“Your language, Mr. Schwartzbrod, seems to have become tinged with the intemperance of the panic. I did not intend to refer to the past at all. You set the subject of our conversation the moment you entered the room, and I merely followed your lead, and strove to remove a misapprehension from your mind as to the original causes of things. No, my invitation to this house had quite another object. I shall not strain your credulity by asking you to believe that when I heard four days ago you were bankrupt, a feeling of slight regret was uppermost in my mind. I don’t like to see people suffer.”
The old man laughed, like the grating of a file on a saw.
“Of course I don’t ask you to believe that, and should be sorry to put such a strain on whatever belief in human nature you may possess, so don’t trouble any further about my statements, which you doubtless regard as absurd. Have you got any money left?”
“Not a stiver.”
“How about your six colleagues; are they cleaned out?”
“Even if they had money, they would not intrust a penny of it to me. You talk about my belief in human nature. Well, the faith in human nature in me is gone. I have done my best for them, and lost every point in the game, together with their money and my own.”
“Very well, Mr. Schwartzbrod, we must rehabilitate you. I possess what I think is the finest red automobile in London, and my chauffeur would add dignity to the equipage of an emperor. I will lend you chauffeur and car for the day, and if you drive through the streets round the bank for a few hours, those who turn up their noses at you will be lifting their hats instead.”
“I suppose you think that’s funny, Lord Stranleigh. You wish to exhibit me in your motor car after the fashion of the Romans parading their captives in their chariots when defeated. I don’t know why I came here, but I warn you I did not come to be insulted.”
“Of course not. It is incredible you should imagine it possible for me to insult a man in my own house. Now listen to me. My banker has asked as a favor that I should not draw any checks upon him until this flurry is over. Of course, if I did draw a check, he would honor it, but I have given him my promise. Under the back seat of this automobile I have hid away eight bars of gold, each weighing a hundred pounds or thereabout, and valued probably at five thousand pounds sterling. That means forty thousand pounds in exactly the commodity all London is howling for at the present moment. I don’t know precisely what the position of a bankrupt is, and it may be possible that your creditors can take away those bars of gold if they knew you possessed them, therefore trade in my name if you like; act as my agent. Go in this automobile to your bank, and get the porters to carry the bullion inside. There they will weigh it, and estimate its value, giving you the credit for the amount. Now, pay strict attention to me. Buy the value of those bars in stocks which you know possess some intrinsic worth, but are now far beneath their proper level. Hold those stocks until the first of January, when you will see begin the greatest boom that London has ever known. I advise you to sell as soon after New Year’s day as possible, because stocks are likely to shoot up to a higher point than they may be able later to maintain. This gold comes from a mine which was once in your possession, and my immature puppy mind is so absurdly constructed that I have felt uneasily in your debt for a long time, and now am glad of the opportunity to allow you a share in the prosperity of the mine, if you will be obliging enough to accept it.”
The truculence of the ruined financier immediately fell from him at the mention of gold, and in its place came the old cringing manner, with a flattering endeavor to mitigate the harshness of his former remarks, a change of manner that made the young man shrink a little farther from him, and hurriedly end the interview.