“Unfortunately I am compelled. I cannot show any favour to you, or our association would at once be detected.”
And so, for half an hour, the two men haggled and bargained, until the General who, from the conversation, had, it seemed, got six thousand pounds out of a recent contract from army food, grew impatient and said:
“Well, it seems that we cannot do business. I am really sorry. But I have Menier, of Marseilles, coming to see me here at noon to-morrow. He will be a little more generous than yourself. I happen to know the large commissions which you recently paid in Turkey to secure the contract. So why strangle me—eh?”
“Exactly, m’sieur. But to supply army boots to Turkey and to Italy are quite different matters. To Turkey one can send any rubbish that will hang together—soles of millboard, if necessary—for with a little baksheesh anything will be passed. But in Rome you have your commission, remember, and those officers of yours cannot be bribed.”
“Perhaps it is as well,” laughed the General. “What I fear is that if I sign your contract my secretary will at once suspect commission, and make a demand upon me—as he did before—the worm!”
“Well, permit me to remark that the sum is a really respectable one, and if we pay it on receipt of the contract into an English bank to the account of the Countess Cioni, as before, it cannot be traced to you.”
“Ah yes. But my secretary is a very shrewd person. I would have to give him something—however small.”
Again the two men haggled, while Waldron knelt, holding his breath and listening to the corrupt bargain whereby the Italian Army were to be supplied with inferior German boots in order that His Excellency, the Minister of War, should profit. But in most European countries the same thing is done and winked at.
“If you are to have the contract, Herr Steinberg,” the General said decisively at last, “you must give me an extra half per cent. I will not sign it without.”
“Upon the whole amount?”