A country where men work for nothing? Perhaps, when men are young. Not a country where elderly men in the City work for nothing. Mr. Cassilis had no intention whatever of devoting his time and experience to the furtherance of Mr. Beck's affairs. Not at all: if the thoughts in his mind had been written down, they would have shown a joy almost boyish in the success of his morning's visit.
"The Isle of Man Company," we should have read, "is floated. That £20,000 was a lucky coup. I nearly missed my chances with the silver mine; I ought to have known that he was not likely to jump at such a bait. A quarter of a million of money to dispose of, and five hundred thousand pounds a year. And mine the handling of the whole. Never before was such a chance known in the City."
A thought struck him. He turned, and went back hastily to Gilead Beck's rooms.
"One word more. Mr. Beck, I need hardly say that I do not wish to be known as your adviser at all. Perhaps it would be well to keep our engagements a secret between ourselves."
That of course was readily promised.
"Half a million a year!" The words jangled in his brain like the chimes of St. Clement's. "Half a million a year! And mine the handling."
He spent the day locked up in his inner office. He saw no one, except the secretary, and he covered an acre or so of paper with calculations. His clerks went away at five; his secretary left him at six; at ten he was still at work, feverishly at work, making combinations and calculating results.
"What a chance!" he murmured prayerfully, putting down his pen at length. "What a blessed chance!"
Mr. Gilead Beck would have congratulated himself on the disinterested assistance of his unprofessional adviser had he known that the whole day was devoted to himself. He might have congratulated himself less had he known the thoughts that filled the financier's brains.
Disinterested? How could Mr. Cassilis regard any one with money in his hand but as a subject for his skill. And here was a man coming to him, not with his little fortune of a few thousand pounds, not with the paltry savings of a lifetime, not for an investment for widows and orphans, but with a purse immeasurable and bottomless, a purse which he was going to place unreservedly in his hands.