"Mining matters are outside of my field; I do not understand them. You should call on some of our leading capitalists and speculators with your specimens. They will look into the affair, and if there is anything in it, will make you a proposal. On one point only let me offer a word of advice. Do not insist upon too much money down to begin with. You cannot expect them to subscribe a capital merely to hand it over to you. Show your willingness to take the bulk of your price in shares and you will get something very handsome indeed. So soon as the stock is all taken up, the shares become saleable, rising and falling in sympathy with public talk, long before any of the ore has been got to market, and you may be able to sell out at good prices very soon, if the scheme happens to strike the general fancy. For myself, as I have said, mining is not in my line, but I will do what I can not to embarrass you. I will take your note at ninety days for that unpaid interest, and as for the mortgage due next summer, we will talk of it when the time comes, and, meanwhile, we shall have time to see how the mining enterprise will prosper--Sim!"
Sim appeared, received orders to draw a promissory note for Mr. Rouget to sign, and withdrew, followed by that gentleman seemingly let down from the self-satisfied attitude of feeling in which he had entered--meeker, much meeker, but yet more hopeful for his own future than he would have felt, perhaps, if his demands had been complied with.
CHAPTER VII.
[IN THE RUE DES BORGNES].
The Banque Sangsue Prêtense occupied the chief part of its own cut-sandstone building on the Rue des Borgnes, the remainder, conspicuous in brass and plate glass, being the offices of Ralph Herkimer and Son, general operators, who were "in" railways, in minerals, in finance, in whatever promised to turn an honest penny. A smart man was that Ralph Herkimer, his neighbours said, who tried everything, and made everything pay. Always early in the field, and getting the cream of the speculation, while other men were pondering its prospects, and then putting off on them the closely skimmed milk which must always be got rid of--the shells, which the oyster-eater must make somebody carry away if he would not be smothered in the ruins of his former banquets.
The bank was an enterprise originated by Ralph himself--evolved by him when his ambition had found the local share list too narrow a field. Why should he labour, he thought, to pull strings, and not always efficient ones, to make established stocks jump up and down as he desired, when he was now strong enough to build an automaton of his own, which should obey his wishes without fail, and without outside interference? His friends wondered at his choice of a name so little calculated to invite business; but he was of opinion that that was of little moment. Wherever there is money to lend, the borrowers will scent it out, as flies discover a honey-pot, by instinct. It was small investors whom he wished to attract, those who, having little money, are eager to get much interest. In the general increase of wealth, and the fall in rates of interest, these worthy people find their expenses increasing while their incomes are falling off, and the image of a lending bloodsucker, while unattractive to the borrower, who nevertheless submits to the lancet, is pleasing rather than otherwise to those who would share the spoils.
Ralph was president and manager of the institution, "filling two offices for one salary," as he sometimes said, "in his desire that the bank should do well;" and benefiting largely in many ways, as he did not say, by the unsupervised control which thus fell into his hands. The bank parlour and his own private office were only divided by a wall, and they were connected by a very private door between the dressing rooms pertaining to the two apartments, so that the clerks and the business of both establishments were at all times under the master's eye, the master was virtually in both places at the same time, and he could at any time be in the other if an undesirable visitor was to be evaded.
Ralph was in his office. He had been presiding at a meeting of the St. Laurence, Gattineau and Hudson's Bay Railway, consisting of himself and a couple of others, at which they had granted a contract to construct another fifty miles running north. They had also arranged to hold a demonstration on the occasion, with speeches and champagne, to be followed on the morrow by placing a quantity of the stock on the market. As soon as he was left alone he took from a drawer some specimens of plumbago brought from lands of his which the road he had been assisting to place under construction would open up. Lumps of lustrous purple blackness, like a raven's plumage, which he lingered admiringly, muttering to himself, "They will bring value soon now, but we must wait till the road is nearly built. If they were brought out now they would be half forgot before we could take people up to look at them. Revivals generally fall flat, people just remember enough of what they heard before to make it harder to interest them with it again. We must wait till just before the road is going to open, and then spring tracts A and B upon the public. Rich deposit, rare mineral, joint stock company, limited liability, unlimited profit, and so forth. When these are disposed of, and the company is just going to work upon them, tracts C and D can be discovered to be as rich as the others, and offered likewise. That will be enough to attempt for some years. By the time C and D are in working order, the owners of A and B will be doing something foolish, and having discouragement, and then it will be no use to offer E and F for ever so long. Yet it would not improve prospects to offer all at once, it would only bring down the value and send other people prospecting. We can then fall back on the phosphate beds," and he glanced at some other specimens in his drawer. "By that time the second fifty miles of rail will be built, and we will be able to issue debentures. Our stockholders will have had no dividends, so they will be sure to take the bonds and new preference shares to get something out of the old enterprise--no operation so popular as throwing good money after bad--and then, to secure traffic for the far-away end of the line, they will buy my phosphate beds, and work them. That will answer well enough. I shall have unloaded the last of my railway shares ere then. I wonder why the contractors agreed to take so much stock in payment? They must have more faith in our enterprise than I have, or can they have got hold of tracts G, K, L, and Q? But they have never named plumbago once. Can that be slyness? In any case they want watching. I'll keep my eyes peeled."
A card was brought in by a clerk with a timid--"Would like to see you, sir."
"I told you, Stinson, to say I was engaged, whoever called."