‘You have been a guest in his house. Then, I guess, the thing’s about as good as done.’ These words were spoken with a fine, sharp, nasal twang by a brilliantly-dressed American gentleman in one of the smartest private rooms of the great railway hotel at Liverpool, and they were addressed to a young Englishman who was sitting opposite to him. Between them there was a table covered with maps, schedules, and printed programmes. The American was smoking a very large cigar, which he kept constantly turning in his mouth, and half of which was inside his teeth. The Englishman had a short pipe. Mr Hamilton K. Fisker, of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague, was the American, and the Englishman was our friend Paul, the junior member of that firm.

‘But I didn’t even speak to him,’ said Paul.

‘In commercial affairs that matters nothing. It quite justifies you in introducing me. We are not going to ask your friend to do us a favour. We don’t want to borrow money.’

‘I thought you did.’

‘If he’ll go in for the thing he’d be one of us, and there would be no borrowing then. He’ll join us if he’s as clever as they say, because he’ll see his way to making a couple of million of dollars out of it. If he’d take the trouble to run over and show himself in San Francisco, he’d make double that. The moneyed men would go in with him at once, because they know that he understands the game and has got the pluck. A man who has done what he has by financing in Europe — by George! there’s no limit to what he might do with us. We’re a bigger people than any of you and have more room. We go after bigger things, and don’t stand shilly-shally on the brink as you do. But Melmotte pretty nigh beats the best among us. Anyway he should come and try his luck, and he couldn’t have a bigger thing or a safer thing than this. He’d see it immediately if I could talk to him for half an hour.’

‘Mr Fisker,’ said Paul mysteriously, ‘as we are partners, I think I ought to let you know that many people speak very badly of Mr Melmotte’s honesty.’

Mr Fisker smiled gently, turned his cigar twice round in his mouth, and then closed one eye. ‘There is always a want of charity,’ he said, ‘when a man is successful.’

The scheme in question was the grand proposal for a South Central Pacific and Mexican railway, which was to run from the Salt Lake City, thus branching off from the San Francisco and Chicago line — and pass down through the fertile lands of New Mexico and Arizona into the territory of the Mexican Republic, run by the city of Mexico, and come out on the gulf at the port of Vera Cruz. Mr Fisker admitted at once that it was a great undertaking, acknowledged that the distance might be perhaps something over 2000 miles, acknowledged that no computation had or perhaps could be made as to the probable cost of the railway; but seemed to think that questions such as these were beside the mark and childish. Melmotte, if he would go into the matter at all, would ask no such questions.

But we must go back a little. Paul Montague had received a telegram from his partner, Hamilton K. Fisker, sent on shore at Queenstown from one of the New York liners, requesting him to meet Fisker at Liverpool immediately. With this request he had felt himself bound to comply. Personally he had disliked Fisker — and perhaps not the less so because when in California he had never found himself able to resist the man’s good humour, audacity, and cleverness combined. He had found himself talked into agreeing with any project which Mr Fisker might have in hand. It was altogether against the grain with him, and yet by his own consent, that the flour-mill had been opened at Fiskerville. He trembled for his money and never wished to see Fisker again; but still, when Fisker came to England, he was proud to remember that Fisker was his partner, and he obeyed the order and went down to Liverpool.

If the flour-mill had frightened him, what must the present project have done! Fisker explained that he had come with two objects — first to ask the consent of the English partner to the proposed change in their business, and secondly to obtain the cooperation of English capitalists. The proposed change in the business meant simply the entire sale of the establishment at Fiskerville, and the absorption of the whole capital in the work of getting up the railway. ‘If you could realise all the money it wouldn’t make a mile of the railway,’ said Paul. Mr Fisker laughed at him. The object of Fisker, Montague, and Montague was not to make a railway to Vera Cruz, but to float a company. Paul thought that Mr Fisker seemed to be indifferent whether the railway should ever be constructed or not. It was clearly his idea that fortunes were to be made out of the concern before a spadeful of earth had been moved. If brilliantly printed programmes might avail anything, with gorgeous maps, and beautiful little pictures of trains running into tunnels beneath snowy mountains and coming out of them on the margin of sunlit lakes, Mr Fisker had certainly done much. But Paul, when he saw all these pretty things, could not keep his mind from thinking whence had come the money to pay for them. Mr Fisker had declared that he had come over to obtain his partner’s consent, but it seemed to that partner that a great deal had been done without any consent. And Paul’s fears on this hand were not allayed by finding that on all these beautiful papers he himself was described as one of the agents and general managers of the company. Each document was signed Fisker, Montague, and Montague. References on all matters were to be made to Fisker, Montague, and Montague — and in one of the documents it was stated that a member of the firm had proceeded to London with the view of attending to British interests in the matter. Fisker had seemed to think that his young partner would express unbounded satisfaction at the greatness which was thus falling upon him. A certain feeling of importance, not altogether unpleasant, was produced, but at the same time there was another conviction forced upon Montague’s mind, not altogether pleasant, that his, money was being made to disappear without any consent given by him, and that it behoved him to be cautious lest such consent should be extracted from him unawares.

‘What has become of the mill?’ he asked

‘We have put an agent into it.’

‘Is not that dangerous? What check have you on him?’

‘He pays us a fixed sum sir. But, my word! when there is such a thing as this on hand a trumpery mill like that is not worth speaking of.’

‘You haven’t sold it?’

‘Well; — no. But we’ve arranged a price for a sale.’

‘You haven’t taken the money for it?’

‘Well; — yes; we have. We’ve raised money on it, you know. You see you weren’t there, and so the two resident partners acted for the firm. But Mr Montague, you’d better go with us. You had indeed.’

‘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 assist 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 assured that with your matured judgment in such ma............