“Yes, I've got a live Markiss who works for me at ten quid a week, and a few extras. The other Directors get three hundred. This Lord Plowden is one of them—but I'll tell you more about him later on. Then there's Watkin, he's a small accountant Finsbury way; and Davidson, he's a wine-merchant who used to belong to a big firm in Dundee, but gets along the best way he can on a very dicky business here in London, now. And then there's General Kervick, awfully well-connected old chap, they say, but I guess he needs all he can get. He's started wearing his fur-coat already. Well, that's my Board. I couldn't join it, of course, till after allotment—that's because I'm the vendor, as they call it—but that hasn't interfered at all with my running the whole show. The Board doesn't really count, you know. It only does what I want it to do. It's just a form that costs me seventeen hundred a year, that's all.”
“Seventeen hundred a year,” she repeated, mechanically.
“Well, then we got out the prospectus, d'ye see. Or first, there were other things to be done. I saw that a good broker's name counted for a lot on a prospectus. I picked out one that I'd heard was reasonable—it'd been a splendid name if I could have got it—but he calmly said his price was two thousand pounds, all cash down—and I came away. Finally I got a fellow who hadn't done much of anything yet, and so wasn't so stiff about his figure. He agreed to take 500 pounds cash, and 2,000 in shares. It was God's luck that I hit on him, for he turned out, at the pinch, to be the one man in a million for me. But I'll tell you about him later. He's the Broker, mind; you mustn't forget him. Well, then, he and I got a Solicitor—he took 200 pounds cash, but he had to have 2,000 shares—and the firm of Auditors—they were 100 pounds cash and 1,000 shares. Every company has to have these people pasted on to it, by law. Oh yes, and then you must have your Bankers. You don't pay them anything, though, thank God! Well, then, there was the machinery complete, all ready to start. I took a handsome set of offices, and furnished them up to the nines—but that I was able to do pretty well on credit. You see, ready money was getting short.
“And now came the biggest pull of all. There was the press to be worked.”
He spoke as if there were no other papers in London but the financial journals.
“I didn't sleep much while that was being fixed up. You've got no more idea of what the press means, Louisa, than you have of—of a coil of snakes thawing out hungry in the spring. Why, if one blackmailer came to me, I swear a hundred did. They scared the life out of me, the first month or so. And then there's a swarm of advertising agents, who say they can keep these blackmailers off, if you'll make it worth their while. But they all wanted too much money for me—and for a while I was at my wits' ends. At last I got a fellow—he's not behaved so badly, all things considered—who had some sporting blood in his veins, and he was willing to do the whole thing for 5,000 pounds, if I could pay 1,500 pounds down, and the rest in shares. But that was just what I couldn't do, you see, so finally he took 1,000 pounds down and 5,000 in shares—and as I say he's done it tolerably well. There was one editor that I had to square personally—that is to say, 100 pounds cash—it had to be in sovereigns, for notes could be traced—and a call of 2,000 shares at par,—he's the boss pirate that everybody has to square—and of course there were odd ten-pound notes here and there, but as a rule I just opened the door and fired the black-mailers out. The moment a fellow came in, and handed me his card, and said he had proofs of two kinds of articles in his pocket, one praising me, one damning me, I told him to go and see my advertising agent, and if he wouldn't do that, then to go to hell. That's the way you've got to talk in the City,” he added, as if in apologetic explanation.
Louisa looked impassively at her brother. “Oh, I've heard the expression as far west as the Strand,” she remarked.
“Well, then came the issue. That was last Saturday. You saw the prospectus in Saturday morning's papers, and in the weeklies. The list was to be kept open, it said, till Wednesday morning—that was yesterday. That is to say, during all that time, people could apply for shares.”
“Which they didn't do—according to your account,” the sister suggested, dryly.
Thorpe passed his fingers through his roughened hair, and eyed her with a momentary quizzical gleam in his eye. Then he became serious again. The recollection of what he was now to narrate brought a frown to his brows.
“On Tuesday afternoon,” he began, with portentous deliberation—“Or no, first I must explain something. You see, in bringing out a company, you can't put up too stout a bluff. I mean, you've got to behave as if you were rolling in wealth—as if everything was coming your way, and fortunes were to be made by fastening to you. I don't know that it often fools anybody very much, but it's part of the game, and you must play it. Well, accordingly, my Broker goes on 'change Saturday morning, and has his jobber shout out that he'll buy 'Rubber Consols'—that's what our shares are called on the street—at an eighth premium; that is to say, he offered to buy for twenty-two-and-six what we were offering to the public for twenty shillings. Of course, you see, the object of that was to create the impression that there was a regular God-almighty rush for our shares. As I say, I don't know whether that ever fooled anybody—but at least there was the chance that it might start up some dealing in the shares—and all those things help. Besides, you got the sales noticed in the papers, and that might start up applications from the public. Well, the Broker bought 1,000 shares this way on Saturday. On Monday, when it might still be possible to change the luck, he bought 3,500 more, still at that premium of an eighth. He bought some Tuesday morning too—say 4,000. Well, now, keep those figures in your head, and keep an eye on the Broker. He's worth watching—as you'll see.”
“What's his name?” asked the sister, with an accession of alertness in her face. “You call him 'Broker'—and that doesn't mean anything to me. They're all brokers, aren't they?”
“Semple—Colin Semple, that's his name. He's a young Scotchman—father's a Presbyterian minister. He's a little, insignificant runt of a chap to look at—but I learned a long time ago not to judge a singed cat by his looks. However—where was I?”
“You were going to tell about Tuesday afternoon, weren't you?”
He nodded gravely, and straightened himself, drawing a long breath in preparation for the dramatic recital before him. “On Tuesday afternoon,” he began again, with impressive slowness, “I was walking on Throgmorton Street, about four o'clock. It was raining a little—it had been raining on and off all day—a miserable, rotten sort of a day, with greasy mud everywhere, and everybody poking umbrellas into you. I was out walking because I'd 'a' cut my throat if I'd tried to stay in the office another ten minutes. All that day I hadn't eaten anything. I hadn't slept worth speaking of for three nights. The whole game was up for me. I was worse than ruined. I had half a crown in my pocket. I had ten or twelve pounds in the bank—and they wouldn't let me overdraw a farthing. I tell you, I was just plumb busted.
“There came along in the gutter a sandwich-man. I'd seen the cuss before during the day, walking up and down near my offices. I took notice of him, because he was the raggedest, dirtiest, most forlorn-looking cripple you ever saw in your life. Now I read what was on his boards. It was the bill of a paper that I had refused to be bled by, and there it was in big letters: 'The Rubber Bubble Burst!' 'Thorpe's Audacity Punished!' Those were the words. I can see them with my eyes shut. I stood there, looking at the fellow, and I suppose there was something in the way I looked, for he stopped too. Of course, he didn't know me from Adam, but all the same, I'm damned if he didn't wink his eye at me—as if we two had a joke between us. And at that I burst out laughing—I simply roared with laughter, like a boy at a pantomime—and I took that last half-crown out of my pocket, and I gave it to the sandwich-man. God! you should have seen his face.”
“I don't particularly mind, Joel,” said his sister, “but I never heard you swear so much before.”
“Oh, what the—what the deuce!” he protested, impatiently. “Don't interrupt me now! Well, I went on down the street. The members of the Stock Exchange were coming out of 'the house,' and making up little groups on the pavement. They do business