The Way We Live Now - 07

direct communication between San Francisco and the Gulf
of Mexico. He is very anxious to see you upon his arrival,
as he is aware that your co-operation would be desirable.
We feel assured that with your matured judgment in such
matters you would see at once the magnificence of the
enterprise. If you will name a day and an hour, Mr. Fisker
will call upon you.

I have to thank you and Madame Melmotte for a very
pleasant evening spent at your house last week.

Mr. Fisker proposes returning to New York. I shall remain
here, superintending the British interests which may be
involved.

I have the honour to be,
Dear Sir,
Most faithfully yours,

---- ----.


"But I have never said that I would superintend the interests," said
Montague.

"You can say so now. It binds you to nothing. You regular John Bull
Englishmen are so full of scruples that you lose as much of life as
should serve to make an additional fortune."

After some further conversation Paul Montague recopied the letter
and signed it. He did it with doubt,--almost with dismay. But he
told himself that he could do no good by refusing. If this wretched
American, with his hat on one side and rings on his fingers, had so
far got the upper hand of Paul's uncle as to have been allowed to do
what he liked with the funds of the partnership, Paul could not stop
it. On the following morning they went up to London together, and in
the course of the afternoon Mr. Fisker presented himself in Abchurch
Lane. The letter written at Liverpool, but dated from the Langham
Hotel, had been posted at the Euston Square Railway Station at the
moment of Fisker's arrival. Fisker sent in his card, and was asked to
wait. In the course of twenty minutes he was ushered into the great
man's presence by no less a person than Miles Grendall.

It has been already said that Mr. Melmotte was a big man with large
whiskers, rough hair, and with an expression of mental power on
a harsh vulgar face. He was certainly a man to repel you by his
presence unless attracted to him by some internal consideration.
He was magnificent in his expenditure, powerful in his doings,
successful in his business, and the world around him therefore
was not repelled. Fisker, on the other hand, was a shining little
man,--perhaps about forty years of age, with a well-twisted
moustache, greasy brown hair, which was becoming bald at the top,
good-looking if his features were analysed, but insignificant
in appearance. He was gorgeously dressed, with a silk waistcoat
and chains, and he carried a little stick. One would at first be
inclined to say that Fisker was not much of a man; but after a little
conversation most men would own that there was something in Fisker.
He was troubled by no shyness, by no scruples, and by no fears. His
mind was not capacious, but such as it was it was his own, and he
knew how to use it.

Abchurch Lane is not a grand site for the offices of a merchant
prince. Here, at a small corner house, there was a small brass plate
on a swing door, bearing the words "Melmotte & Co." Of whom the Co.
was composed no one knew. In one sense Mr. Melmotte might be said
to be in company with all the commercial world, for there was no
business to which he would refuse his co-operation on certain terms.
But he had never burthened himself with a partner in the usual sense
of the term. Here Fisker found three or four clerks seated at desks,
and was desired to walk up-stairs. The steps were narrow and crooked,
and the rooms were small and irregular. Here he stayed for a while in
a small dark apartment in which "The Daily Telegraph" was left for
the amusement of its occupant till Miles Grendall announced to him
that Mr. Melmotte would see him. The millionaire looked at him for a
moment or two, just condescending to touch with his fingers the hand
which Fisker had projected.

"I don't seem to remember," he said, "the gentleman who has done me
the honour of writing to me about you."

"I dare say not, Mr. Melmotte. When I'm at home in San Francisco,
I make acquaintance with a great many gents whom I don't remember
afterwards. My partner I think told me that he went to your house
with his friend, Sir Felix Carbury."

"I know a young man called Sir Felix Carbury."

"That's it. I could have got any amount of introductions to you if I
had thought this would not have sufficed." Mr. Melmotte bowed. "Our
account here in London is kept with the City and West End Joint
Stock. But I have only just arrived, and as my chief object in coming
to London is to see you, and as I met my partner, Mr. Montague, in
Liverpool, I took a note from him and came on straight."

"And what can I do for you, Mr. Fisker?"

Then Mr. Fisker began his account of the Great South Central Pacific
and Mexican Railway, and exhibited considerable skill by telling it
all in comparatively few words. And yet he was gorgeous and florid.
In two minutes he had displayed his programme, his maps, and his
pictures before Mr. Melmotte's eyes, taking care that Mr. Melmotte
should see how often the names of Fisker, Montague, and Montague,
reappeared upon them. As Mr. Melmotte read the documents, Fisker
from time to time put in a word. But the words had no reference at
all to the future profits of the railway, or to the benefit which
such means of communication would confer upon the world at large;
but applied solely to the appetite for such stock as theirs, which
might certainly be produced in the speculating world by a proper
manipulation of the affairs.


[Illustration: Then Mr. Fisker began his account.]


"You seem to think you couldn't get it taken up in your own country,"
said Melmotte.

"There's not a doubt about getting it all taken up there. Our folk,
sir, are quick enough at the game; but you don't want me to teach
you, Mr. Melmotte, that nothing encourages this kind of thing like
competition. When they hear at St. Louis and Chicago that the thing
is alive in London, they'll be alive there. And it's the same here,
sir. When they know that the stock is running like wildfire in
America, they'll make it run here too."

"How far have you got?"

"What we've gone to work upon is a concession for making the line
from the United States Congress. We're to have the land for nothing,
of course, and a grant of one thousand acres round every station, the
stations to be twenty-five miles apart."

"And the land is to be made over to you,--when?"

"When we have made the line up to the station." Fisker understood
perfectly that Mr. Melmotte did not ask the question in reference to
any value that he might attach to the possession of such lands, but
to the attractiveness of such a prospectus in the eyes of the outside
world of speculators.

"And what do you want me to do, Mr. Fisker?"

"I want to have your name there," he said. And he placed his finger
down on a spot on which it was indicated that there was, or was to
be, a chairman of an English Board of Directors, but with a space for
the name, hitherto blank.

"Who are to be your directors here, Mr. Fisker?"

"We should ask you to choose them, sir. Mr. Paul Montague should be
one, and perhaps his friend Sir Felix Carbury might be another. We
could get probably one of the Directors of the City and West End. But
we would leave it all to you,--as also the amount of stock you would
like to take yourself. If you gave yourself to it, heart and soul,
Mr. Melmotte, it would be the finest thing that there has been out
for a long time. There would be such a mass of stock!"

"You have to back that with a certain amount of paid-up capital?"

"We take care, sir, in the West not to cripple commerce too closely
by old-fashioned bandages. Look at what we've done already, sir, by
having our limbs pretty free. Look at our line, sir, right across the
continent, from San Francisco to New York. Look at--"

"Never mind that, Mr. Fisker. People wanted to go from New York to
San Francisco, and I don't know that they do want to go to Vera Cruz.
But I will look at it, and you shall hear from me." The interview
was over, and Mr. Fisker was contented with it. Had Mr. Melmotte not
intended at least to think of it he would not have given ten minutes
to the subject. After all, what was wanted from Mr. Melmotte was
little more than his name, for the use of which Mr. Fisker proposed
that he should receive from the speculative public two or three
hundred thousand pounds.

At the end of a fortnight from the date of Mr. Fisker's arrival
in London, the company was fully launched in England, with a body
of London directors, of whom Mr. Melmotte was the chairman. Among
the directors were Lord Alfred Grendall, Sir Felix Carbury, Samuel
Cohenlupe, Esq., Member of Parliament for Staines, a gentleman of
the Jewish persuasion, Lord Nidderdale, who was also in Parliament,
and Mr. Paul Montague. It may be thought that the directory was not
strong, and that but little help could be given to any commercial
enterprise by the assistance of Lord Alfred or Sir Felix;--but it was
felt that Mr. Melmotte was himself so great a tower of strength that
the fortune of the company,--as a company,--was made.




CHAPTER X.

MR. FISKER'S SUCCESS.


Mr. Fisker was fully satisfied with the progress he had made, but
he never quite succeeded in reconciling Paul Montague to the whole
transaction. Mr. Melmotte was indeed so great a reality, such a fact
in the commercial world of London, that it was no longer possible for
such a one as Montague to refuse to believe in the scheme. Melmotte
had the telegraph at his command, and had been able to make as close
inquiries as though San Francisco and Salt Lake City had been suburbs
of London. He was chairman of the British branch of the Company, and
had had shares allocated to him,--or as he said to the house,--to the
extent of two millions of dollars. But still there was a feeling of
doubt, and a consciousness that Melmotte, though a tower of strength,
was thought by many to have been built upon the sands.

Paul had now of course given his full authority to the work, much
in opposition to the advice of his old friend Roger Carbury,--and
had come up to live in town, that he might personally attend to
the affairs of the great railway. There was an office just behind
the Exchange, with two or three clerks and a secretary, the latter
position being held by Miles Grendall, Esq. Paul, who had a
conscience in the matter and was keenly alive to the fact that he was
not only a director but was also one of the firm of Fisker, Montague,
and Montague which was responsible for the whole affair, was
grievously anxious to be really at work, and would attend most
inopportunely at the Company's offices. Fisker, who still lingered in
London, did his best to put a stop to this folly, and on more than
one occasion somewhat snubbed his partner. "My dear fellow, what's
the use of your flurrying yourself? In a thing of this kind, when it
has once been set agoing, there is nothing else to do. You may have
to work your fingers off before you can make it move, and then fail.
But all that has been done for you. If you go there on the Thursdays
that's quite as much as you need do. You don't suppose that such
a man as Melmotte would put up with any real interference." Paul
endeavoured to assert himself, declaring that as one of the managers
he meant to take a part in the management;--that his fortune, such as
it was, had been embarked in the matter, and was as important to him
as was Mr. Melmotte's fortune to Mr. Melmotte. But Fisker got the
better of him and put him down. "Fortune! what fortune had either of
us? a few beggarly thousands of dollars not worth talking of, and
barely sufficient to enable a man to look at an enterprise. And now
where are you? Look here, sir;--there's more to be got out of the
smashing up of such an affair as this, if it should smash up, than
could be made by years of hard work out of such fortunes as yours and
mine in the regular way of trade."

Paul Montague certainly did not love Mr. Fisker personally, nor did
he relish his commercial doctrines; but he allowed himself to be
carried away by them. "When and how was I to have helped myself?" he
wrote to Roger Carbury. "The money had been raised and spent before
this man came here at all. It's all very well to say that he had no
right to do it; but he had done it. I couldn't even have gone to law
with him without going over to California, and then I should have
got no redress." Through it all he disliked Fisker, and yet Fisker
had one great merit which certainly recommended itself warmly to
Montague's appreciation. Though he denied the propriety of Paul's
interference in the business, he quite acknowledged Paul's right to a
share in the existing dash of prosperity. As to the real facts of the
money affairs of the firm he would tell Paul nothing. But he was well
provided with money himself, and took care that his partner should be
in the same position. He paid him all the arrears of his stipulated
income up to the present moment, and put him nominally into
possession of a large number of shares in the railway,--with,
however, an understanding that he was not to sell them till they had
reached ten per cent. above par, and that in any sale transacted he
was to touch no other money than the amount of profit which would
thus accrue. What Melmotte was to be allowed to do with his shares,
he never heard. As far as Montague could understand, Melmotte was in
truth to be powerful over everything. All this made the young man
unhappy, restless, and extravagant. He was living in London and had
money at command, but he never could rid himself of the fear that
the whole affair might tumble to pieces beneath his feet and that he
might be stigmatised as one among a gang of swindlers.

We all know how, in such circumstances, by far the greater proportion
of a man's life will be given up to the enjoyments that are offered
to him and the lesser proportion to the cares, sacrifices, and
sorrows. Had this young director been describing to his intimate
friend the condition in which he found himself, he would have
declared himself to be distracted by doubts, suspicions, and fears
till his life was a burden to him. And yet they who were living with
him at this time found him to be a very pleasant fellow, fond of
amusement, and disposed to make the most of all the good things which
came in his way. Under the auspices of Sir Felix Carbury he had
become a member of the Beargarden, at which best of all possible
clubs the mode of entrance was as irregular as its other proceedings.
When any young man desired to come in who was thought to be unfit
for its style of living, it was shown to him that it would take
three years before his name could be brought up at the usual rate
of vacancies; but in regard to desirable companions the committee
had a power of putting them at the top of the list of candidates and
bringing them in at once. Paul Montague had suddenly become credited
with considerable commercial wealth and greater commercial influence.
He sat at the same Board with Melmotte and Melmotte's men; and was on
this account elected at the Beargarden without any of that harassing
delay to which other less fortunate candidates are subjected.

And,--let it be said with regret, for Paul Montague was at heart
honest and well-conditioned,--he took to living a good deal at the
Beargarden. A man must dine somewhere, and everybody knows that a man
dines cheaper at his club than elsewhere. It was thus he reasoned
with himself. But Paul's dinners at the Beargarden were not cheap. He
saw a good deal of his brother directors, Sir Felix Carbury and Lord
Nidderdale, entertained Lord Alfred more than once at the club, and
had twice dined with his great chairman amidst all the magnificence
of merchant-princely hospitality in Grosvenor Square. It had indeed
been suggested to him by Mr. Fisker that he also ought to enter
himself for the great Marie Melmotte plate. Lord Nidderdale had again
declared his intention of running, owing to considerable pressure put
upon him by certain interested tradesmen, and with this intention
had become one of the directors of the Mexican Railway Company. At
the time, however, of which we are now writing, Sir Felix was the
favourite for the race among fashionable circles generally.

The middle of April had come, and Fisker was still in London. When
millions of dollars are at stake,--belonging perhaps to widows
and orphans, as Fisker remarked,--a man was forced to set his own
convenience on one side. But this devotion was not left without
reward, for Mr. Fisker had "a good time" in London. He also was made
free of the Beargarden, as an honorary member, and he also spent
a good deal of money. But there is this comfort in great affairs,
that whatever you spend on yourself can be no more than a trifle.
Champagne and ginger-beer are all the same when you stand to win or
lose thousands,--with this only difference, that champagne may have
deteriorating results which the more innocent beverage will not
produce. The feeling that the greatness of these operations relieved
them from the necessity of looking to small expenses operated in the
champagne direction, both on Fisker and Montague, and the result was
deleterious. The Beargarden, no doubt, was a more lively place than
Carbury Manor, but Montague found that he could not wake up on these
London mornings with thoughts as satisfactory as those which attended
his pillow at the old Manor House.

On Saturday, the 19th of April, Fisker was to leave London on his
return to New York, and on the 18th a farewell dinner was to be given
to him at the club. Mr. Melmotte was asked to meet him, and on such
an occasion all the resources of the club were to be brought forth.
Lord Alfred Grendall was also to be a guest, and Mr. Cohenlupe, who
went about a good deal with Melmotte. Nidderdale, Carbury, Montague,
and Miles Grendall were members of the club, and gave the dinner. No
expense was spared. Herr Vossner purveyed the viands and wines,--and
paid for them. Lord Nidderdale took the chair, with Fisker on his
right hand, and Melmotte on his left, and, for a fast-going young
lord, was supposed to have done the thing well. There were only two
toasts drunk, to the healths of Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Fisker, and two
speeches were of course made by them. Mr. Melmotte may have been held
to have clearly proved the genuineness of that English birth which
he claimed by the awkwardness and incapacity which he showed on the
occasion. He stood with his hands on the table and with his face
turned to his plate blurted out his assurance that the floating of
this railway company would be one of the greatest and most successful
commercial operations ever conducted on either side of the Atlantic.
It was a great thing,--a very great thing;--he had no hesitation in
saying that it was one of the greatest things out. He didn't believe
a greater thing had ever come out. He was happy to give his humble
assistance to the furtherance of so great a thing,--and so on. These
assertions, not varying much one from the other, he jerked out like
so many separate interjections, endeavouring to look his friends in
the face at each, and then turning his countenance back to his plate
as though seeking for inspiration for the next attempt. He was not
eloquent; but the gentlemen who heard him remembered that he was the
great Augustus Melmotte, that he might probably make them all rich
men, and they cheered him to the echo. Lord Alfred had reconciled
himself to be called by his Christian name, since he had been put in
the way of raising two or three hundred pounds on the security of
shares which were to be allotted to him, but of which in the flesh
he had as yet seen nothing. Wonderful are the ways of trade! If one
can only get the tip of one's little finger into the right pie,
what noble morsels, what rich esculents, will stick to it as it is
extracted!

When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent,
fast, and florid. Without giving it word for word, which would be
tedious, I could not adequately set before the reader's eye the
speaker's pleasing picture of world-wide commercial love and harmony
which was to be produced by a railway from Salt Lake City to Vera
Cruz, nor explain the extent of gratitude from the world at large
which might be claimed by, and would finally be accorded to, the
great firms of Melmotte & Co. of London, and Fisker, Montague, and
Montague of San Francisco. Mr. Fisker's arms were waved gracefully
about. His head was turned now this way and now that, but never
towards his plate. It was very well done. But there was more faith
in one ponderous word from Mr. Melmotte's mouth than in all the
American's oratory.

There was not one of them then present who had not after some fashion
been given to understand that his fortune was to be made, not by
the construction of the railway, but by the floating of the railway
shares. They had all whispered to each other their convictions on
this head. Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he
was really a director in a company to be employed in the making and
working of a railway. People out of doors were to be advertised into
buying shares, and they who were so to say indoors were to have the
privilege of manufacturing the shares thus to be sold. That was to
be their work, and they all knew it. But now, as there were eight of
them collected together, they talked of humanity at large and of the
coming harmony of nations.

After the first cigar, Melmotte withdrew, and Lord Alfred went with
him. Lord Alfred would have liked to remain, being a man who enjoyed
tobacco and soda and brandy,--but momentous days had come upon him,
and he thought it well to cling to his Melmotte. Mr. Samuel Cohenlupe
also went, not having taken a very distinguished part in the
entertainment. Then the young men were left alone, and it was soon
proposed that they should adjourn to the cardroom. It had been rather
hoped that Fisker would go with the elders. Nidderdale, who did not
understand much about the races of mankind, had his doubts whether
the American gentleman might not be a "Heathen Chinee," such as he
had read of in poetry. But Mr. Fisker liked to have his amusement
as well as did the others, and went up resolutely into the cardroom.
Here they were joined by Lord Grasslough, and were very quickly at
work, having chosen loo as their game. Mr. Fisker made an allusion to
poker as a desirable pastime, but Lord Nidderdale, remembering his
poetry, shook his head. "Oh! bother," he said, "let's have some game
that Christians play." Mr. Fisker declared himself ready for any
game,--irrespective of religious prejudices.

It must be explained that the gambling at the Beargarden had gone
on with very little interruption, and that on the whole Sir Felix
Carbury kept his luck. There had of course been vicissitudes, but
his star had been in the ascendant. For some nights together this
had been so continual that Mr. Miles Grendall had suggested to his
friend Lord Grasslough that there must be foul play. Lord Grasslough,
who had not many good gifts, was, at least, not suspicious, and
repudiated the idea. "We'll keep an eye on him," Miles Grendall had
said. "You may do as you like, but I'm not going to watch any one,"
Grasslough had replied. Miles had watched, and had watched in vain,
and it may as well be said at once that Sir Felix, with all his
faults, was not as yet a blackleg. Both of them now owed Sir Felix a
considerable sum of money, as did also Dolly Longestaffe, who was not
present on this occasion. Latterly very little ready money had passed
hands,--very little in proportion to the sums which had been written
down on paper,--though Sir Felix was still so well in funds as to
feel himself justified in repudiating any caution that his mother
might give him.

When I.O.U.'s have for some time passed freely in such a company as
that now assembled the sudden introduction of a stranger is very
disagreeable, particularly when that stranger intends to start for
San Francisco on the following morning. If it could be arranged
that the stranger should certainly lose, no doubt then he would be
regarded as a godsend. Such strangers have ready money in their
pockets, a portion of which would be felt to descend like a soft
shower in a time of drought. When these dealings in unsecured paper
have been going on for a considerable time real bank notes come to
have a loveliness which they never possessed before. But should the
stranger win, then there may arise complications incapable of any
comfortable solution. In such a state of things some Herr Vossner
must be called in, whose terms are apt to be ruinous. On this
occasion things did not arrange themselves comfortably. From the
very commencement Fisker won, and quite a budget of little papers
fell into his possession, many of which were passed to him from the
hands of Sir Felix,--bearing, however, a "G" intended to stand for
Grasslough, or an "N" for Nidderdale, or a wonderful hieroglyphic
which was known at the Beargarden to mean D. L----, or Dolly
Longestaffe, the fabricator of which was not present on the occasion.
Then there was the M. G. of Miles Grendall, which was a species of
paper peculiarly plentiful and very unattractive on these commercial
occasions. Paul Montague hitherto had never given an I.O.U. at
the Beargarden,--nor of late had our friend Sir Felix. On the
present occasion Montague won, though not heavily. Sir Felix lost
continually, and was almost the only loser. But Mr. Fisker won nearly
all that was lost. He was to start for Liverpool by train at 8.30
A.M., and at 6 A.M. he counted up his bits of paper and found himself
the winner of about £600. "I think that most of them came from you,
Sir Felix," he said,--handing the bundle across the table.

"I dare say they did, but they are all good against these other
fellows." Then Fisker, with most perfect good humour, extracted one
from the mass which indicated Dolly Longestaffe's indebtedness to the
amount of £50. "That's Longestaffe," said Felix, "and I'll change
that of course." Then out of his pocket-book he extracted other
minute documents bearing that M. G. which was so little esteemed
among them,--and so made up the sum. "You seem to have £150 from
Grasslough, £145 from Nidderdale, and £322 10_s._ from Grendall,"
said the baronet. Then Sir Felix got up as though he had paid his
score. Fisker, with smiling good humour, arranged the little bits of
paper before him and looked round upon the company.

"This won't do, you know," said Nidderdale. "Mr. Fisker must have his
money before he leaves. You've got it, Carbury."

"Of course he has," said Grasslough.

"As it happens I have not," said Sir Felix;--"but what if I had?"

"Mr. Fisker starts for New York immediately," said Lord Nidderdale.
"I suppose we can muster £600 among us. Ring the bell for Vossner.
I think Carbury ought to pay the money as he lost it, and we didn't
expect to have our I.O.U.'s brought up in this way."

"Lord Nidderdale," said Sir Felix, "I have already said that I have
not got the money about me. Why should I have it more than you,
especially as I knew I had I.O.U.'s more than sufficient to meet
anything I could lose when I sat down?"

"Mr. Fisker must have his money at any rate," said Lord Nidderdale,
ringing the bell again.

"It doesn't matter one straw, my lord," said the American. "Let it be
sent to me to Frisco, in a bill, my lord." And so he got up to take
his hat, greatly to the delight of Miles Grendall.

But the two young lords would not agree to this. "If you must go
this very minute I'll meet you at the train with the money," said
Nidderdale. Fisker begged that no such trouble should be taken. Of
course he would wait ten minutes if they wished. But the affair was
one of no consequence. Wasn't the post running every day? Then Herr