“You don’t seem like it.”
She said, “I have one system with Bertha. I do all the work she hands me. When I’ve finished, I leave the office. I don’t try to be friendly with her. I don’t want her to be friendly with me. I’m just as much a part of this typewriter as the keyboard. I’m a machine—and I try to be a good one.”
“What’s all that correspondence you keep hammering away at?” I asked.
“Letters she sends out to lawyers from time to time soliciting business, and correspondence dealing with her investments.”
“Many investments?”
“Lots of them. She goes to two extremes. Most of the time she’s wanting something that’s as safe as a government bond, but paying about twice as much interest. Then there’s another side to her—the plunger. She’s a great gambler.”
I said, “Well, the way this office is going to be run you’re not to be overburdened with work. Go down to the newsstand in the lobby, pick up a couple of motion picture magazines, and a chew of gum. Put a magazine in the top drawer of your desk. Open the drawer, and sit there chewing gum and reading the magazine. When anyone comes in, close the drawer; but not until after they’ve seen what you’re doing.”
She said, “I’ve always wanted a job like that. Other girls seem to get them. I’ve never been able to.”
“This’ll probably not last longer than a couple of days, but it’s the sort of job you’re going to have.”
“Bertha will switch. She’ll get you some girl from an employment office and take me back to the mill.”
“I won’t let her. I’ll tell her that I need someone I can trust. She can get lots of girls to do typing— It might be a good idea to let her see just how hard it is to fill your place.”
She looked up at me for a minute and said, “Donald, I’ve often wondered why it is you get people boosting for you. I guess perhaps it’s because you’re so darn considerate. You—” She quit talking all at once, pushed back her chair, rushed across the office and out the door as though she’d been going to a fire.
I went on into the private office, closed the door, tilted back in a swivel chair, and put my heels up on the top of a desk that had seen lots of hard usage.
After I heard Elsie Brand return to the outer office I picked up the telephone and pushed the button that connected me with her desk.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Make a note of three names, Elsie. They’re Parker Stold, Bernard Carter, and Robert Tindle. Got them?”
“Yes. What about them?”
“If any one of those people comes in, I’m busy, and I’m going to be busy all morning. I can’t see them and I don’t want them to wait. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“If anyone else comes in, try and find out what he wants. Have him sit down and wait. Get him to give you a card if possible. Bring the card in to me.”
“That all?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she said, and I heard her telephone click.
I had a lot of thinking to do, and I sat there in the chair, smoking and thinking, trying to figure things out so they made sense. I wasn’t trying to solve the whole puzzle because I knew I didn’t have enough facts, but I was getting facts. I felt that if I could keep my head and not make any false steps, things would open up.
About eleven I heard the door of the outer office open and close, and the sound of voices. Elsie came in with a card. The card had a man’s name on it, nothing more.
I studied the card. “Gilbert Rich, eh? What does he look like?”
“High pressure,” she said. “Salesman of some kind. Won’t tell me what. I asked him what he wanted to see you about, and he said a sales proposition. He’s forty, and he dresses for twenty-seven. He isn’t exactly what you’d call well dressed. What he’d call a ‘nifty dresser.’ ”
“Fat?”
“No, fairly slender, getting bald on each side of his forehead. Dark hair slicked back. Black eyes, no glasses. Quick, nervous, glib. His nails are well manicured and polished. He’s had a fresh shoeshine this morning, and smells like a barbershop. Do you want to see him?”
“Yes.”
She went out, and Gilbert Rich came in. He crossed the office with quick steps to grab my hand. His manner was nervous and magnetic. He started talking as though he’d been accustomed to try and get in as many words as possible before he got thrown out.
“Doubtless, Mr. Fischler, you’ll wonder about the nature of my business. When I told your secretary it was a sales proposition, perhaps you thought that it was something I had that I wanted you to handle. As a matter of fact, it’s exactly the other way around. I want to make you a lot of money, Mr. Fischler. In order to do that, I’m going to require three minutes of your time.”
He jerked a watch out of his pocket and placed it on my desk in front of me.
“Kindly notice the time, Mr. Fischler. Keep your eyes right on that watch. As soon as my three minutes are up, tell me. That’s all I want, three minutes of your time, and in return I’ll guarantee they’ll be the most profitable three minutes you’ve spent in the last ten years.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “You’ve got three minutes.”
“Mr. Fischler, have you ever paused to think of the marvels of modern science? Don’t bother to answer, because I can see that you have. You realize, Mr. Fischler, that things we regard as everyday occurrences today are things which were scientific impossibilities a few years ago.
“Now then, Mr. Fischler, in order to show you how you are going to make money out of modern scientific developments, it’s necessary for me to turn back a page in the history of our great and glorious state. We’ll turn back, not to the days of forty-nine, but to the days which followed it, days when the state was a swarming horde of gold seekers. Men were grubbing with pick and shovel, with rockers and gold pans, taking gold out of the earth, and there was a vast amount of gold taken out, Mr. Fischler. It poured back to the money centers of the East in a steady golden stream. But there was lots of gold left.
“Up in the country around Valleydale there was a rich placer deposit. The river came roaring out of the mountain carrying gold, depositing it in a vast alluvial plane over the broad agricultural valley which opened out to receive the smiling waters of a river suddenly grown placid. Men, naked to the waist, toiled through the winter rains, through the broiling summer suns, grubbing out gold, and always more gold. Then, as the richer alluvial deposits were exhausted, they moved on down, tracing the course of the river through the geological ages, finding the top soil rich for agricultural purposes, but the gold values collected on bedrock where they had settled— And then just when they were on the verge of reaping their richest harvest, they encountered the problem of surface water. They could dig down to twenty-five feet before encountering water. They got gold almost from the grass roots, but they couldn’t get down to the rich deposits on bedrock. Bedrock at that point lay in a uniform bench at about forty-two feet below the surface.
“But I won’t detain you with sketching the details of that picture, Mr. Fischler. Doubtless, you’re familiar with it from having seen the various historical films which are masterpieces of cinematic art. We will hurry on to the edge of modern inventions. A man of vision conceived the idea of using the water, not as an enemy, but as an aid. He built a big barge, and on that he placed the machinery necessary to dredge. An endless chain of steel buckets dipped far below the surface of the water to scrape the values up from bedrock. The agricultural land was ruined, but in its place the owner received a vast royalty on the gold extracted. The entire topography of the country changed. Because of the peculiar process used in gold dredging, the silt and soil was discharged on the bottom, the rocks and boulders on the top. As a result, the rich agricultural valley became a heap of sun-bleached tailing piles.
“Years passed. The gold dredgers completed chewing up all of the profitable ground, and, as they demolished the last acre, they found themselves trapped in a rocky waste
of their own fashioning. There was no further use for them. They were too bulky to dismantle and move, and, even so, there was no place for them to go. They fell into ruins as grim as the ruins of the fair land which they themselves had devastated. The barges began to leak, careened over to one side. The machinery rusted. That which could be profitably transported for junk was sold. The rest became a rusted monument to the greed of man.
“Even the dredgers had not been able to get to bedrock on all the land. In places they had been forced to leave fifteen to twenty feet of the richest pay soil on top of bedrock.
“Now then, Mr. Fischler, we come to a great dream, a golden dream, a dream which is coming true. Modern engineering has devised a means by which the land can be redredged and the boulders placed on the bottom, the silt put back on the top, so that once more the land will be fair and fertile. This has long been known. The Chamber of Commerce of Valleydale had even thought of redredging the land with modern equipment simply for the purpose of restoring it to agricultural productivity, but the process would have been too expensive. What the Chamber of Commerce didn’t realize was that there was still a vast fortune of gold lying on top of bedrock waiting for the proper person to—”
“You’ve used up your three minutes,” I said.
He looked at me, then at the watch, and said, “So I have. Well, I’m all finished, Mr. Fischler. With an ordinary man, I would have to show him the similarity between the situation which confronts the investor today and that which confronted the original operators of the gold dredge. The gold has been there for years. As engineering skill has developed, the ingenuity of man, coping with nature, has rolled over the valley in successive waves, each wave carrying on its crest a new generation of millionaires, sweeping them into power. The history of San Francisco is—”
“Your three minutes was up thirty seconds ago.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I was going to say that with an ordinary man, I would have to point this out, but you, Mr. Fischler, a man who is himself familiar with sales technique and therefore able to grasp business possibilities at a swift glance, can see at once the possibilities of the situation.
“The only question, Mr. Fischler, is whether this crop of new millionaires which are going to be swept into wealth and power is going to have emblazoned on its scroll the name of Charles E. Fischler.”
I twisted a lead pencil between my fingers and tried to avoid his eyes. He kept moving around so that he could make me look at him, making forceful gestures, tapping the desk with his forefinger. “I won’t argue with you, Mr. Fischler. You are a man of discernment. You are a man of quick, accurate judgment, otherwise you would not have made such a success with your business. You can appreciate the enormous possibilities which are offered. Not only do we make a profit from dredging the land, but when the dredging activities are finished, we have restored once more an agricultural land bathed in sunlight, covered with orchards and vineyards, ready for subdivision, while people, hungry for land which can be subdivided into acres of independence, throng eagerly to the tract offices, and lay down the purchase price.
“And in the meantime, Mr. Fischler, I have not called to your attention the most significant point of all because I know that you do not need to have that pointed out. I know that you have been watching me as I made these points and saying to yourself, ‘When is he going to mention the fact that the price of gold today is virtually double that which it was when all of these fortunes were made? When is he going to mention the fact that one who has his money invested in virgin gold need have no fear of inflation? When is he going to mention the fact that gold-bearing properties are the one investment which a man can make, and then regard with equanimity a long succession of unbalanced budgets? When is he—’ ”
“Your three minutes are up,” I said.
“I understand, Mr. Fischler. I have perhaps trespassed upon your time and your good nature, but so great is my anxiety to see that you yourself—”
“How much,” I asked cautiously, “is it going to cost?”
“That is entirely up to you, Mr. Fischler. If you wish to make a hundred thousand dollars, your investment can be relatively small. If you will be content with five hundred thousand, you can make a moderate investment. If you wish to be swept on into power as a multi-millionaire, it will cost you more.”
“How much,” I asked, “to be a multi-millionaire?”
“Five thousand bucks,” he said without batting an eye.
“How do you figure it?”
“Well, to begin with, there are these vast acres.”
“Never mind going over that again,” I said. “Let’s get down to brass tacks.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What are your shares of stock worth?”
“One hundred and fifty-seven times what we are asking for them,” he said.
“Into what units is your stock divided?”
He jerked a billfold from his pocket, tapped the desk with it impressively. “Mr. Fischler, when the Foreclosed Farms Underwriters Company was established, it was an agricultural enterprise launched in the midst of a vast business depression which had for its primary object the redemption of lands which had been foreclosed in mortgage sale. Therefore, the corporation had a low capitalized stock valuation. Now that this vast new enterprise has developed, the logical thing to do would be to increase our stock capital by one thousand per cent. In other words, a share of stock which had a previous par value of one dollar should be split up into one thousand shares of stock, each of one dollar valuation. It would be readily possible to do this, but in order to accomplish it, there would be legal difficulties, a lot of red tape, incidental delays, and the making of profit for our stockholders would be delayed just that much.
“It is the policy of our directors—young vigorous men, broad-minded, aggressive, and determined—to cut away all of this red tape, to rush into production in order that our stockholders can start enjoying their profits almost immediately.”
“How much would I get for five hundred dollars?”
“You would get one share of stock. The par value would be one dollar. The actual value right today would in all probability be five thousand dollars. Within sixty days, you can doubtless sell it for ten thousand five hundred dollars. At the end of a year, that stock will be worth one hundred thousand dollars.”
I squinted my eyes thoughtfully. He knew then the time had come to close, and, good salesman that he was, he withdrew discreetly to the background so that I could let the details soak in.
“I haven’t much money now,” I said. “In about thirty days, I expect to have a lot more money.”
“In thirty days,” he said, “the stock will, of course, have increased in value, but it will still be a marvelous investment.”
“Look here,” I said, “could I buy five hundred dollars’ worth of stock, and then get an option on a larger block of stock by paying another five hundred dollars?”
“I’d have to take it up with the main office,” he said. “That’s rather unusual. You can see what that would mean, Mr. Fischler. If you tied up a block of stock for only five hundred dollars, you could sell out within a week for a respectable profit. Inside of thirty days, you could probably realize twenty thousand dollars for your five-hundred-dollar option.”
“That’s the way I want to do it,” I said.
“But have you considered the possibility of going to a bank, Mr. Fischler, and—”
“I’ve made my proposition,” I said.
“I understand. But, Mr. Fischler, the situation is this. Our board of directors have to be scrupulously fair. They have other investors to consider. Many persons have bought—”
“You heard my proposition,” I said. “You’ve used up your time allowance. I’m familiar with what you have to offer. I don’t want to waste time in argument.”
“How big a block of stock would you want to tie up in that option?”
“In thirty days,” I said, “I’m going to
have a hundred thousand dollars to invest. I’m not going to put all of my eggs in one basket. Fifty thousand dollars is the limit I’ll put in your company. I’ll put up five hundred dollars now to show my good faith, and I want you to tie up a block of stock which, selling at present prices, will be what I can buy for fifty thousand dollars.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but would it be possible for you to consider—”
“No,” I interrupted, and got up out of my chair. “I’m a busy man, Mr. Rich.”
“I understand, but please remember that I am here offering you a sincere service. The minutes which you have so generously given me will bear you golden dividends out of all proportion—”
“You have my proposition. The quicker you get it to your board of directors, the quicker you can give me an answer.”
I walked over and held the door open.
He looked at me curiously for a minute, then shot out his hand. “Mr. Fischler,” he said, “permit me to congratulate you on having made one of the most momentous decisions of your entire business career—and also upon having put across the shrewdest, most farsighted financial deal of any prospect upon whom I have called. I’ll give you a ring this afternoon.”
I stood in the door and watched him cross the outer office and leave through the entrance door.
Elsie Brand looked up. “Gosh, what a line,” she said. “Could you hear it?”
“Not the words, but you could hear his voice pouring out through the cracks around the office door.”
I said, “Get me Henry C. Ashbury on the line. You’ll find him listed in the telephone book. Don’t try his residence. Get his office.”
I went back and sat down at the desk. Ashbury came on the phone in about thirty seconds, and I said, “Hello, Ashbury. You know who this is talking?”
“No.” His voice was close-clipped and decisive as though he didn’t like riddles over the telephone, and was ready to hang up.
“Your physical instructor.”
“Oh, yes.” His voice changed.
“Would it inconvenience you,” I asked, “if your stepson went to jail for crooked promotion?”
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