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 analysed, 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 brass 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 amusement 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 documents, 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 appetite 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 competition. 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 space 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 mass 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 assistance 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
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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.
Paul had now of course given his full authority to the work, much in opposition to the advice of his old friend Roger Carbury — and had come up to live in town, that he might personally attend to the affairs of the great railway. There was an office just behind the Exchange, with two or three clerks and a secretary, the latter position being held by Miles Grendall, Esq. Paul, who had a conscience in the matter and was keenly alive to the fact that he was not only a director but was also one of the firm of Fisker, Montague, and Montague which was responsible for the whole affair,