“Why yes,” she answered, with a faint-hearted assumption of confidence. “Of course, you know the property is so good that you'll make a profit on the shares you've bought far below their value. But I don't think I quite see——”
He interrupted her with an outburst of loud laughter. “Don't think you quite see?” he gurgled at her, with tears of pleasure in his eye. “Why, you dummy, you haven't got the faintest glimmer of a notion of what it's all about. The value of the property's got nothing in the world to do with it. That's neither here nor there. If there wasn't any such property in existence, it would be just the same.”
He had compassion upon her blank countenance, at this, and explained more gently: “Why, don't you see, Lou, it's this way. This is what has happened. We've got what's called a corner on the bears. They're caught short, and we can squeeze them to our hearts' content. What—you don't understand now? Why, see here! These fellows who've sold twenty-six thousand of our shares—they haven't got them to sell, and they can't get them. That is the point—they can't get them for love nor money—they must pay me my own price for them, or be ruined men. The moment they realize the situation, they will begin offering a premium for Rubber Consols. The price of a one-pound share will be two pounds, then four—six—ten—twenty—thirty—whatever I want to drive it to.”
Louisa stared up at him with wide open eyes. It seemed to her that she understood now. It was very exciting.
“You see,” he went on, taking approving note of the new light of comprehension in her glance, “we did something that Tuesday afternoon beside buy up these shares. Semple rushed off to his office, and he and his clerks got up a lot of dummy applications for shares, made out in all the different names they could be safe in using, and they put these into the bank with the application money—Semple found that—and next day he went and saw the advertising agent and the solicitor and the auditors—and got them to pool the shares that I've promised to give them. A pool? That means they agree to transfer their shares to me as trustee, and let me deal with them as I like—of course to their advantage. In any case, their shares are vendor's shares, and couldn't be dealt with in this transaction. So you see the thing is hermetically sealed. Nobody can get a share except from me, and at my price. But these fellows that have sold them—they've got to have them, don't you see. They had their little temporary joke with me on the street that afternoon—and now they must walk up to the captain's office and settle. They've got to pay me at least half a million pounds for that few minutes' fun of theirs. I may make it a good deal more; I don't know yet.”
“Oh, Joel!” she groaned at him, in awed stupefaction. His rather languid indecision as to whether half a million was going to be enough, impressed her more powerfully than had any detail of his narrative.
In a few comprehensive sentences he finished up for her what there was to tell. “This afternoon my Board met to allot the shares. They saw the applications, amounting in all to over ninety thousand shares. It took their breath away—they had heard that things were going quite the other way with us. They were so tickled that they asked no questions The allotment went through like a greased pig. About 5,000 shares went to those who had actually applied for them, and 88,000 were solemnly given to the dummy applicants. Of course, there wasn't a whisper about these dummies. Nobody winked so much as an eyelash. But I've found since that one of the directors—that Lord Plowden I told you about—was onto the thing all the while. But he's all right. Everybody's all right. Of course the dummies' shares still stand in their names—on paper—but in reality I've got them all in my safe—in my pocket you might say. They are really mine, you understand. So now there's nothing for us to do but to apply to the Stock Exchange for a special settlement date, and meanwhile lie quiet and watch the Jews stew in their own juice. Or fry in their own fat, eh? That's better.”
“But,” she commented slowly, “you say there are no shares to be bought—and yet as I understand it, there are those five thousand that were sent out to the people who really applied.”
“Bravo, Lou!” he answered her jovially. “You actually do understand the thing. You've put your finger straight on the point. It is true that those shares are out against us—or might be turned against us if they could be bought up. But in reality, they don't count at all. In the first place, you see, they're scattered about among small holders, country clergymen and old maids on an annuity and so on—all over the country. Even if these people were all traced, and hunted up, suppose it was worth the trouble and expense, they wouldn't sell. The bigger the price they were offered, the more mulish they would be about holding. That's always the way with them. But even if they did all sell, their five thousand would be a mere drop in the bucket. There would be over twenty thousand others to be accounted for. That would be quite enough for my purposes. Oh, I figured all that out very carefully. My own first notion was to have the dummies apply for the whole hundred thousand, and even a little over. Then, you see, we might have allotted everything to the dummies, and sent back the money and applications of the genuine ones. But that would have been rather hard to manage with the Board. The Markiss would have said that the returns ought to be made pro rata—that is, giving everybody a part of what they applied for—and that would have mixed everything up. And then, too, if anybody suspected anything, why the Stock Exchange Committee would refuse us a special settlement—and, of course, without that the whole transaction is moonshine. It was far too risky, and we didn't send back a penny.”
“It's all pretty risky, I should think,” she declared as she rose. “I should think you'd lie awake more than ever now—now that you've built your hopes so high and it'd be so awful to have them come to nothing.”
He smilingly shook his head. “No, it can no more fail than that gas can fail to burn when you put a light to it. It's all absolute. My half-million is as right as if it were lying to my credit in the Bank of England. Oh, that reminds me,” he went on in a slightly altered tone—“it's damned comical, but I've got to ask you for a little money. I've only got about seven pounds at my bank, and just at the minute it would give me away fearfully to let Semple know I was hard up. Of course he'd let me have anything I wanted—but, you can see—I don't like to ask him just at the moment.”
She hesitated visibly, and scanned his face with a wistful gaze. “You're quite sure, Joel?”—she began—“and you haven't told me—how long will it be before you come into some of this money?”
“Well,”—he in turn paused over his words—“well, I suppose that by next week things will be in such shape that my bank will see I'm good for an overdraft. Oh heavens, yes! there'll be a hundred ways of touching some ready. But if you've got twenty or thirty pounds handy just now—I tell you what I'll do, Lou. I'll give you a three months bill, paying one hundred pounds for every sovereign you let me have now. Come, old lady: you don't get such interest every day, I'll bet.”
“I don't want any interest from you, Joel,” she replied, simply. “If you're sure I can have it back before Christmas, I think I can manage thirty pounds. It will do in the morning, I suppose?”
He nodded an amused affirmative. “Why—you don't imagine, do you,” he said, “that all this gold is to rain down, and none of it hit you? Interest? Why of course you'll get interest—and capital thrown in. What did you suppose?”
“I don't ask anything for myself,” she made answer, with a note of resolution in her voice. “Of course if you like to do things for the children, it won't be me who'll stand in their light. They've been spoiled for my kind of life as it is.”
“I'll do things for everybody,” he affirmed roundly. “Let's see—how old is Alfred?”
“He'll be twenty in May—and Julia is fourteen months older than he is.”
“Gad!” was Thorpe's
