Part 65 (1/2)

”Molina!” said Vaudrey, becoming very pale. ”Show him in!”

The fat Salomon entered puffing and smiling, and spread himself out on an armchair as he said to the former minister:

”Well, how goes it?--Not too badly crushed, eh?--Bah! what is it after all to quit office?--Only a means for returning to it, sometimes!”

”All the same,” he said with his cackling laugh that sounded like the jingling of a money-bag, ”there are too many changes of ministers! They change them like s.h.i.+rts! It puts me out. I get used to one Excellency and he is put aside! So it is settled, henceforth I will not say Excellency save to the usher or an office-boy!”

He accompanied his clumsy jests with a loud laugh, then, changing his tone:

”Come, that is not all. I came to speak of business to you.”

He looked Vaudrey full in the face with his piercing glance, took from his pocketbook a printed sheet and said in a precise tone:

”Here is an opportunity where your t.i.tle of former minister will serve you better than that of minister. So much is being said of Algeria, its mines and its fibre. Well, read that!”

Vaudrey took the paper. It was the prospectus, very skilfully drawn, of a company established to introduce gas into Algeria, almost as far as the Sahara. They promised the subscribers wonders and miracles: acres upon acres of land as a bonus. There was a fortune to be made. Meantime, they would issue six thousand shares of five hundred francs. It was three millions they were asking from the public. A mere trifle.

”They might ask ten,” said Molina, smiling. ”They would give it!”

”And you wish me to subscribe to your Algerian gas?” asked Vaudrey.

The fat Molina burst out into loud laughter this time.

”I? I simply wish to give you the opportunity to make a fortune!”

”How?”

”That is one scheme. I will bring you four, five, ten of them! I have another, the Luxemburg coal. A deposit equal to that of Charleroi. You have only to allow me to print in the list of directors: Monsieur Sulpice Vaudrey, former President of the Council.”

Vaudrey looked the fat man squarely in the face.

”Besides you will be in good company!” said the banker as he read over the names of deputies, senators, statesmen, coupled with those of financiers.

Sulpice knew most of them.

He despised nearly all of them. It was such that Molina styled _good company!_

”And those mines, are you certain they will produce what you promise?”

”Ah!” said Salomon, ”that is the engineers' matter! Here is the report of a mining engineer who is perhaps straining after effect and doing a little puffing up! But one must go with the times! He who ventures nothing, has nothing. In war, one risks one's skin; in business, one risks one's money. That is war.”

Vaudrey debated with himself whether he should tear the prospectus in pieces and throw them in the face of the fat man.

”My dear Vaudrey,” said the _Tumbler_, ”you have a vein that is entirely your own. A former minister remains always a former minister.

Well, such a t.i.tle as that is turned to account. It is quoted, like any other commodity. You are not rich, that fact proves your honesty, although in America, and we are Americanizing ourselves devilishly much, that would only be the measure of your stupidity. You can become rich, I have the means of making myself agreeable to you and you have the opportunity of becoming useful to us.”

”In a word, you buy my name?”

”I hire it from you! Very dearly,” said Molina, still laughing.

”Certainly,” said Vaudrey, ”you did not understand me on the first occasion that you called on me to speak about money, and when I questioned with myself whether I should ask you not to call again.”