“Business is not done that way. It is a question to whom the property belongs,” he added meaningly.
“I see! Well, it belongs to me at present—”
“Let us say a hundred thousand—in cash, paid to you personally,” the banker interrupted hastily.
“You think you are bidding for stolen goods, eh, and can get them cheap?” Brainard suggested.
“Four hundred thousand marks is much money!”
“A whole lot of money—no question about that!” the young American remarked with a quizzical smile, thinking that ten dollars was more ready money than he had had, of his own, for many months. “But it isn’t enough!”
“Are you not ready for dinner?” the banker suggested genially. “We can have our dinner here and talk matters over quietly. I will explain.”
They dined at great leisure, while the banker gave Brainard his first lessons in corporation finance, with apt illustrations from the history of Krutzmacht’s enterprises. He explained how an individual or a corporation might be put into bankruptcy and yet be intrinsically very rich,—the spoil always going to the stronger in the struggle. He had ordered a magnum of champagne, and pressed the wine upon the young man with hospitable persistence; but Brainard felt that if he ever wanted to keep his head clear, this was the time, and he drank little. He suspected the banker’s geniality.
From finance the banker drifted to the topic of Krutzmacht himself. He told many stories of the old man, which showed his daring and his ability to take what he could get wherever he found it.
“He was always talking about that mine—the one in Arizona. He expected to make a very big fortune from it some day. It was to get money with which to develop his mine, I believe, that he went into all the other things,” Herr Schneider explained.