House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  Alphendéry said bitterly, ‘Don’t be so sure, Stewart: you have seen your best days. Nothing that can happen now can benefit the British Empire. It can only disgorge.’

  ‘Your brother downstairs this morning said something that I would never allow in my place, not even if Murthen said it,’ Stewart discharged upon them, testily coming to his point.

  ‘What was it?’ Jules asked idly.

  ‘He said, “You can only make petty cash in the market now. No one runs a roulette wheel when it’s losing. They’ll close the stock exchange one of these days, when they find out there are too many wise to the fact that the end of the world’s coming.” He was advising a client.’

  Jules laughed. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. A little man and a little woman in a fur coat.’

  The forelegs of Jules’s chair came down: ‘The Hallers! Oh, don’t worry about them. They think the same. Besides, my dear fellow, they’ve haunted our stock-exchange room for six years, got our information, and always placed their orders with Cleat, Placket, and Company.’

  ‘Just what I say,’ shrugged Stewart. ‘They lose confidence.’

  Jules laughed, flirted the leaves of his gilt-edged diary. ‘No, we give no tips; on the other hand Cleat, Placket, and Company always give bullish information and it gives Haller a special pleasure to bet against them on the bear side. Do you want to know his maxim? A bull market is the quickest way to sell the public nothing at a high price, and then blame it on them.’ Jules looked at Stewart, balancing the paper knife; he was tempted and he fell.

  ‘Ah! Ah? How are gold shares? I hear the Union Corporation is very secretive and making money. I don’t believe in silver myself. But the silver talk is a bad sign. One hundred francs it’s off before midnight, October thirty-first, this year, Stewart.’

  ‘All right, Bertillon.’

  ‘And cover those Phillips’ Petroleum.’

  ‘I’ve telephoned that this morning.’

  ‘I’m still carrying Royal Dutch and Steaua Romana. I’ll see next settlement. Telephone me every day.’

  ‘All right, Mr. Bertillon. Good-by. Good-by, Alphendéry.’ Stewart left.

  ‘You have a big position in London,’ said Michel curiously.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Your bet on the pound. What about your bet with Carrière? You’re betting both ways.’

  ‘Most people want to bet both ways all the time.’ Jules shouldered off any more questions. ‘Stewart! The English are not hypocritical—it’s not true. They have a natural, ingrained double face from birth! They’re the Western Chinese, Michel: old and smooth with deceit. They gabble along in their chop-suey language and you only get a word here and there. You have to think as if you’re in a chess game. You’ve got to think: when an Englishman says, “Ah-ha”, he really means part of the declension of “te-he” and only that part that’s out of date and that really applies solely to Indian currency that’s slightly chipped. God and Mr. Stewart run the Empire! Talk to an Englishman half a day and then go to a booby house to hear mother sense. But he’s right, in his own way. If there were a God he’d be more like Rockefeller than Ramsay MacDonald.’

  And Stewart, when he got home, said to Murthen, ‘I enjoy a jaunt to Paris but the French are the most disorganized people in the world. Very bizarre people. You can never know what they’ll bring out next. Perfect anarchists the way they think. Of course, there was no soap in the hotel, and I forgot to take any. I wish they’d get into the English system of bathrooms. There was a bathroom, of course, but the soap shows they’re not used to them.’

  This was the latest cross-verdict from two peoples who have been facing each other for only a couple of thousand years.

  ‘Listen, Jules,’ said William that night at home, ‘what’s this I hear about Royal Dutch and the rest? If you run a bucket shop, never bet on the game yourself. The trouble is that you have a best seller, Jules, in your bank. The cover and the title alone sell the book. But when they open it, there’s nothing inside. First you’re a bear on the market, then you become too clever and become a bear on the whole world; next you’re a bear on yourself, too. Where are you going, Jules? Don’t speculate, Jules.’

  ‘Shut up, William: I know my business.’

  ‘Yes? What is your business?’

  ‘I’m selling for Legris, too.’

  ‘Heaven above! They’ll stick you for the whole raspberry bush, one day.’

  ‘I operate through them, without margin,’ smiled Jules.

  ‘When did you start this cat’s cradle?’

  ‘A little while ago.’

  ‘Jules, you must tell me how you stand!’

  ‘Yes? You think so? Leave me alone, William. After you and Alphendéry made me lose a fortune, not letting me skip the other day, I’ve decided to run things myself. This is my bank,’ he finished insolently, coldly.

  William looked him over, smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘All right. I’ll be here to pick up the pieces.’

  Jules mused, ‘When you come to think of it, a bank’s creditors should be fined when the banker skips. Their credulity undermines financial security!’

  ‘Why be smart?’ complained William. ‘It’s easy to make money. Take the client’s money and let him die on you: that’s all. You’re like the rest: every financier is always waiting for the grand coup. The only grand coup that comes is his last act … What’s the use of making so much money? You can get more credit on a million-dollar debit than on having your place stuffed with gold from skirting to cornice.’

  ‘Credit has a home. It has an address. You can’t fly with credit. That’s the difference.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m dead tired. Night-night.’

  ‘Goo’ night. What makes you so sleepy?’

  Jules got no answer. In fifteen minutes William was lying like a log in his gloomy, concierge-touched bachelor home. The street lamp through a crack in the drawn curtains fell on the night coverings of his sole companion—the sleeping Chinese nightingale.

  * * *

  Scene Forty-seven: Jules Dreams

  Michel Alphendéry wore his good-luck red tie for two months, and Jules had good ideas every day. The morning after William’s visit, Jules came into the bank bright and early after a brisk canter on his favorite chestnut mare and he went like an arrow to Alphendéry’s room, where he produced a slip of typewritten paper, and seating himself, began to expound the ideas he had had the night before in bed. ‘At least one of them will be a gold mine.’ The slip of paper read—

  sluggle tobacco navy

  yahcht for getting lire out of Italy

  snake CPR out of bank affiliates—write country laxyers

  incorporare ho :ding comany Deliaware

  write Léon his scheme Dutch

  Verger du côte-Vert

  Sell Int. Nickel also United Cigar

  Reno plan Monte-Carlo

  consortum of richissimes

  ‘I’m a type,’ Jules explained, ‘who succeeds with success. To make money I have to have confidence and to have confidence I have to make money. When I bear the market I am against the boobies and that gives me confidence. The stock market is like love! Most people begin by taking a flier and end by supporting it. That’s why the bear is always right. Now, I want to get through this before William comes in with his wise saws: he nearly made me sick last night. He has absolute proofs that nothing whatever can pay. Listen, there’s big money in smuggling tobacco into France.’

  ‘That’s everyone’s first get-rich scheme,’ Michel commented, ‘but go on.’

  ‘Don’t form an opinion right away, Michel. I’ve got a grand idea. Get it smuggled in by the navy. They’re always making trips to Smyrna and so on. Who suspects the navy? Who inspects it? All you do is to pay some petty officer commission; he can get a trusty
sailor, and there you are. And they come right in alongside, no customs. And I say, wouldn’t it be better to get it brought in in a submarine? You know how sailors hate submarines. I’ll bet they don’t care what they do against the regulations to get a little dough. Every time they put to sea, every time they go through their exercises, they face death by drowning, suffocation, or collision. Sailors of the surface marine have a hundred chances to their one. A lieutenant would never be questioned.’

  ‘What are the risks? The lieutenant would be court-martialed and you’ll get—five years, is it?—for smuggling.’

  ‘Is it smuggling? Smuggling is evading the customs. But there are no customs for a submarine. I’ll pay a fine, that’s all, and I won’t get jail. I’ll get a good lawyer, instead. No, I’m sure it’s not smuggling. I’ll get Pierrot to look it up.’

  ‘If you tell Pierrot, you’re sunk, without any submarine. I want to make a little chart of Pierre’s benefits to us, one day, just to look at when I feel downhearted. There was the lease he made for us in the Rue de Châteaudun. Maître Friesz in Amsterdam collects rare legal documents: I’ve been thinking of selling him that lease—it must be unique in the history of French law. There was nothing too good for the landlord—a repeating nine-year lease for a one-room office and the rent fixed not in francs but in relation to gold. The lawyer on the other side must be the one who draws up the reorganizations of the Banque de France.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell him to consult with another lawyer,’ Jules conceded. ‘The next speaks for itself. There are plenty of fishing boats hanging about the coast that do a trade in rescuing refugees. You could do a double business: smuggle out lire for the refugees from their relatives; smuggle it in for commerce. Swimmers can go backwards and forwards with waterproof bags. I have a yacht I could use.’

  ‘Smuggle number two. However, go on, it’s a fine morning.’

  Jules laughed and cast a glance at Michel: ‘The only reason I’m in business is to stop me from going crazy, Michel.’

  ‘You’d better work harder then.’

  ‘I’m serious, Michel. We’ve got to make money. We can’t sit round listening to William’s petty-cash fairy tales. What do you think now? He wants to go into cheap bazaars with Daniel Cambo. He’ll be opening a haberdashery department downstairs soon. Ptt! That may entrance William but not two abstract money types like you and me.’

  ‘Go on, Jules: I’m listening.’

  ‘You know, last time I was in England I noticed that every bank has a sort of trust company affiliated with it and big wads of the best trust shares are held in its nominees department. If you could get them on deposit you could sell the market to a fare-thee-well and never be short. Then we might get some lawyer in England to get up a scheme for appealing to family solicitors—the sort that are always tempted to embezzle, those who manage small estates and trust funds or act as guardians, and invite them to deposit with us, say, C.P.R. and Royal Dutch shares. We could then sell the market and have a large supply. You simply give the lawyer a percentage. We could form a holding company and pay them a decent interest, say, one-half per cent—not too much—over bank rate. It would be a good investment for them and we would have a practically unlimited supply. England is clogged with widows and orphans living on embalmed shares.’

  ‘That has points,’ said Alphendéry. ‘Why not write to Adam Constant while he is still in England and ask him to see Ledger, Ledger, and Braves. Well have to see what can be done. Perhaps nothing can be done. It’s much like our guarantee scheme. That’s bright! How about taking Stewart into your confidence: someone’s got to sell for you, and he won’t do it too far unless he knows you’ve got the supply. He could help you. You know the English private-interest octopus: you’ve got to have a façade.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll buy up some old company through Ledger and Braves. Now, ‘Incorporate holding company Delaware’—oh, I have to remind Pierre Olympe to get up the forms on that company I told you about and pay the tax. Listen, what was Stewart raving about—jobbers? How about forming our own company of jobbers and seesawing our own stock account. It’s legal. And worth millions if it’s properly run. That may be the great stroke we’ve been waiting for, Michel! Your red tie brings me luck.’

  ‘I need a new one.’

  Jules frowned. ‘It might change my luck: don’t—to please me, Michel. Well—I want you to write to Léon. He just sent me a letter saying two Amsterdam merchants who want to start a private bank are willing to buy me out if I’ll give them a private statement properly certified. I want Léon to come down and see me about it. I guess he’s one of them? And tell him to put it all down clearly on paper. He’s afraid to give the scheme away. “Verger du Côte-Vert.” That’s the little property the Princesse wants me to sell down in Provence. I don’t know whether to take it or not. I asked Comte Lucé why he didn’t go in for making peach brandy, instead of sitting up here miserably in the board room, waiting for his father to die. I’ll stake him to it, poor chap. Tell that Raccamond to find out the price of orchards. He’s got some land down there himself, I hear. I say, where did that fellow get his money? He began poor—his father’s a tailor or something. His wife’s got a cousin in the Banque Czorvocky. I suppose that’s it. And see whether there’s a market for a new peach brandy. The Princesse has a new formula but she’s willing to let it go with the orchard. All these people are so terrified of taxes now.’

  ‘Liqueurs—you’re in enough pickles already,’ said the voice of William from the door. He was rosy from a good sleep and a hearty breakfast.

  ‘Don’t laugh: St. Raphaël is making a fortune,’ Alphendéry put in.

  Jules went on, ‘“Sell Int. Nickel”—um, um, um—yes. I’ve a hunch those two are both headed for the grave, or at least for a sanatarium. It might go from fifteen to five. Let’s sell them.’

  ‘Hunches are only good in retrospect,’ William advised them.

  Jules took no notice. ‘“Monte-Carlo.” Now I want you to listen to the best idea of the year. You know Monte Carlo’s practically dead. No one goes there but two-penny deadbeats and stenographers on a holiday. But everyone’s sick of Deauville and Le Touquet. How about making Monte Carlo popular again by making it a sort of European Reno? You know the Pope has a big interest in Monte Carlo. The Prince would never complain if the Pope agreed. Point out to the Pope that his profits will increase enormously if crowds start flowing back there and get him to make a special dispensation for Monte Carlo. He can issue a bull making divorce easy in Monte Carlo. And a special dispensation. Papal divorce business will have to be recognized by every state. He needs the money. They say Ireland is the only country he can still milk. Since the 1929 bust the Americans have stopped sending even moonshine liquor. We could also get the concession for a new hotel, absolutely up-to-date. Baron Koffer would pay us any price to buy the site from us: his heart would be broken when he found out we were there ahead of him. Then we can float it and sell it as soon as the boom has started. Think of something else. Monte Carlo is a separate principality: all sorts of people not welcome elsewhere, ex-Russians and the like would go there. They’d really have to build an extension of Monte Carlo out into the sea. How about that? Extend it to the statutory limit? Well, it’s good, isn’t it? I propose that you should go and see the Pope. Popes only do business with Jews.’

  ‘That is a good way for the Pope to lose all his Irish income.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. All he has to do is to resign from Rome and go and live in Ireland and they’ll be too happy.’

  ‘Yes, but would the Pope? You didn’t sleep much last night, Jules. What would you offer the Pope? A share in the hotel, I suppose?’

  ‘The last is the consortium of rich men I told you about. One rich man from each profession, each to contribute his own scoop, profits share and share alike. One journalist like some smart Hearst journalist, one English broker like Stewart, one man about town like Carrière, one d
eputy like Blériot (you know him, don’t you, Alphendéry?), one man in high society like Theus (you know him, too), one French agent de change, and so on. Ourselves holding the strings. No shareholder in the Banque de France: they’d betray us. The bank a façade, the consortium behind it; maybe an insurance company, too, to make it look as if we were spreading into high finance. Make the papers talk about us. ‘Who are the powers behind Bertillon?’ Whispering campaign—“the Société Générale Alsacienne is behind Bertillon.” What will lend it color is your being here, Alphendéry. Your wife knows the richest people in Brussels. Why not?’

  ‘And who will start the whispering campaign?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Jules, it isn’t true, is it?’

  He laughed roguishly, ‘Ptt! Of course not. Why should it be? It’s enough to whisper it is. Someone comes to me: “Mr. Bertillon, I hear that the S.G.A. is behind you. Is it true?” “Where did you hear that?” say I. “On the Bourse,” says he. “Run along,” say I, “and don’t ask questions like that.” Good. A confirmation. If I say, “No, it isn’t true,” it’s still a confirmation. Does a secret influence admit itself? He goes to the S.G.A. “I hear you are working secretly through the Banque Bertillon and Alphendéry is your agent.” “Nonsense,” says the S.G.A. Good: a confirmation. Does a bank admit who is its secret agent? No. They deny it. People begin to follow Alphendéry in the street. The less he goes near the S.G.A. the more they are sure he is working for it. It will take fifty years to kill that one whisper. And what harm do I do them? (Not that that is in my mind!)’ William’s face was shining with admiration. He refused to encourage his brother but they could both see he thought this very clever.