"Don't sit there like that!" he cried, regarding me as one looks down
from the side of a great liner upon a drifting derelict. "Get busy!
Get on the telephone and sell some Roumanian bonds!" And he chuckled in
his absurd triumphant manner that will one day drive me to desperation.
"Begin with your friend Visconti," he suggested. "He seems to have
taken a shine to you. Talk to him in Dago."
Many and many a time had I asked myself what I was doing in that
particular galley. To enter a new occupation without enthusiasm, for a
cloistered monk like myself to go out into the market place as a
chafferer and a huckster, among a race I had not even cared to
understand, and to embrace their ideals and their career, concerning
which I had not even curiosity, had been difficult enough. With the
lash of my need I had whipped myself like a flagellant to the daily
grind until custom had given it the ungrateful familiarity that the
treadmill must have for the mule.
But to embark upon this murky enterprise of Fred's, charged for me with
the dread of a hundred lurking pitfalls, into which I should infallibly
stumble, charged with the fear of certain failure, all my instincts
revolted against it. Nevertheless, like a lost soul, I suffered myself
to be driven because I must.
It is to the glory of human nature that there is more of the milk and
marrow of human kindness in it than pessimists give it credit for. The
excellent Visconti, after listening to me in silence while I lamely and
guiltily explained my offer to him, courteously replied in Italian.
"If you recommend them, Signor, I will take them. I cannot take many,
but I will take five."
I thanked him as best I could, but I shrank back as under a blow. This
man was buying not Roumanian bonds so much as my Word. Besides, though
the bonds were right enough, I had nothing to give him and yet I wanted
his money. I could not face it, and so I informed my egregious Fred.
"That's so," said Fred reflectively and for a moment he was lost in
thought. Then, as is his wont, he suddenly began to radiate the heat of
a new inspiration. "I've got it!" he cried. "Listen here. You've only
put half your capital into this business. You've got in the vault--how
much is it? Twenty-five thousand in securities?"