"And about my own income?"

"That's a flea-bite. When we've got a little ahead with this it won't matter, sir, whether you spend twenty thousand or forty thousand dollars a year. We've got the concession from the United States Government through the territories, and we're in correspondence with the President of the Mexican Republic. I've no doubt we've an office open already in Mexico and another at Vera Cruz."

"Where's the money to come from?"

"Money to come from, sir? Where do you suppose the money comes from in all these undertakings? If we can float the shares, the money'll come in quick enough. We hold three million dollars of the stock ourselves."

"Six hundred thousand pounds!" said Montague.

"We take them at par, of course,--and as we sell we shall pay for them. But of course we shall only sell at a premium. If we can run them up even to 110, there would be three hundred thousand dollars.

But we'll do better than that. I must try and see Melmotte at once.

You had better write a letter now."

"I don't know the man."

"Never mind. Look here I'll write it, and you can sign it." Whereupon Mr. Fisker did write the following letter:--

Langham Hotel, London.

March 4, 18--.

DEAR SIR,--

I have the pleasure of informing you that my partner Mr.

Fisker,--of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, of San Francisco,--is now in London with the view of allowing British capitalists to a.s.sist in carrying out perhaps the greatest work of the age,--namely, the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, which is to give 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 a.s.sured 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 a.n.a.lysed, 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 bra.s.s 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 burdened 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 upstairs. 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 doc.u.ments, 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 appet.i.te for such stock as theirs, which might certainly be produced in the speculating world by a proper manipulation of the affairs.

"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 them to teach you, Mr. Melmotte, that nothing encourages this kind of thing like compet.i.tion. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sistance 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.