"And what sort of statement would you make of your own case if I were to dismiss all the miners to-morrow open the gates, and let the world in to see?"
"Pray do be calm, Ralph, and don't grow excited, I had almost said violent. You forget that I am only one of two. I can do nothing alone."
"I know it; but you can persuade your brother trustee, I believe, as I cannot. Besides, he will say, like you, that he is one of two; so I make sure of you before approaching him. Now, what do you say?--My Canadian interests are in a mess. I have washed my hands of those mines--I can ruin you, observe, if I like, without hurting myself--I am already deeply dipped in Pikes Peak and Montanas and I must throw in all the rest I have to save what is there already. My interests are across the lines now, and I mean to be there myself also. So you see I can have no personal interest in sparing you, and I have no doubt that Webb's fear of a criminal prosecution of the directors will come true."
"I am not a director."
"It would be proved that you attended the meetings and influenced the board in favour of every irregularity--and there are plenty of irregularities, I can tell you. The others will insist, you may depend upon it, on the pleasure of your company with them in the dock; and, for myself, I don't see why they shouldn't. I imagine that weak chest of yours will need at least six months to recuperate in Florida--but there will not be time for you to save your fortune and get away if you do not listen to reason----" "You force me to speak plainly," he added, as Jordan stopped short in his walk and dropped heavily upon a garden seat, deprived of strength to stand upright. His cigar had dropped from between his teeth, and he sat a mere black shadow in the dusk till Ralph, pulling his own smouldering spark, into brilliancy, bent near and saw how sickly pale his visage had become.
"What say you, Jordan? How are we to arrange?"
"It will take time to realize and gather in. The accounts, extending over eighteen years as they do, are voluminous and complicated; it will take time to make them up. You see it is nearly two years yet till the time for handing over the trust, so there has appeared to be no hurry so far; but it will take months to get the thing into shape."
"I see. And you know that within a week or two I shall be across the lines, and that it will be a couple of years at least before I shall care to revisit Canada. Now, really, my friend, do you take me for the sort of person it is worth while talking such slop to? Hand me the securities as they are; I am surely as well able to negotiate them as you can be."
"I could transfer you those mining shares, of course, if you wished it. Yes! That will simplify matters; part of them, I mean, the second part."
"Mining shares? Come now, that's a rum un. My uncle's estate don't hold a dollar's worth of them. You forget the transfer books lie in my office, and I could not have overlooked Considine's name either for himself or as trustee. Our company is not in his line. He knows too much and too little for that class of investment. But I see! and it is what I might have suspected from your sudden rise in the world, only that I did not think you could have got round Considine--I know I could not. I admire your management, Jordan. I really do, you must have finessed very cleverly to nobble old Cerberus like that! A good slice of the money has passed through your hands, we may infer; and, of course, as would happen with any one else--I don't blame you, mind--it has got a little confused and mixed up, as it were, amongst your own, which is natural; and I do not mind accommodating you as far as may be. We will take, say, half of your holding--the first half--and it to be sold before you disturb the rest. We will take it at par, and give you credit for it. What else will you give us?"