.”