HOW THE DUKE DE REQUENA REWARDED VIRTUE.
"Let me see, let me see. Explain yourself."
"Senor Duque, the matter is as clear as possible. I spoke with Regnault
to-day. If the furnaces are altered, a few roads made, and proper
machinery set up, the mine can be made to yield half as much again as it
now does. It may be as much as sixty thousand flasks of mercury. The
outlay needed to produce these results would not exceed a hundred to a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"That seems to me a great deal."
"A great deal for such a result?"
"No, that seems to me a great many flasks."
"But I have no doubt that what Regnault says is true. He is an
intelligent and practical engineer. He worked for six years in
California; and, indeed, the English engineer said the same."
The persons holding this discourse were Requena and his secretary, or
head-clerk, or whatever he called himself, since he had no particular
style or title in the household. He was known only by his name--Llera.
He was an Asturian, tall and bony, with a colourless, hard-featured
face, enormously long arms and legs, and large hands and feet. His
manner was rough and awkward; his eyes, which were fine, had a frank,
honest look, and were bright with energy and intelligence. He was an
indefatigable, an amazing worker. No one knew when he ate or slept. When
he made his appearance at eight in the morning, he brought with him as
much work ready done as most men get through in a day, and at midnight
he might often still be seen in his office, pen in hand.
Salabert, having the gift of judging men, without which no one makes a
great success in the world, had discovered Llera's intelligence and
character after employing him for a short while as an underling, and
without giving him any showy position--which was not at all his way--he
made him a responsible one, by accumulating in his hands all the most
important business of the house. He very soon was the great banker's
confidential man, the soul of the business. His laborious industry put
all the other employes to shame, and Salabert took advantage of it to
load him with work after regular hours. Llera was at the same time his
private secretary, his steward, the head clerk of the office, the
inspector of all the works he had in construction, and the agent in most
of his transactions. And for doing all this inconceivable amount of
work--more than four men of average industry would have got through--he
paid him six thousand pesetas a year. The man thought himself well paid,
remembering that only six years ago he was earning but twelve hundred
and fifty.
Every day, before taking his morning walk and paying his round of
business calls, Requena looked into Llera's office, made inquiries as to
things in general, and chatted with him for a longer or shorter time
according to circumstances.
The Duke's offices were at the top of his palace in the Avenue de
Luchana, a magnificent mansion, standing in the midst of a garden which
for extent was worthy to be called a park. In the spring the dense
foliage of the fine old trees almost hid the white tops of the turrets;
in winter the numbers of firs and evergreens which grew there, still
gave it a pleasant verdure. It was the meeting-place of all the birds in
that quarter of the city. The entrance to the house was up a large
flight of marble steps; above the ground floor, where the
reception-rooms were, and the dining-room, there were three storeys, and
the Duke's offices, which were not large, filled part only of the upper
floor. They were large enough for Salabert, who conducted his affairs
from thence, with the help of a dozen expert clerks.
The luxury displayed in the house was amazing; the furniture and
fittings were almost priceless. This was not in keeping with the avarice
with which the master was generally credited; but this and other
contradictions will be explained as we become better acquainted with his
character, which was curious enough to be well worthy of study.
The kitchens were in the basement, roomy and well-fitted; the
dining-room, at the back of the house, opened into a conservatory of
vast dimensions, filled with exotic shrubs and flowers, where water was
laid on to form little pools and water-falls of charming effect and
imitating nature as closely as possible. The picture-gallery was in a
separate building at the end of the garden, and in another some of the
servants slept, but not all.
The Duke, occupying the only chair in Llera's office, while the
secretary stood in front of him twirling a large pair of scissors used
for cutting paper, turned his wet cigar three or four times from one
corner of his mouth to the other, and made no reply to the clerk's last
words. At last he growled rather than said:
"Humph! The Ministry grows more pig-headed every day."
"What does that matter. You know the secret of making it give way.
Telegraph to Liverpool, and within a fortnight the price of mercury will
have fallen from sixty to forty dollars the flask."
About four years since, Requena, at Llera's suggestion and advice, had
formed a company or syndicate for buying up all the mercury which should
come into the market. Thanks to these tactics, the price of this product
had gone up wonderfully. The company had now an enormous stock in hand
at Liverpool; Llera's scheme was to throw this into the market at a
given moment and so produce a great fall in the price, which would
frighten the Government. This, which was to be done at the moment when
the Government was about to repay a loan of fifteen million dollars
borrowed ten years since of a foreign house, would reduce them to
selling the mines of Riosa. If Requena was then prepared to pull the
affair through at the sacrifice of a few thousands, to subsidise the
press, and bribe certain individuals, he might be certain of success.
This project, conceived of by Llera, and matured by the Duke, had run
its due course, and was now near the final _coup_.
"Well, we shall see," said the rich man, and after meditating a few
minutes he went on: "When the mines are for sale it will be necessary to
form another company. The Mercury Syndicate will not serve our turn."
"Of course!"
"The thing is that I do not want to sink more than eight million pesetas
in this concern."
"That is a different matter," said Llera, becoming very serious. "It
does not seem to me possible to keep the control of such a business with
so small a stake in it. The management will slip into other hands, and
the profits will soon be reduced to so much per cent., more or
less--that is to say, a mere nothing."
"Very true, very true," mumbled Salabert, again falling into deep
thought. Llera too remained silent and pensive.
"I have already explained to you the only way of keeping the concern in
your own hands," said he.
This way consisted in securing a sufficiently large number of shares in
the mine which the company was to purchase, and to go on buying up as
many as possible; then to throw them into the market at so low a price
as to alarm the shareholders. Thus to buy and sell at a loss for some
time was Llera's plan for bringing down the price of the shares, when he
could acquire half the shares _plus_ one, for much less money, and be
master of the whole concern.
To Salabert this was not so clear as to his clerk. His intellect was
keen and far-seeing, but he lacked breadth of view and initiative,
though those who saw him boldly undertake ventures of vast scope were
apt to think that he had them. The first conception, the mother idea, of
a new concern scarcely ever originated in his brain. It came to him from
outside; but once sown there it germinated and developed as it would
have done in no other in Spain. By degrees he analysed it, or rather
dissected it, laying bare its inmost fibres, contemplating it from all
sides; and once convinced that it would prove advantageous, he launched
it with the rare and surprising audacity which had so greatly deceived
the public as to his gifts as a speculator. He was perfectly convinced
that when once he had made up his mind to an enterprise, vacillation
must be fatal. Still, this boldness proceeded not from his temperament
but from reflection; it was the outcome of extreme astuteness.
Otherwise he was by nature timid, and this weakness, instead of
diminishing under the almost invariable success of his undertakings,
increased as time went on. Avarice is always suspicious and full of
alarms, and Salabert grew more and more avaricious. Also, as a man grows
older, it is a rule without exceptions, that pessimism soaks into his
mind. Our banker, accustomed to grand results from his speculations,
regarded any concern in which the profits were small as altogether
deplorable; if by any chance they were _nil_, or he even lost a trifle,
he thought it a matter for serious lamentation. Thus, but for Llera,
with his bold temperament and fertile imagination, the Duke de Requena
would not, for some years past, have ventured on any concern of even
moderate extent. On the other hand, what he had lost in dash and
resource he had made good by really astounding tact and skill, and a
knowledge of men which can be acquired only by years of unremitting
study. Thus it may be said that he and Llera complemented each other to
perfection.
Salabert's sagacity and knowledge of human nature sometimes erred by
excess; now and then he was caught in his own trap. In his dealings with
men, studying them always from the point of view of substantial
interest, he had formed so poor an opinion of them, that it became
monstrous, and led him into serious mistakes. Perhaps, after all, what
he saw in others was no more than the reflection of himself; to this
error we are all liable. To him every man and woman had a price; a cheap
conscience or a dear one, but all alike for sale. Of late years his
faith in bribery had become a passion. If he came across any one who
would not yield to money, he never suspected it could be in good faith,
but only supposed the price was higher than his bid.
One of Llera's hardest tasks was to get such schemes of bribery out of
his master's head when he had to do with men who would have rejected it
with indignation. If he were engaged in a law-suit, the first thing he
thought of was how much it would cost him to bribe the judge who would
decide it; if he were concerned in a government transaction, he
calculated the sum to be handed over to the Minister, or the
Under-Secretary, or the Councillors of State. Unluckily, he not
unfrequently made practical use of the black-lead he had always ready to
disfigure the face of humanity with.
Requena had absolutely no moral sense, and never had known what it was.
His life, as a nameless waif in Valencia, had been characterised by a
series of tricks and dodges, and such a lively inventiveness of means
for extracting coin from his fellow-creatures, as made him worthy to
compare with the favourite heroes of Spanish romance. In fact the name
of one of them, _El picaro Guzman_, had actually been bestowed on
Salabert as a nickname by some wags of his acquaintance, but they kept
it to themselves.
It was told of him with apparent truth that when he was in Cuba, whither
he went to seek his fortune, he bought a tavern with all its furniture,
including a negro woman who managed the business. This negress, for all
the time he remained, was his servant, his housekeeper, his slave and
his concubine, by whom he had several children. When he had saved some
thousands of dollars to return to Spain, he squared his petty accounts
by selling the tavern, the furniture, the black woman, and the
children.
Then he took army contracts, speculated in tobacco, government loans and
tenders for roads; these he sometimes sold again at a premium, and
sometimes carried out the works without any regard to the conditions of
the contract. But in all he did he displayed his wonderful capacity, his
practical sagacity, and so large a development of the organ of
acquisitiveness, as made him a man of mark among bankers.
He was not disagreeable to deal with, though, unlike most men who aspire
to wealth or power, his manners were not smooth nor his language choice.
He was brusque rather than courteous, but he was keen in the distinction
of persons, and could be very civil when he must. The natural abruptness
of his manners served him well to disguise the subtle astuteness of his
mind. That blunt, straightforward air, that exaggerated freedom and
provincial rusticity, could only cover a frank and loyal heart. To the
outside world he was the perfect type of the old Castilian school,
freespoken, downright and impertinent. He would be loquacious or
taciturn as suited his purpose, expressed himself with real or affected
difficulty--which, no one ever could discover--could sometimes jest with
some wit, but with unfailing coarseness, and was wont to say such
detestable things to the face of friend or foe as made him a terror in
drawing-rooms. The importance his wealth conferred on him had encouraged
this defect: he talked to most people, even to ladies, with a plainness
which verged on cynicism and grossness.
Nevertheless, when he came across a person of political importance whom
he desired to propitiate, this bluntness vanished and became flattery
that was almost servile. But the farce, however well played, deceived no
one. The Duke of Requena was regarded as a very wily old fox; no one
believed a word he said, or allowed himself to be deluded by that blunt
_bonhomie_. Those who had dealings with him were on their guard even
when feigning confidence and satisfaction. Still, as always happens with
a man who has succeeded in raising himself, the faults which every one
recognised--or to be exact, his ill-fame--did not hinder his neighbours
from respecting him, talking to him hat in hand and with a smile on
their lips, even when they had no need of him. Men not unfrequently
humble themselves for the mere pleasure of it. Salabert well knew this
innate tendency of the human spine to bend, and took unfair advantage of
it. Many men in quite independent circumstances not only took from him
impertinence which they would have thought intolerable in their oldest
friend, but even sought his society.
* * * * *
"We will see, we will see," he repeated, when Llera recapitulated the
scheme for getting sole control of the mines. "You are too full of
fancies. Your head is too hot. That does not do in business. We must
take care not to get into the same scrape as we did with the granaries."
By Llera's advice the banker had constructed granaries in some of the
principal towns of Spain, and they had not proved such a success as had
been hoped. However, as the undertaking had been on a moderate scale the
losses, too, had not been great. But the Duke, who had bewailed them as
though they had been enormous, and had not spared his secretary much
gross insult, was always reminding him of the disaster. It served him as
a weapon when he wished to depreciate Llera's schemes, though he would
afterwards avail himself of them, and owed to them considerable
additions to his wealth. By such means he kept him in subjection,
ignorant of his real value, and ready to undertake any task however
disagreeable.
Llera, though somewhat mortified by this reminder, still insisted that
the transaction now under consideration would infallibly succeed if it
were conducted on the lines he had suggested. Salabert abruptly closed
the discussion by changing the subject. He briefly inquired into the
business of the day. The loss of some money he had advanced for a
relation in Valencia put him into a frantic rage; he stamped and fumed
like a bull stung by the darts, called himself a thousand fools, and
actually had the face to declare, in Llera's presence, that his good
nature would be the ruin of him. The whole loss amounted to about four
or five thousand dollars. The form of loan which Requena adopted to his
most intimate friends was this: he paid the sum usually in paper,
demanding six per cent. on the securities deposited, and besides this he
himself cut off the coupons, and claimed the dividends. So that the
securities, instead of bringing in the net interest, yielded him six per
cent. more. These were the dealings to which he was prompted, not by
interest, but by kindness of heart!
He left Llera's office in a state of fury, went to the counting-room,
and learning there that it was necessary to draw on the bank for nine
thousand dollars in currency, he himself took charge of the cheque,
after having signed it; he would have to go there to a meeting of
directors, and it would be no trouble to him as he passed to get it
cashed.
He went out on foot, as was his custom in the morning. The birds were
singing in the beautiful trees which bordered the walks. It was quite
clear that they had incurred no bad debts. The Duke cursed their foolish
trick of singing, and would not listen to their gleeful trills. He
walked on slowly with a gloomy scowl, taking no notice of the greetings
of the gardeners and the gate-keeper, biting his huge cigar with more
than usual viciousness. In the street, however, his face somewhat
recovered its tone. He had a pleasant and useful meeting with the
President of the Council of State, who likewise was fond of an early
walk, and who bowed to him in the Avenue de Recoletos; they stood
talking for a few minutes, and he availed himself of the opportunity of
recommending to the President, with the intentional bluntness which he
affected, the prospectus of certain salt-marshes in which he was
interested. Then, at a deliberate pace, gazing with his prominent,
guileless eyes at the passers by, and more especially at the fresh
damsels hastening home from market with their baskets loaded, and their
cheeks rosy from the effort, he proceeded to the Bank of Spain. Numbers
of persons lifted their hats to him, now and again he paused for a
moment, shook hands with one or another, and after exchanging a few
words with an acquaintance, went on his way.
It was still early. Before reaching the Bank, it occurred to him that he
would go to see his friend and connection Calderon, whose warehouse and
counting-house were in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, still in the state
in which his father had left them--that is to say, very
poverty-stricken, not to say dirty and squalid. In these quarters, where
the light filtered in through panes darkened by dust and protected by
clumsy ironwork, and where the smell of hides was perfectly sickening,
old Calderon with mechanical regularity had accumulated dollar on
dollar, till several piles of a million each had formed there. His son
Julian had made no change. Though he was one of the wealthiest bankers
in Madrid he had not given up the hide warehouse and the small profits
which this business brought in--small as compared with those on
securities and stocks which the banking house dealt in.
Calderon was a banker of a different type from Salabert. He was of an
essentially conservative temper, timid in speculation, always preferring
small profits to large when there was any risk. His intelligence was
somewhat limited, cautious, hesitating and circumspect. Every new
undertaking struck him as madness. When he saw a friend embarking on one
he smiled maliciously, and congratulated himself on the superior
shrewdness with which he was gifted; if it turned out well he would
shake his head, saying with determined foreboding: "Those who laugh
last, laugh longest." At home he was parsimonious, nay stingy to a
scandal; and though the house was kept on a comparatively luxurious
footing, this was partly the result of his wife's entreaties, and the
raillery of his friends, but even more of his conviction, slowly formed,
that some external prestige was indispensable, if he was to compete with
the numbers of skilful financiers established in the capital. But after
having bought good furniture, he insisted on such care being taken of
it, such refinements of precaution on the part of the servants and his
wife and children, that they were really the slaves of these costly
possessions. Then with regard to the carriage, it is impossible to
imagine the anxieties and agitations without end which it cost him.
Every time the coachman told him that a horse wanted shoeing it was a
fresh worry. He had a pair of French mares of some value, and he loved
them as he loved his children, or more. He drove them out of an evening;
but never to go to the theatre for fear of cold; he would rather see his
wife walk or take a hired carriage than expose them to any risk. And if
one of them really fell ill, there are no words for our banker's state
of mind; anxiety and dejection were written in his face. He went
frequently to see the animal, patted and petted her, and would often
assist the coachman and the vet. in applying the remedies, however
unpleasant. Till the invalid had recovered no one in the house had any
peace.
As a husband he was most officious; but in this he was hardly to blame.
His wife's apathy was such that if he had not taken charge of the
kitchen accounts and the store-cupboard keys, God knows how the house
would have been kept. Mariana did nothing and gave no orders. Any other
woman would have felt humiliated by finding herself obliged to refer to
her husband at every moment for the most trifling details of domestic
life, but she took it quite as a matter of course, and found it most
convenient, when Calderon's stinginess did not make itself too
pressingly felt. Her part was that of a child in the house, and she was
quite content to play it.
The person who sometimes dumbly rebelled against the exclusive
centralisation of all administrative power in the master's hands was
Mariana's mother, the diminutive lady with deep set eyes, of whom
mention was made in the first chapter. Her protests indeed were neither
frequent nor lengthy. At heart she and her son-in-law were in perfect
agreement. The old woman, the widow of a provincial merchant, who
herself had helped in saving his capital, was even more devoted to order
and economy than Calderon himself--that is to say, more sordidly
thrifty. For this reason she never would have endured to live with her
son; his expensive tastes, and, yet more, Clementina's extravagance and
disreputable caprices enraged her, and would have embittered every
moment of her life. In Calderon's house she was inspector or spy over
the servants, and she filled the part to admiration. Her son-in-law
could rest in confidence, and thanks to this and to his expectation that
Mariana would be enriched by her will, he showed far more consideration
for her than for his wife.
Salabert was at heart not less covetous than Calderon, and hardly less
timid; but his intellect was very superior, his cowardice was
counterbalanced by a strong infusion of bounce, and his avarice by a
profound knowledge of mankind. He knew very well that the paraphernalia
and ostentation of wealth have a marked influence on the minds of the
most indifferent, and contribute in a great measure to inspire the
confidence without which no important enterprise can prosper. Hence the
luxury in which he lived--his palace, his servants, and the famous balls
he occasionally gave to the fashionable world of Madrid. For Calderon he
had a profound contempt, though at the same time his society put him
into a good humour. As he contemplated his friend's inferiority he
swelled in his own esteem, regarding himself as a greater man than he
really was, and deriving from it the liveliest satisfaction. He not only
judged himself to have more cleverness and astuteness--the only superior
qualities he really possessed--but, to be, by comparison, generous and
liberal, almost a prodigy.
Panting and puffing he went into the dark warehouse in the Calle de San
Felipe Neri, producing the usual effect of amazing, crushing,
annihilating the clerks of the house, to whom the Duke de Requena was
not merely the greatest man in Spain, but a quite supernatural being.
His visit impressed them with the same reverence and enthusiasm, awe and
adoration, as the appearance of the Mikado arouses in the Japanese. And
if they did not prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust,
they coloured up to their ears, and for some minutes they could not put
pen to paper, nor attend to the requirements of a customer. They looked
at each other with awe-stricken eyes, repeating in an undertone, what
indeed they all knew: "The Duke!" "The Duke!"
The Duke passed in, as usual when he by chance called there, without
vouchsafing them a glance, and made his way to the little room where
Calderon sat. Long before reaching him, he began shouting: "Caramba,
Julian! When do you mean to get out of this hole? This is not a
banking-house, it is a stye. Are you not ashamed to be seen here? Poof!
Do you skin the beasts here, or what? The stink is intolerable."
Calderon's private room was beyond the front office, a mere closet,
separated from the rest by a partition of painted wood, with a spring
door. Thus he could hear all that his friend was saying, before Salabert
reached him.
"What do you expect, man?" said he, somewhat nettled at his clerks being
made the confidants of this philippic. "We are not all dukes, trampling
millions under foot."
"Millions! Does it need millions to keep an office clean and
comfortable? You had better confess that you cannot bear to spend a
peseta in making yourself decent. I have told you many times, Julian,
you are poor, and you will be poor all your days. I should be richer
with a thousand pence than you with a thousand dollars--because I know
how to spend them."
Calderon grumbled a protest and went on with his work. The Duke, without
taking his hat off, dropped into the only easy chair, covered with white
buckskin, or which ought to have been white, for it was of a doubtful
hue now, between yellow and greenish-grey, with black patches where
heads and hands were wont to rest. There were besides three or four
stools covered with the same material, in the same state, a book-case
full of bundles of papers, a small cash-box, an ancient walnut-wood
writing-table covered with oil-cloth, and behind the table a greasy,
shabby arm-chair in which the head of the house sat enthroned. This
small room was lighted by a barred window, to ward off the prying looks
of passers-by; there were blinds, which, being the cheapest and
commonest of their kind, had this peculiarity, that one was much too
wide and the other so short that it did not cover the lower pane by at
least a quarter.
"Why in the world don't you quit this blessed leather-shop, which is not
worthy of a man of your position and fortune?"
"Fortune--fortune!" muttered Calderon with his eyes still fixed on the
paper he was writing on. "People talk of my fortune I know, but if I
were compelled to liquidate, who knows what would come of it?"
Calderon never confessed his wealth; he loved to crawl; any allusion to
his riches annoyed him beyond measure. Salabert, on the contrary, loved
to flourish his millions in the face of the world, and play the nabob,
at the smallest possible cost of course.
"Besides," Calderon went on with some acerbity, "every one looks at what
comes in and never thinks of what goes out. Our expenses are greater
every day. Have you any idea, now, of what our private expenditure has
been this year? Come."
"Nothing much," replied Requena, with a depreciating smile.
"Nothing much? Why it amounts to more than seventy-five thousand
dollars, and we are only in November."
"What do you say?" exclaimed the Duke greatly astonished. "Impossible!"
"As I tell you."
"Come, come; do not try to throw dust in my eyes, Julian. Unless you
include in the seventy-five thousand the cost of the house you are
building in Calle Homo de la Mata."
"Why, of course."
At this Salabert burst into such a fit of laughing that he seemed about
to choke; the cigar dropped out of his mouth, his face, usually so
pale, turned so red as to be alarming, and the fit of coughing which
ensued was so violent that it threatened him with congestion.
"My dear fellow, I thank you! That is really delicious," he gasped
between coughing and laughing. "I never thought of that before.
Henceforth I will include in my household expenses all the paper I buy
and the houses I build. I shall have accounts like a king's to show."
The Duke's hearty and uproarious mirth annoyed and piqued Calderon out
of all measure.
"I really do not see what you are laughing at. The money goes out of the
cash-box under the head of expenditure. And, at any rate, Antonio, a
fool knows more of his own affairs than a wise man knows of his
neighbours'."
The Duke's visits to his friend had of late been somewhat frequent. He
had been hovering round him a good deal to tempt him into the mining
speculation. The moment was drawing near when the sale must come on, and
meanwhile he was anxious to secure the co-operation of some of the more
important shareholders. Don Julian was one, not merely by reason of the
capital he represented, but by the position he held. He enjoyed the
reputation in the financial world of being a very cautious, or indeed
suspicious man; thus his name as participator in a speculation was a
guarantee of its security, and this was what Salabert required. So he
was anxious not to vex him seriously, and changed the subject. With the
curious suppleness and cunning which lay beneath his abrupt roughness,
he managed to put him in a good humour by praising his foresight in a
certain case when he would not be caught, reflecting on the folly of
some rival dealers, and implying Calderon's superior skill and
penetration. When he had got him into the right frame of mind he spoke,
for the third or fourth time, in vague terms, of the mining company. He
mentioned it as an unattainable vision, just to whet his friend's
appetite.
"If they only could buy up the mine one of these days, what a stroke of
business that would be! He had never in his life met with a better.
Unfortunately the Government were not disposed to sell. However--damn it
all! By a little good management and steady perseverance, in time
perhaps--meanwhile what was wanted were a few men who could afford to
invest a good round sum. If they were not to be found in Spain they must
be sought elsewhere."
At the mere notion of a speculation Calderon shrank as a snail does when
it is touched. And this was so big a thing, to judge from the vague
hints the Duke threw out, that he completely disappeared into his shell.
Then, when Salabert spoke rather more plainly, he turned gloomy and
dull, uneasy and suspicious, as if he expected to be bled there and then
of an exorbitant sum.
When Requena had finished a long and rather incoherent speech, which was
almost a monologue, he abruptly rose:
"Ta ta, Julianito, I am off to the Bank."
He took out a fresh cigar, and without offering one to Calderon, who did
not smoke, he lighted it for form's sake; but he at once let it go out
and began chewing it as usual.
Don Julian gave a sigh of relief.
"Always in a state of feverish activity," said he with a smile, holding
out his hand. "Always on the track of money!"
Just as he reached the door Calderon remembered that he might make
something out of this visit.
"I say, Antonio, I have a heap of Londres. Do you want them? I will let
you have them cheap."
"No, I don't want any at present. What do you ask for them?"
"Forty-seven."
"Are there many of them?"
"Eight thousand pounds in all."
"Well, I really don't want them, but it is a good bargain. Good-bye."
He went to the Bank, assisted at the meeting, and after cashing his
cheque for nine thousand dollars, went out with his friend Urreta,
another of the great Madrid bankers. On reaching the Puerta del Sol they
shook hands to part.
"Which way are you going?" asked Salabert.
"I am going to Calderon's office to see if he happens to be able to help
me to some Londres."
"Quite useless," said the other promptly. "I have just bought up all he
had."
"That is unlucky. What did you give for them?"
"Forty-seven ten."
"Not very cheap. But I need them badly, so I should have taken them."
"Do you really need them?" said Salabert, putting his arm on the other's
shoulders.
"I do indeed."
"Then I will be your Providence. How many do you want?"
"A large quantity, at least ten thousand pounds."
"Oh I cannot do that, but I can send you eight thousand this evening."
Urreta's face beamed with a grateful smile.
"My dear fellow, I cannot allow it. You want them yourself."
"Not so much as you do, and even if I did, you know my regard for you.
You are the only Guipuzcoan of brains I ever met with," and as he spoke
he patted him affectionately on the shoulder. They shook hands once
more, Urreta pouring out a flood of grateful speeches, to which Salabert
replied with the rough frankness which so greatly enhanced the merits of
any service he might render; then they parted.
The Duke instantly got into a coach from the stand. "Go to Calle de San
Felipe Neri, No.----."
"Yes, Senor Duque."
The Duke raised his head to look at the man.
"So you know me?" and without waiting for a reply, he jumped in and shut
the door.
"Julian, Julian," he shouted to his friend before opening the door into
Calderon's office. "I have come to do you a service. You are in luck,
you wretch! Send me home those Londres."
"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Julian with a triumphant smile. "So you want them?"
"Yes, my dear fellow, yes. I always want the thing you want to get rid
of. Good-bye."
And without going into the little office, he let go of the spring door
he had held open, and left. He desired the coachman to drive to a house
in one of the northern quarters of the city, and reclined in a corner,
munching his cigar and smoking with evident gratification. For our
banker felt as much satisfaction after committing this piece of
rascality, after cheating his friend of so many pesetas, as the
righteous man knows after doing an act of justice or charity. His
imagination, always on the alert when money might be made, wandered over
the various concerns in which he was engaged, and the vehicle meanwhile
carried him on towards the Hippodrome. More especially he dwelt on the
mines of Riosa; the longer he thought of Llera's scheme, the better it
pleased him. Still, it had its weak points, and he meditated on the
means of fortifying them.
It was not yet late. Salabert had time still to pay one of those
unavowed visits which form an item in the social round of many a man
whose virtues are more conspicuous, and whose vices less blatant than
his. He dismissed the coach he had hired, and, his call paid, he walked
home.
As soon as he found himself in his private room, he put his hand in his
pocket to take out his note-book. His face, which had shone with
satisfaction at the consciousness of carrying about with him the golden
key to every pleasure on earth, suddenly fell. A cloud of anxiety came
over it. He felt more thoroughly. The pocket-book was not there. He
tried all his other pockets. The same result.
"Damnation," he muttered, "I have been robbed. Robbed of ten thousand
odd dollars. Curse my ill luck! If a day begins badly--three thousand
dollars gone in a bad debt, and now nearly eleven thousand in a lump! A
pretty morning's work I must say!"
He started to his feet and rang the bell vehemently for Llera. When the
factotum appeared, he was walking up and down the room, strangely
excited for a man who owned so many millions. He explained the case to
the clerk. A torrent of words, growls, foul expletives, poured from his
lips, and he flung away his half-chewed cigar, a sign of excessive
disturbance.
"Possibly, Senor, you have not been robbed," Llera suggested, "you may
have lost it. Where have you been?"
But this was a question the Duke was not prepared to answer.
"Damn it, what concern is that of yours?" he replied. "Do you suppose I
am likely to have lost eleven thousand dollars? That is to say, lost
them--of course I have. But some one else found them before they touched
the ground."
"The best thing you can do, Senor Duque, is to let me go over the ground
wherever you have been."
"I will go myself after luncheon. Go, if you have nothing else to
suggest but calling on all my acquaintances."
Requena went downstairs, dismaying the house like a bombshell, not
indeed of powder or dynamite, since uproariousness was not part of his
nature, but of sulphuric acid or corrosive sublimate, which trickled
into every corner and annoyed and burnt every one in turn. His wife, his
lodge-keeper, his cook, Llera, and almost every one of his clerks, had
some coarse insult flung in their teeth, in the tone of cynical
brutality which he affected. After luncheon he was about to go out on
his quest, when a servant came to tell him that a hackney coachman
wished to speak with him.
"What does he want?"
"I do not know. He said he wanted to see the Duke."
Salabert, with a sudden flash of intuition, said:
"Show him up."
The man who came in was the driver of the coach which had conveyed him
from Calderon's office to his mistress's house. The Duke looked at him
anxiously.
"What is it?"
"This, Senor Duque, which is your excellency's no doubt," said the man,
holding out the pocket-book.
The Duke seized it, hastily opened it, and shaking out the pile of bank
notes it contained, counted them with the skill and rapidity of a
practised hand. When he had done, he said:
"All right; there are none missing."
The man, who had no doubt looked for some reward, stood still for a
minute or two.
"It is all right, my good fellow, quite right. Many thanks."
Then the poor man, with angry disappointment stamped on his face, turned
to go, muttering good-day. The Duke looked at him with cruel humour, and
before he had reached the door called after him with deliberate sarcasm:
"Look here, my man, I give you nothing, because to so honest a fellow as
you the best reward is the satisfaction of having done right."
The coachman, at once puzzled and vexed, looked at him with an
indescribable expression. His lips parted as if he were about to speak,
but he finally left the room without a word.