A Rich Man's Relatives Volume III Part 2

"Naturally, if we restrict the supply."

"Fact is, I am holding, still. Never _could_ bring myself to sell on a rising market. I should feel as if I paid every after advance out of my own pocket. But I mean to begin to-morrow--moderately, that is."

"Right," said Ralph between two puffs. He had himself "unloaded" a week before, and had little faith in the future; but it seemed unnecessary to mention that.

"And there is no fear of the ugly rumours coming out again? If the men are seen hanging idle about the tap-rooms, for example, will it not excite inquiry?--from those blockheads with hammers, for instance, who are prowling about the neighbourhood, and trying to get at our people to treat and pump them?"

"The men speak mostly French, the prowlers English. There is safety in that. The men are good Catholics, too; M. le Cure recommended many of them, and they think the English want to tamper with their religion, so they give them a wide berth."

"But how do you keep them busy? And how long can you keep it up?"

"I am getting all who are likely to be troublesome away to Montana, engaging them for a mining concern, which, if it could be found, would no doubt employ them. The men cannot get back from Montana before Fall."

"Bright idea, that. But there are Podevin and the two others. They will blab, I fear, as soon as they succeed in selling out."

"Podevin won't. You made sure of him at the board meeting, when you told him that if it were known the directors would be indictable for fraud. Or was it that fool Webb said it? Podevin and Belmore have sold out, I know, but they are too frightened, both, to say a word. I have seen them come out of the notary's more than once, and doubt not they are conveying their property to their respective wives. I pity Belmore if he does; his wife is Catholic and a devotee, she is sure to leave it all to the church for the benefit of his heretical soul. The other fellow is your--I mean our--real danger. He is as obstinate and as stupid as a pig, and he thinks it would be _wrong_ to save himself, as the rest are doing, while at the same time he bears us a grudge for leading him into the sc.r.a.pe. He has been to me in town several times, but I can make nothing of him, and I fear he is up to some virtuous devilment or another. The fool has honour enough to fit out a township, common cad though he be. Wish I had known sooner."

"Hm! Then I must make haste and get out of the sinking boat."

"Take care you do not founder the whole thing in your panic. Unload by degrees--only so much each day, and, if possible, a little less than is asked for. That will keep the price up, and the quotations of daily transactions will preserve confidence."

"I owe you thanks, Ralph, for your suggestions. So far they have been most valuable. I shall not soon forget how wisely you encouraged me to hold on. I only wish I could reciprocate your favours; but that is not to be hoped. You know all the ropes so much better than I do. Take the will for the deed, old man! and if--by good fortune--if ever----"

"But you can, my dear Jordan, you really can--and I am glad to know that your goodwill is equal to the test; though indeed it is nothing I am asking after all--nothing to cost you anything."

"Name it," mumbled Jordan with a good deal less effusion than he had been indulging in the minute before, though still as cordially as the staccato shock to his nerves would allow. To say truth, he felt not unlike the sportive mouse, which, in pure lightness of heart, has nibbled through the thread whose yielding liberates the spring which catches and holds as in a vice. What wonder that instinctively he should wriggle to withdraw, the moment he felt himself being held, even to a position of his own choosing? Bitten by his own teeth, he would have felt less foolish--less like the stag entangled by his own antlers in a thicket, to wait the coming of the hunter and his hounds.

Ralph noted the change in manner and tone; and the humour of it, causing inward laughter, made the smoke he was inhaling lose its way, and brought on a fit of coughing.

"I want you to pay up Gerald's fortune at once," he said at length.

"It wants not much more than a year, you know, to the time fixed. He is of age, and he is my partner, so we shall both be responsible. I am Gerald's next heir, too, so it can have no bad consequences for you, besides being a great convenience to us."

The tumult in Jordan's circulation had had time to subside, and his voice had grown even again. It was more mellifluously soothing now than even its professional wont. "How I wish it had been something else," he said; "something within the bounds of possibility. It distresses me to--but----"

"Quite so, my friend. The usual way of the world. Anything that is not wanted you would have felt it a privilege to do. Is it not so?--even to pulling out your eyes, only you know I am not a cannibal and prefer oysters; so they would be of no use."

"Really, my dear Ralph, you must not put it in that way, you know.

Indeed, you have no right to say so. Just think----"

"Oh, I know--quite so--by all means, if you wish it. I know better than chop arguments with a lawyer. That would be worse than an altercation with a woman. He is not satisfied, like her, with the _last_ word, he must have the best of it as well. But the facts remain."

"Is that not an admission, my friend, that you know your position will not bear examination?"

"Look out for your own position, friend Jordan! I have a presentiment it would not be impossible to knock that over like a house of cards on the Stock Exchange to-morrow morning, however easily you might overthrow me in argument to-night."

"I used the word 'position' to express your statement of the case, my dear fellow; I meant nothing offensive."

"And what sort of statement would you make of your own case if I were to dismiss all the miners to-morrow open the gates, and let the world in to see?"

"Pray do be calm, Ralph, and don't grow excited, I had almost said violent. You forget that I am only one of two. I can do nothing alone."

"I know it; but you can persuade your brother trustee, I believe, as I cannot. Besides, he will say, like you, that he is one of two; so I make sure of you before approaching him. Now, what do you say?--My Canadian interests are in a mess. I have washed my hands of those mines--I can ruin you, observe, if I like, without hurting myself--I am already deeply dipped in Pikes Peak and Montanas and I must throw in all the rest I have to save what is there already. My interests are across the lines now, and I mean to be there myself also. So you see I can have no personal interest in sparing you, and I have no doubt that Webb's fear of a criminal prosecution of the directors will come true."

"I am not a director."

"It would be proved that you attended the meetings and influenced the board in favour of every irregularity--and there are plenty of irregularities, I can tell you. The others will insist, you may depend upon it, on the pleasure of your company with them in the dock; and, for myself, I don't see why they shouldn't. I imagine that weak chest of yours will need at least six months to recuperate in Florida--but there will not be time for you to save your fortune and get away if you do not listen to reason----" "You force me to speak plainly," he added, as Jordan stopped short in his walk and dropped heavily upon a garden seat, deprived of strength to stand upright. His cigar had dropped from between his teeth, and he sat a mere black shadow in the dusk till Ralph, pulling his own smouldering spark, into brilliancy, bent near and saw how sickly pale his visage had become.

"What say you, Jordan? How are we to arrange?"

"It will take time to realize and gather in. The accounts, extending over eighteen years as they do, are voluminous and complicated; it will take time to make them up. You see it is nearly two years yet till the time for handing over the trust, so there has appeared to be no hurry so far; but it will take months to get the thing into shape."

"I see. And you know that within a week or two I shall be across the lines, and that it will be a couple of years at least before I shall care to revisit Canada. Now, really, my friend, do you take me for the sort of person it is worth while talking such slop to? Hand me the securities as they are; I am surely as well able to negotiate them as you can be."

"I could transfer you those mining shares, of course, if you wished it. Yes! That will simplify matters; part of them, I mean, the second part."

"Mining shares? Come now, that's a rum un. My uncle's estate don't hold a dollar's worth of them. You forget the transfer books lie in my office, and I could not have overlooked Considine's name either for himself or as trustee. Our company is not in his line. He knows too much and too little for that cla.s.s of investment. But I see! and it is what I might have suspected from your sudden rise in the world, only that I did not think you could have got round Considine--I know _I_ could not. I admire your management, Jordan. I really do, you must have finessed very cleverly to n.o.bble old Cerberus like that! A good slice of the money has pa.s.sed through your hands, we may infer; and, of course, as would happen with any one else--I don't blame you, mind--it has got a little confused and mixed up, as it were, amongst your own, which is natural; and I do not mind accommodating you as far as may be. We will take, say, half of your holding--the first half--and it to be sold before you disturb the rest. We will take it at par, and give you credit for it. What else will you give us?"

"Par? Man alive! I bought Rouget's at a premium, and I have been holding the whole ever so long, with the risk of its falling all the time. You must take it at the market value, say a hundred and seventy-six."

"Whose money is it? By your own admission? And do you not receive a pension under the will for looking after it? If the price had gone down, would you have made good the loss?"

"You have no right to insinuate that I would have done anything improper. However, I will not yield to so outrageous a demand. No man in his senses would; especially when you have no more business with it than the parish priest, for two years to come."

"You will force me, however unwillingly, to make Gerald file a pet.i.tion to have your trusteeship overhauled; with the affidavit I can make in support the court cannot possibly refuse."

"I shall have an information lodged against _you_ for swindling before the pet.i.tion can be heard. Who will mind your affidavit after that?"

"Good for you, old man. A stale mate! It does one good to play a match against you, Jordan; it brightens one's wits. Well now, can we make a truce? If I do my best to gain you time to realize, and promise to keep Gerald quiet for the next two years, will you get me that money out of Considine's hands? How much is it, by-the-way?"

"Half. We divided the property to avoid the endless consultations, each agreeing to do his best with half, and trust the other."

"Well, get Considine to hand over, and you shall be left undisturbed."

"I don't believe he will do it."

"Will you try to persuade him?"

"Yes."

"Come, then, we will find him at Podevin's, and have it out before we sleep."

"He is not there. I saw him walk past as I sat down to dinner; gone to Miss Stanley's, I fancy, as usual."

"He will be back before long, now; let us go down and wait."

"Better wait here, there are always inquisitive loafers around there.

Come in and sit down, the moon is rising. He will not leave his friends till it is high enough to light him home."