They had their little temporary joke with me on the street that afternoon--and now they must walk up to the captain's office and settle. They've got to pay me at least half a million pounds for that few minutes' fun of theirs.
I may make it a good deal more; I don't know yet.""Oh, Joel!" she groaned at him, in awed stupefaction.
His rather languid indecision as to whether half a million was going to be enough, impressed her more powerfully than had any detail of his narrative.
In a few comprehensive sentences he finished up for her what there was to tell. "This afternoon my Board met to allot the shares. They saw the applications, amounting in all to over ninety thousand shares.
It took their breath away--they had heard that things were going quite the other way with us. They were so tickled that they asked no questions The allotment went through like a greased pig. About 5,000 shares went to those who had actually applied for them, and 88,000 were solemnly given to the dummy applicants.
Of course, there wasn't a whisper about these dummies.
Nobody winked so much as an eyelash. But I've found since that one of the directors--that Lord Plowden Itold you about--was onto the thing all the while.
But he's all right. Everybody's all right. Of course the dummies' shares still stand in their names--on paper--but in reality I've got them all in my safe--in my pocket you might say. They are really mine, you understand.
So now there's nothing for us to do but to apply to the Stock Exchange for a special settlement date, and meanwhile lie quiet and watch the Jews stew in their own juice.
Or fry in their own fat, eh? That's better."
"But," she commented slowly, "you say there are no shares to be bought--and yet as I understand it, there are those five thousand that were sent out to the people who really applied.""Bravo, Lou!" he answered her jovially. "You actually do understand the thing. You've put your finger straight on the point. It is true that those shares are out against us--or might be turned against us if they could be bought up. But in reality, they don't count at all.
In the first place, you see, they're scattered about among small holders, country clergymen and old maids on an annuity and so on--all over the country. Even if these people were all traced, and hunted up, suppose it was worth the trouble and expense, they wouldn't sell.
The bigger the price they were offered, the more mulish they would be about holding. That's always the way with them. But even if they did all sell, their five thousand would be a mere drop in the bucket. There would be over twenty thousand others to be accounted for.
That would be quite enough for my purposes. Oh, I figured all that out very carefully. My own first notion was to have the dummies apply for the whole hundred thousand, and even a little over. Then, you see, we might have allotted everything to the dummies, and sent back the money and applications of the genuine ones. But that would have been rather hard to manage with the Board.
The Markiss would have said that the returns ought to be made pro rata--that is, giving everybody a part of what they applied for--and that would have mixed everything up.
And then, too, if anybody suspected anything, why the Stock Exchange Committee would refuse us a special settlement--and, of course, without that the whole transaction is moonshine.
