Part 9 (1/2)
”It's my lack of money,” he soliloquized. ”I've got the basis of a good thing, if I only had the money to make it good, but I haven't, and they know it. Murray was right.”
His thoughts being thus turned to Murray, he went to see him, in the faint hope that he might interest him in the plan. Murray had money to invest. But Murray deemed the risk too great in this instance.
”They can beat you,” said Murray. ”They have unlimited resources, and they'll certainly get through Bington on another street, if you persist in making your terms too stiff. Very likely, they would have given you three thousand or possibly even five thousand for your option when they first came to you, and they may do it now.”
”I tell you, it's a good thing,” insisted Lake.
”If it's really as good a thing as you think it is,” said Murray, ”you will have no difficulty in getting somebody with money to take it off your hands at a good margin of profit to you, but I can't see it.”
In this emergency, Lake recalled a man of considerable wealth who had known him as a boy and had taken an interest in him. It was humiliating not to be able to put the scheme through himself, after all his planning and confident talk, but it was better to turn it over to some one else than to fail entirely. So he went to see Andrew Belden.
”There is a remote chance of success,” declared Belden, ”but I would not care to risk twenty thousand on it.”
”The company can't get through Bington, except on that franchise,”
insisted Lake.
”That may be so,” admitted Belden, ”but I have learned not to be too confident in forecasting the action of public officials and corporations. The company could make a strong point by threatening to cut out Bington entirely and carry its line to one side of it.”
”That would make a loop in their road that would be costly in building and in the delays it would occasion,” argued Lake. ”They can't make any circuits, if they are to do the business.”
”Nevertheless,” returned Belden, ”their actions show that they are very sure of their ground.”
”Simply because I haven't the ready cash,” said Lake bitterly. ”Will you loan it to me, Mr. Belden? If you won't go into the deal yourself, will you loan me the money to put it through? I'll give you the stock as security, and I think you know me well enough to know that I'll repay every cent of it as rapidly as possible.”
”My dear Horace,” exclaimed Belden with frank friendliness, ”I haven't the least doubt of your integrity, but I have very serious doubts of your ability to repay any such sum, and it is more than I care to lose.
You never have had a thousand dollars at one time in your life, and I may say, without intending to be unkind, that it isn't likely you ever will. As for the security, its value depends entirely on the success of your plans: if you fail, it won't be worth ten cents. Now, if you had any real security, upon which I could realize in case anything happened to you, I would cheerfully let you have the money for as long a time as you wish. Although your plan does not appeal to me, I am sincerely anxious to be of a.s.sistance to you as far as possible, but I can't make you a gift of twenty thousand dollars. Convince me that it will be repaid ultimately-no matter in how long a time-and I will let you have it.”
Lake departed, discouraged. He had no security of any sort to offer, and had only asked for the loan as a desperate last resort, without the slightest expectation that he would get it. The company, he decided, had beaten him, just because no one else was clear-headed enough to see the opportunity, and he might as well get what little profit he could while there was still time. With this object in view, he went to see the colonel.
”I have decided,” he said, ”to let you have the road for a bonus of five thousand dollars.”
”That is very kind of you,” returned the colonel, ”but we can get it cheaper. You see,” he explained, with the disagreeable frankness of one who thinks he holds the winning hand, ”the minority stock-holders were a little disgruntled when they learned of your deal-thought they had been left out in the cold-and they were ready to make very favorable terms with us. As we have a second option on the majority stock, at a somewhat higher figure, we have only to wait until your option expires and then take the little we need to give us control.”
”I'll let you have my option for the two thousand you offered a month ago,” said Lake in desperation.
”It's not worth that to us now.”
”One thousand dollars.”
”Why, frankly, Mr. Lake,” said the colonel still pleasantly, ”we men of some experience and standing in the business world don't like to have half-baked financiers interfering with our plans, and we aim to discourage them as effectually as possible whenever possible.” Then, with a sudden change of tone: ”We won't give you a d.a.m.n cent for your option. You were too greedy.”
”Of course, you men of money and high finance are not greedy at all,”
retorted Lake sarcastically.
Lake was too depressed to see it at the moment, but later it began to dawn on him that the colonel, usually astute, had made a grievous mistake. In his anxiety to impress upon the young man the futility of his avaricious schemes, in the face of such wise and resourceful opposition, he had mentioned the fact that the minority stock had been brought within their reach. Had they already bought it, or had they only secured options on it? If already purchased, the purchase price would prove a dead loss, unless they were able to get enough more to secure control. To parallel the road would be to kill a company in which they were financially interested, in addition to incurring the considerable expense necessary for a new connecting link.
Lake went to Bington that afternoon, and returned the following morning.
The game was his, if he could raise the money; they had bought most of the minority stock outright, being unable to get options on it. He was sure of victory now, if he could raise the money. He no longer wished to turn the deal over to any one else on any terms: he wished to carry it to the conclusion himself. But the money, the money!