Part 7 (2/2)

”We are able to judge for ourselves,” he said, ”whether it will work.

But the plan itself--what do you think of it?”

”Well,” I said, ”I'm a modern man. I have accepted all the ideas and standards of my time and generation. I can hardly give you an opinion that I could call my own, but if my father's opinion would be of any use to you---- He was an old-fas.h.i.+oned gentleman, with all the rather obsolete ideas about honour which those people had.”

”He's dead, isn't he?” said Gorman.

”Oh, yes,” I said. ”He's been dead for fifteen years. Still I'm sure I could tell you what he'd have said about this.”

”I do not think,” said Stutz, ”that we need consider the opinion of Sir James Digby's father, who has been dead for fifteen years.”

”I quite agree with you,” I said. ”It would be out of date, hopelessly.”

”But your own opinion?” said Ascher, still mildly insistent.

”Well,” I said, ”I've been robbed of my property--land in Ireland, Mr.

Stutz--by Gorman and his friends. Everybody says that they were quite right and that I ought not to have objected; so I suppose robbery must be a proper thing according to our contemporary ethics.”

”And that is your opinion of the scheme?” said Ascher.

”Yes,” I said. ”I hope I've made myself clear. I think we are justified in pillaging when we can.”

”You Irish,” said Ascher, ”with your intellects of steel, your delight in paradox and your reckless logic!”

Stutz was not interested in the peculiarities of the Irish mind. He went back to the main point with a directness which I admired.

”This is not,” he said, ”the kind of business we care to do.”

”Mr. Gorman,” said Ascher, ”we shall wait for Mr. Mildmay's report on your brother's invention. If it turns out to be favourable, as I confidently expect, we may have a proposal to lay before you. Our firm cannot, you will understand, take shares in your company. That is not a bank's business. But I myself, in my private capacity, will consider the matter. So will Mr. Stutz. It may be possible to arrange that your brother's machine shall be put on the market.”

”But your proposal,” said Stutz obstinately. ”It is not the kind of business we undertake.”

The interview was plainly at an end. We rose and left the room.

Tim Gorman did not understand, perhaps did not hear, a word of what was said. He followed us out of the office nursing his machine and plainly in high delight. Curiously enough, the elder Gorman seemed equally pleased.

”We've got them,” he said when we reached the street. ”We've got Ascher, Stutz & Co quite safe. I don't see what's to stop us now.”

My own impression was that both Ascher & Stutz had definitely refused to entertain our proposal or fall in with our plans. I said so to Gorman.

”Not at all,” he said. ”You don't understand business or business men.

Ascher and Stutz are very big bugs, very big indeed, and they have to keep up appearances. It wouldn't do for them to admit to you and me, or even to each other, that they were out for what they could get from the old company. They have to keep up the pretence that they mean legitimate business. That's the way these things are always worked. But you'll find that they won't object to pocketing their cheques when the time comes for smas.h.i.+ng up Tim's machine and suppressing his patents.”

I turned, when I reached the far side of the street, to take another look at Ascher's office. I was struck again by the purity of line and the severe simplicity of the building. Two thousand years ago men would have had a statue of Pallas Athene in it.

CHAPTER VI.

<script>