"My dear fellow-" said Feccles.
" In fact, I assure you," said I. " Of course, it was all very well when I was a bachelor. Simple tastes, you know. But this little lady makes all the diffrence.
" Why, certainly," replied Feccles, very seriously. "Yes, I see that perfectly. In fact, if I may say so, it's really a duty to yourself and your heirs, to put yourself on Easy Street. But money's been frightfully tight since the war as you know. What with the collapse in the forei6 exchanges, the decrease in the purchasing power of money, and the world's gold all locked up in Washington, things are pretty awkward. But then, you know, it's just that sort of situation which provides opportunities to a man with real brains. Victorian prosperity made us all rich without our knowing anything about it or doing anything for it."
" Yes," I admitted, " the gilt edges seem to have come off the gingerbread securities."
" Well, look here, Pendragon," he said, pulling his chair half round so as to face me squarely, and making his points by tapping his Corona on a plate, " the future lies with just two things as far as big money's concerned. One's oil, and the other is cotton. Now, I don't know a thing about cotton, but I'll give any sperm whale that ever blew four thousand points in twelve thousand up about oil, and you can lay your shirt on the challenger."
" Yes, I see that," I replied brightly. " Of course, I don't know the first thing about finance; but what you say is absolutely common sense. And I've got a sort of flair for these things, I believe."
" Why, it's very curious you should say that," returned Feccles, as in great surprise. " I was thinking the same thing myself. We know you've got pluck, and that's the first essential in any game. And making money is the greatest game there is. But beside that, I've got a hunch that you've got the right kind of brain for this business. You're as shrewd as they make 'em, and you've got a good imagination. I don't mean the wild fancies that you find in a crank, but a good, wholesome, sound imagination."
In the ordinary way, I should have been embarrassed by so direct a compliment from a man who was so evidently in the know, a man who was holding his own with the brightest minds all over the world. But in my present mood I took it as perfectly natural.
Lou laughed in my ear. " That's right, Cockie, dear," she chirruped. " This is where you go right in and win. I've really got to have those pearls, you know."
" She's quite right," agreed Feccles. " When you're through with this honeymoon, come round with me, and we'll take our coats off and get into the game for all we're worth and a bit more, and when we come out, we'll have J. D. Rockefeller as flat as a pancake."
" Well," said I, " no time like the present. I don't want to butt in, but if I could be any use to you about this deal of yours--"
Feccles shook his head.
" No," he said, " this isn't the sort of thing at all. I'm putting my last bob into the deal; but it's a risky business atthe best, and I wouldn't take a chance on your dropping five thou' on the very first bet. Of course, it is rather a good thing if it comes off It
"Let's have the details, dear boy," I said, trying to feel like a business man bred in the bone.
" The thing itself's simple enough," said Feccles.
It's just a case of taking up an option on some wells at a place called Sitka. They used to be all right before the war-but in my opinion they were never properly developed. They haven't been worked ever since, and it might take all sorts of money to put them on the map again. But that's the smaller point. What I and my friends know and nobody else has got on to is that if we apply the Feldenberg process to the particular kind of oil that Sitka yields, we've got practically a world's monopoly of the highest class oil that exists. I needn't tell you that we can sell it at our own price."
I saw in a flash the magnificent possibilities of the plan.
" Of course, I needn't tell you to keep it as dark as a wolf's mouth," continued Feccles. " If this got out, every financier in Paris would buy the thing over our heads. I wouldn't have mentioned it to you at all except for two things. I know you're on the square
-that goes without saying; but the real point is this, that I told you I rather believe in the Occult."
" Oh, yes," cried Lou, "then, of course, you know King Lamus."
Feccles started as if he had received a blow in the face. For a moment he was completely out of countenance. It seemed as if he were going to say several things, and decided not to. But his face was black as thunder. It was impossible to mistake the meaning of the situation.
I turned to Lou with what I suppose was rather a nasty little laugh.
" Our friend's reputation," I said, " appears to have reached Mr. Feccles."
" Well," said Feccles, recovering himself with a marked effort, " I rather make a point of not saying anything against people, but as a matter of fact, it is a bit on the thick side. You seem to know all about it, so there's no harm in my saying the man's an unspeakable scoundrel."
All my hatred and jealousy surged up from the subconscious. I felt that if Lamus had been there I would have shot him like a dog on sight.
My old school-fellow skated away from the obnoxious topic.
"You didn't let me finish," he complained. "I was going to say I have no particular talent for finance and that sort of thing in the ordinary way, but I have an intuition that never lets me down-like the demon of Socrates, you remember, eh ? "
I nodded. I had some faint recollection of Plato.
" Well," said Feccles, tapping his cigar, with the air of a Worshipful Master calling the Lodge to order, " I said to myself when I met you last night, ! it's better to be born. lucky than rich, and there's a man who was bom lucky.'"
It was perfectly true. I had never been able to do anything of my own abilities, and after all I had tumbled into a reasonably good fortune.
"You've got the touch, Pen," he said, with animation. "Any time you're out of a job, I'll give you ten thousand a year as a mascot."
Lou and I were both intensely excited. We could hardly find the patience to listen to the details of our friend's plan. The figures were convincing; but the effect was simply to dazzle us. We had never dreamed of wealth on this scale.
I got the vision for the first time in my life of the power that wealth confers, and I realised equally for the first time how vast were my real ambitions.
The man was right, too, clearly enough, about my being lucky. My luck in the war had been prodigious. Then there was this inheritance, and Lou on the top of that ; and here I'd met old Feccles by a piece of absolute chance, and there was this brilliant investment. That was the word-he was careful to point out that it was not a speculation, strictly speaking-absolutely waiting for me.
We were so overjoyed that we could hardly grasp the practical details. The amount required was four thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds.
Of course, there was no difficulty in getting a trifle like that, but as I told Feccles, it would mean my selling out some beastly stock or something which might take two or three days. There was no time to lose ; because the option would lapse if it weren't taken up within the week, and it was now Wednesday.
However, Feccles helped me to draft a wire to Wolfe to explain the urgency, and Feccles was to call on Saturday at nine o'clock with the papers.
Meanwhile, of course, he wouldn't let me down, but at the same time he couldn't risk pulling off the coup of his life in case there was a hitch, so he would get a move on and see if he couldn't raise five thousand on his own somewhere else, in which case he'd let me have some of his own stock anyway. He wanted me in the deal if it was only for a sovereign, simply because of my luck.
So off he ran in a great hurry. Lou and I got a car and spent the afternoon in the Bois du Boulogne. It seemed as if the cocaine had taken hold of us with new force, or else it was the addition of the heroin.
We were living at the same terrific speed as on