"How much?" I gasped faintly, watching him closely, for I could not
believe it.
"Only a measly million," he replied with deprecating cockiness. "It was
as much as I could do to make them let us come in at all. If it weren't
for your cold feet I would have taken the three millions." And his
chuckle irritated me beyond words.
He was in earnest. He was not joking.
"And where the devil," I spluttered, "will you get the money for even
the initial payment?"
"Raise it, my boy, raise it," he bent, beetling over me. "If we want to
amount to anything we've got to take chances. One syndicate
participation like that and perhaps another with the newspaper
publicity, and we're made men in the Street. Got to do it. Want to be
a piker all your life? I don't!"
"You're--mad--" I stammered limply. "Stark, raving mad. And how do you
propose to raise the money?"
"By selling the bonds, fellow!" he announced with aloof superiority.
"Have you got the bonds?"
"No. They are not even in this country. We give them _ad interim_
certificates until the bonds arrive."
"Have you got the certificates?"
"No," was the astounding reply. "We'll sell 'em first, get the money
for 'em, turn it over to Sampson & Company, the syndicate managers, and
draw our certificates. That's how it works. Of course if we were a
bigger house, better known, it would be easier. But we'll do it--don't
you worry--we'll do it!"
"You mean," I groped, "we have to sell something we haven't even in hand
and get money for it?"
"That's what it amounts to," he grinned, though less jauntily than
before.