THE CHAIRMAN AND THE DIRECTOR
During this beautiful August weather Mr. Alington was very busily
employed in London. At no time was he a notable lover of the country,
taking it in homoeopathic doses only, and enjoying a copy of Nature by
Turner far more than the original thing. He was, indeed, somewhat
disposed to Dr. Johnson's characteristic and superficial heresy that one
green field is like another green field, and though he took no walks for
pleasure down Fleet Street, he took many hansoms to his brokers for
business. For the financial scheme which had darted like a meteor across
his augur's brain on the night on which he received his manager's report
had, meteor-like, left a shining and golden furrow. The shining furrow,
indeed, had grown ever more brilliant and golden; it illumined the whole
of his speculative heaven. And by the end of the month the reading of
the augur was ready to be practically fulfilled.
Now, the Stock Exchange is, justly or unjustly, supposed to be a place
where sharp and shady deeds are done, but Mr. Alington, already a prince
in the financial world, did not much fear bears or bulls or raids or
rigging, and the market had a firm belief in his soundness.
His board consisted of Jack Conybeare, Tom Abbotsworthy, his Australian
manager, Mr. Linkwood, a man as hard-headed as teak, and himself. At
that time a board constituted on such lines was a new thing, and when
the prospectus was sent out there were many business men who rather
raised their eyebrows at it. But the effect, on the whole, was precisely
what Mr. Alington had desired, and, indeed, anticipated. Surely the
names of a couple of noblemen, one of whom was a prominent supporter of
the Bishops in the House of Lords, and whose wife was really synonymous
with the word bazaar-opener, the other a prospective Duke, were a
guarantee of the good faith of the proceeding. The British public might
not be aware that Lord Conybeare knew much about mines, but that
department was well looked after by Mr. Alington and his manager, as
shrewd a pair as could be found between the poles. Certainly, innovation
as it was, this sort of board, so reasoned its inventor, looked well.
The British public followed these prognostications of Alington with
touching fidelity, though they did not give Jack credit for ignorance
about mining. Such an authority on guano must certainly be a
well-informed man, and if those of the aristocracy who were in indigent
circumstances were sensible enough to set themselves to make a little
money, who would quarrel with them? Three acres and a gold-mine was just
about what Jack was worth. Again the enemies of unearned increment were
delighted. Here was a fine example, a horny-handed Marquis. A third
section of the public, so small, however, as not to really have a voice
at all, and who consisted chiefly of Conybeare's acquaintances, sounded
a discordant note. "God help the shareholders," said they.
The prospectus gave a glowing but perfectly honest account of the
property called the Carmel group, for no one knew better than Alington
how excellent a policy honesty is, in moderation, and in the right
place. Mount Carmel lay in the centre, on one diagonal Carmel North and
South, on the other Carmel East and West. A very rich vein of ore ran
through Carmel North, Mount Carmel and Carmel South, extending on the
evidence of bore-holes the whole length of the three. Carmel East and
West were both outliers from this main reef, but in both there was a
good deal of surface gold, very easy to get at, and they should soon
become dividend-payers. The ore in these two, however, was much more
refractory than in the main reef, and in two or three experiments which
had been made it had been found possible to extract only 20 per cent. of
it. In the other three the ore was very different in quality, and very
rich. Experiments had yielded five ounces to the ton, but these mines
could not become dividend-payers in the immediate future, as a good deal
of developing work must necessarily be put through first. At one point,
by a curious fault in strata, the reef came to the surface, and it was
from here the specimens had been taken. There was now no difficulty
about water, for a very satisfactory arrangement had been come to with a
neighbouring property. A mill of a hundred stamps, which would soon be
increased, if the mine developed as well as the directors had every
reason to believe it would, was now in course of erection on Carmel
East. Finally, they wished to draw special attention to the remarkable
yield of five ounces to the ton from the vein running through Carmel
North and the other two. Such a result spoke for itself.
The directors proposed to put this property on the market in the
following manner: Two companies were offered for subscription, the one
owning Carmel East and West, the other the North, South, and central
mines. The two groups would respectively be called Carmel East and West,
and Carmel. The vendor, Mr. Alington, received fifty thousand pounds
down, and fifty thousand pounds' worth of shares, and the rest of the
shares, after certain allotments made to the directors, were thrown open
to public subscriptions, and the capital to be subscribed for was three
hundred thousand pounds in Carmel East and West, five hundred thousand
pounds in Carmel. Half a crown was to be paid on application, half a
crown on allotment, and the remaining fifteen shillings for special
settlement at not less time than two months. Cheques to be paid into the
Carmel Company, Limited, at their account with Lloyd's.
This prospectus was quietly but favourably received; the public, as Mr.
Alington had seen, were nearly ready to go mad about West Australian
gold, but he was not ill-pleased that the madness did not rise to
raving-point at once. His new group he fully believed was a genuine
paying concern; that is to say, supposing he had floated one company
embracing all the mines, and that company was judiciously and honestly
managed, the shareholders would be sure of large dividends for a
considerable number of years. But the scheme he had formed did not have
as its end and object large dividends for a considerable number of
years, though it did not object to them as such, and this quiet,
favourable reception of the prospectus pleased him greatly. He very much
valued the reputation of a steady, shrewd man, and it would not have
suited his plans nearly so well if one or other group had gone booming
up immediately.
The whole of the capital was very soon subscribed, and a large purchase
or two had been made from Australia. This looked well for the company;
it showed that on the spot the Carmel groups were well thought of. A
friend of Mr. Alington's, whom he often spoke of as one of the acutest
men he knew, a Mr. Richard Chavasse, was one of these large holders, and
this gave him a great deal of satisfaction, so he told Jack. He himself
was down at Kit's cottage in Buckinghamshire on the first Sunday in
September, alone with Lord Conybeare, and they had a good talk over the
prospects of the mines, and collateral subjects. He and Jack got on
excellently alone, and were already in the "my dear Conybeare and
Alington" stage.
"I could not be better pleased with the reception the market has given
to the Carmel group," said Alington. "I see you have followed my advice,
my dear Conybeare, and invested largely in the East and West Company."
Jack was lounging in a long chair in the smoking-room. The morning was
hopelessly wet, and violent scudding rain beat tattooes on the windows,
and scourged its glory from the garden.
"Yes, I have paid ten thousand half-crowns twice," he said. "Even
half-crowns mount up, and I used to think nothing of them. I have
followed your advice to the letter, and I can no more pay the special
settlement than I can fly."
"You were quite right," said Alington. "I assure you there will not be
the slightest need for that. By the way, the Stock Exchange have given
us the special settlement at the mid-October account. Dear me! what an
opportunity poor Lord Abbotsworthy has missed! He would not take my
advice. Even now the shares are at a slight premium. You have invested,
in fact, the larger half of your first year's salary."
"Exactly. By the way, I don't want my salary to be printed very large in
the balance-sheet. Put it in a sequestered corner and periphrase it,
will you? People won't like it, you know, and the whole concern will be
discredited; they are so prejudiced."
"That also need not trouble you," said Alington. "In fact, I have paid
your salary myself. It does not appear at all in the balance-sheet."
Lord Conybeare frowned.
"Do you mean you pay me five thousand pounds a year out of your own
purse?"
"Certainly. Your services to me are worth that, and I pay it most
willingly, which the shareholders undoubtedly would not do. Indeed,
my dear Conybeare, the benefit that your name and Lord
Abbotsworthy's--yours particularly--have done me is immense. The British
public is so aristocratic at heart and at purse; and unless I am some
day bankrupt, which I assure you is not in the least likely, no one will
ever know about your--your remuneration."
"I don't know that I altogether like that," said Jack in what Kit called
his "scruple voice," which always irritated her exceedingly.
"A child," she said once, "could give points to Jack in dissimulation."
To Alington also the scruple voice did not seem a thing to be taken very
seriously.
"I really do not see that that need concern you," he said, after his
usual pause. "In fact, I thought we had settled to dismiss such matters
for me to manage as I choose. You consented to be on my board. As a
business matter, I am quite willing to give you this sum in return for
your services. Now, the shareholders would not, I think, rate you at
that figure. Shareholders know nothing about business; I do."
Jack laughed.
"How unappreciated I have been all these years!" he said. "I think I
shall put an advertisement in the Times: 'A blameless Marquis is willing
to be a director of anything for a suitable remuneration.'"
Mr. Alington held up his hand, a gesture frequent with him.
"Ah! that I should object to very strongly," he said. "Consider your
remuneration a retaining fee, if you like, but we must keep our
directors exclusive. I cannot have you joining any threepenny concern
that may be going about, or, indeed, any concern at all. Carmel--you
belong to Carmel," he said thoughtfully.
Jack took a copy of the Mining Weekly from the table.
"Have you seen this?" he asked. "There is a column about the Carmel
mines, all most favourable, and written, I should say, by someone who
knows."
Mr. Alington did not appear particularly interested.
"I am glad they have put it in this week," he said. "They promised to
make an effort."
"You have seen it? Don't you think it is good?"
"I wrote it--practically, at least, I wrote it. The City editor, at any
rate, was kind enough to write it under my suggestions--I might say
under my dictation."
"One can't have too many friends," observed Conybeare.
"Well, I can hardly call him a friend. I never set eyes on him till two
days ago, and then he was more an enemy. He called and tried to
blackmail me."
"My dear Alington, what have you been doing?" asked Jack.
Mr. Alington paused and laughed gently.
"He tried to blackmail me not because I had been doing anything, but
because I had not done something--because I had not offered him shares,
in fact; but I squared that very easily."
"You paid him?" asked Jack.
"Of course. He was comparatively cheap, and he became like Balaam. He
came to curse, and he went away blessing me and the mine, and Australia
and you, with a small cheque in his pocket and copious notes for this
article to which you have been referring."
"Do you mean to say that you are liable to be called on by any City
editor, and made to give him money not to crab the mine?" asked Jack
incredulously.
"Well, not by any City editor," said Mr. Alington, "though I wish I was,
but certainly by a fair percentage. It is a most convenient custom. When
one is doing things, as I am, on a fairly large scale, it matters to me
very little whether I pay the Mining Weekly a hundred pounds or so. That
article is worth far more to me than that, just as you, my dear
Conybeare, are worth far more to me than the paltry sum I give you as my
director and chairman."
Mr. Alington spoke with silken blandness, yet with an under-current of
proprietorship, as if he was a pupil-teacher delivering an address to
school children, and was telling them beautiful little stories with
morals.
"I see you are surprised," he went on. "But really there is nothing
surprising about it. A paper gives an opinion; what matter whose--mine
or the editor's? The editor probably knows nothing about it, so it is
mine. And if a small cheque change hands over the opinion, that is the
concern of me and my balance. It is worth my while to pay it, and it
appears to be worth the editor's while to accept it. I only wish the
custom went further--that one could go direct to the Times, say, and ask
what is their price for a column. Sometimes one can do that--I don't
mean with the Times--but it is always a little risky. I was very
anxious, for instance, last week to get a good notice of this prospectus
of ours in the City Journal, and I did what was perhaps rather rash,
though it turned out excellently. Mr. Metcalfe, their second editor, is
slightly known to me, and I know him to be poor and blessed with a large
family. Poor men so often are. He has a son whom he wants to send to
Oxford."
Mr. Alington paused again, with a look on his face like that which the
embodied spirit of Charity Organization may be supposed to wear when it
hears of a really deserving case. Jack listened quite attentively,
though long speeches were apt to bore him. He felt as if he was learning
his business.
"The lad is a charming young fellow," went on Charity Organization;
"clever too, and likely to get an exhibition or scholarship. Well, I
asked his father to call on me, and offered him two hundred pounds for
such an article as appears in the Mining Weekly which you have in your
hand. He was indignant, most indignant, and wondered how I had the face
to make such an offer. He said he would not do what I had suggested for
twice the money. I took that, rightly, to mean that he would, and I gave
it him. Four hundred pounds will help very considerably, as I pointed
out to him, in his son's expenses at Oxford. And he went away, after a
little further conversation, with tears of gratitude in his eyes--tears
of gratitude, my dear Conybeare. Two days afterwards there appeared in
the City Journal a very nice article, if I may say so, considering I
wrote the greater part of it myself--really a very nice article about
Carmel. And I was glad to help the young fellow, to give him a
chance--very glad. I told his father so, putting it in exactly that
way."
Mr. Alington sighed gently and modestly at this reminiscence, like a
retiring man humbly thankful for the opportunity of aiding in a good
work, and Jack for a moment was puzzled. Then, remembering he was
dealing with a man of business, he laughed. The thing was excellently
recited with praiseworthy gravity.
"The stage has lost an actor," he observed, "even if the world has
gained a director. Admirable, my dear Alington. But why, why keep it up
with me? I assure you I am not shocked."
Mr. Alington looked up in surprise.
"An actor? Not shocked? Keep it up?" he queried. "I do not understand."
"You are inimitable," said Jack.
Mr. Alington got up.
"You don't understand me," he said with a certain warmth, "and you wrong
me. I gather from your words that you have doubts of my sincerity. By
what right, if you please?"
Jack was grave in an instant.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I see that I was in the wrong."
The heat died out of Mr. Alington's face; there was no reproach in his
mild, benignant eye. A kind, Christian gentleman looked gently at Jack.
"It is granted willingly," he said. "But please, my dear Conybeare, do
not make such mistakes in the future. Let me ask you to assume that I am
sincere till you have the vaguest cause for supposing I am not. The
English law assumes a man's innocence till he is proved guilty. That is
all I ask. Treat me as you would treat a suspect. But when you have such
cause, please come to me and state it. Much harm can be done by nursing
a suspicion, by not trying to clear it up. Harm, you will remember, was
nearly done to me in that way before. Luckily, I had an opportunity of
explaining her error to Lady Conybeare."
Jack had an uncomfortable sense that this man, for all the blandness of
his respectability, could show claws. He suspected that claws had been
shown quite unmistakably to Kit on the occasion to which Mr. Alington so
delicately alluded, for she had come upstairs, after her talk with him
in the hall, with the distinct appearance of having been severely
scratched. But Mr. Alington only paused long enough to let the bare
justice of his demand sink in.
"Let me explain," he went on. "You have suspected me of insincerity,
and, luckily, you have stated your suspicion with great frankness,
beyond the reach of mistake. This is my case: I wanted very much an
article by Metcalfe in the City Journal, and when he called that
morning, I was prepared to pay as much as two hundred pounds for it, but
not more. Eventually I paid him four hundred pounds, twice that sum,
partly, no doubt, because it was necessary that he should not be able to
say that I had attempted to bribe him; but I must demand that you
believe that the fact of my thereby giving the young fellow a good
chance made me pay that sum willingly. I did not haggle over it, though
I am perfectly certain I could have got what I wanted for less. You
believe this?"
Jack found himself saying that he believed this, and Mr. Alington grew
even more silken and seraphic.
"I was delighted to do it," he said, "and in my private accounts I have
entered two hundred and fifty pounds as a cheque to Metcalfe senior for
business purposes, one hundred and fifty pounds as charity. It was
charity. I entered it as such."
"Certainly you must have made a friend of Metcalfe senior, and junior if
he only knew," said Jack.
"Yes, I am delighted to have done so. I have also incidentally made
Metcalfe senior a--a confederate. From a business point of view that
also pleases me. How marvellously all things work together for good! It
comes in the morning lesson to-day."
Jack felt it difficult to know what decorum demanded of him. Bribing and
the morning lesson in one breath were a little hard to reconcile. But if
you have assumed and stated that you believe a man to be an actor, and
if he assures you he is not, and you beg his pardon, it must be
understood that you accept his _bonâ fides_. At any rate, you have to
appear to do so, and Jack, who did not consider himself more than an
amateur, found the task difficult, under the eye of one who was capable
of such astonishing histrionic feats, who could act so containedly
before no scenery and a sceptical audience. That unctuous voice quoting
the lesson for the day was a miracle, and the miracle, like that of the
barren fig-tree, seemed so unnecessary. However, everyone has an
inalienable right to pose, and it is the point of good manners to assume
that nobody exercises it.
Mr. Alington rose with a sort of soft alacrity, and walked across to the
window. Sheets of rain were still flung against the streaming panes, and
the glory of the garden was battered and beaten. A thick vapour, half
steam, half mist, rose from the water of the river, warmed by its summer
travel, but his careful eye detected a break on the horizon.
"We shall have a fine afternoon," he said to Jack. "With your leave,
therefore, I will get the prospectus, for I shall be glad to run over a
few points with you."
Jack looked out over the drenched landscape.
"I bet you a sovereign it does not clear," he said.
Mr. Alington took a little green morocco note-book from his pocket.
"Done, my dear fellow," he said. "I will just record it. You will
certainly lose. I would have given you two to one, if you had asked it."
He left the room, and in a few minutes returned with a sheaf of papers.
"Now, if you will give me your attention for half an hour or so," he
said, "I will tell you all that you, as a director, need know."
"And as a shareholder?" asked Jack.
Mr. Alington rattled his gold pencil-case between his teeth. He felt
disposed to trust his chairman a good long way, and, ignoring the
scruple-voice, "Yes, I will tell you that also," he said. "But keep the
two well apart, my dear Conybeare."