Mr. Robin laughed too, but only for a moment. “You don't know what a market it is, Mr. Budd. You don't know the homes of the poor, as I do.”
“But they have no money now.”
“They will get these small coins; and they will starve themselves and save — maybe to pay off a mortgage, maybe to buy a cow, or for a girl's dowry — such things as the peasants hope for. A bank is something sacred, it comes next to the crucifix; it teaches virtue, it is a witness and a reminder; the family that has it has something to live for. If there is peace, on next Christmas Day a million peasant women will give such banks to their children.”
“Christmas is a long way off, Mr. Robin.”
“You would not say that if you knew the novelty trade. Next summer we start to travel for our Christmas trade; and meantime I am finding the agents, I am sending them the samples and the circulars and the contracts; and all that I have to get ready. If I have a couple of hundred thousand banks that have cost me only a few cents each, I know I can sell them, and just where and how. And that is only one small deal, Mr. Budd. I will find a hundred bargains, and a use for each.”
“Have you thought about storage costs?”
“In the old city where I live are hundreds of warehouses, and no longer will they be full of goods when ships can go directly into Germany. They are on the canals, and goods come by the rivers or the sea — there is cheap transport to every part of the world. ALL that is needed is cash to buy — and to do it quickly, before someone else snaps up the bargain. I am so certain of the profits that I am offering to go fifty-fifty with you; I will give all my time and experience, I will do the work, and pay you half the profits. We will form a company, and your name will be kept out of it — I know that you do not want your name in small business like this. It will be a quick thing — in a year it will be over, and I would not dare to tell you how many hundred percent we will clear, because then you would be sure that I must be a swindler.”
IX
Lanny watched these two traders, smoking their cigars and knocking the ashes into the dregs of their coffee cups; he amused himself trying to guess what was going on in their minds. He himself kept silent, knowing that this wasn't his job. He personally would have been willing to trust the Jewish dealer, because he liked him. But Robbie didn't like Jews; his view was that of society people who don't want them in their fraternities or clubs. Robbie would sometimes make playful remarks based upon the assumption that Jews went into bankruptcy freely, and set fire to their warehouses and stores when the season became slack. “Fur stores burn in February” — all that sort of thing.
Would Mr. Robin be aware of that attitude? Lanny guessed that this shrewd fellow knew everything that concerned himself and his affairs; he would anticipate the attitude of fashionable gentiles listening to his business “spiel” and watching the play of his hands and shoulders.