The Golden Butterfly

"I begin to see," said Mr. Beck slowly.

"By this time you will perceive," Mr. Cassilis continued, "the bears are at the mercy of the favoured allottees. Then up go the shares; the public have come in. I recollect an old friend of mine who made a fortune on 'Change – small compared with yours, Mr. Beck, but a great fortune – used to say, talking of shares in his rather homely style, 'When they rise, the people buys; when they fa's, they lets 'em goes.' Ha, ha! it's so true. I have but a very poor opinion of the Isle of Holyhead Inland Navigation Company; but I thought their shares would go up, and I bought for you. You hold twenty out of fifty thousand. Wait till 'the people buys,' and then unload cautiously."

"And leave the rest in the lurch? No, sir, I can't do that."

"Then, Mr. Beck, I can advise you no more."

"I hold twenty thousand shares; and if I sell out, that company will bust up."

"I do not say so much. I say that if you sell out gradually you take advantage of the premium, and the company is left exactly where it was before you joined, to stand or fall upon its merits. But if you will sell your shares without concert with our colleagues in these companies you are in, we shall be very properly called black sheep."

"Then, Mr. Cassilis," said Gilead, "in God's name, let us have done with companies."

"Very well; as you please. You have only to give me a power of attorney, and I will dispose of all your shares in the best way possible for your interests. Will you give me that power of attorney?"

"Sir, I am deeply obliged to you for all the trouble you are taking."

"A power of attorney conveys large powers. It will put into my hands the management of your great revenues. This is not a thing to be done in a moment. Think well, Mr. Beck, before you sign such a document."

"I have thought, sir," said Gilead, "and I will sign it with gratitude."

"In that case, I will have the document – it is only a printed form, filled up and sent on to you for signature immediately."

"Thank you, Mr. Cassilis."

"And as for the shares in the various companies which you have acquired by my advice, I will, if you please, take them all over one with another at the price you gave for them, without considering which have gone up and which down."

They had all gone up, a fact which Mr. Cassilis might have remembered had he given the thing a moment's thought. The companies on paper were doing extremely well.

"Sir," said Mr. Beck, starting to his feet "you heap coals of fire on my head. When a gentleman like you advises me, I ought to be thankful, and not go worrying around like a hen in a farmyard. The English nation are the only people who can raise a man like you, sir. Honour is your birthright. Duty is your instinct. Truth is your nature. We, Americans, sir, come next to you English in that respect. The rest of the world are nowhere." He was walking backwards and forwards, with his hands in his pockets, while Mr. Cassilis looked at him through his gold eyeglasses as if he was a little amused at the outburst. "Nowhere, sir. Truth lives only among us. The French lie to please you. The Germans lie to get something for themselves. The Russians lie because they imitate the French and have caught the bad tricks of the Germans. Sir, no one but an Englishman would have made me the generous offer you have just made, and I respect you for it, Mr. Cassilis, I respect you, sir."

Gabriel Cassilis looked a little, a very little, confused at all these compliments. Then he held out his hand.

"My dear friend, the respect is mutual," he said, with a forced smile. "Do not, however, act always upon your belief in the honesty of Englishmen. It may lead you into mischief."

"As for the shares," said Beck, "they will stay as they are, if you please, or they will be sold, as you will. And no more companies, Mr. Cassilis, for me."

"You shall have no more," said his adviser.

In his pocket was a beautiful prospectus, brand new, of a company about to be formed for the purpose of lighting the town of La Concepcion Immaculata on the Amazon River in Brazil with gas. A concession of land had been obtained, engineers had been out to survey the place, and their prospects were most bright.

Now, he felt, that project must be released. He turned the paper in his fingers nervously round and round, and the muscles of his cheek twitched. Then he looked up and smiled, but in a joyless way. Mr. Beck did not smile. He was growing more serious.

"You shall have no more shares," said the adviser. "Those that you have already shall be disposed of as soon as possible. Remains the question, what am I to do with the money?"

"You have placed yourself," he went on, "in my hands by means of that promised power of attorney. I advised, first of all, certain shares my influence enabled me to get allotted to you. You have scruples about selling shares at a profit. Let us respect your scruples, Mr. Beck. Instead of shares, you will invest your money in Government stocks."

"That, sir," said Mr. Beck, "would meet my wishes."

"I am glad of it. There are two or three ways of investing money in stocks. The first, your way, is to buy in and take the interest. The next, my way, is to buy in when they are low and sell out when they go up."

"You may buy in low and sell out lower," said the astute Beck.

"Not if you can afford to wait. This game, Mr. Beck, as played by the few who understand it, is one which calls into play all the really valuable qualities of the human intellect."

Mr. Cassilis rose as he spoke and drew himself up to his full height. Then he began to walk backwards and forwards, turning occasionally to jerk a word straight in the face of his client, who was now leaning against the window with an unlighted cigar between his lips, listening gravely.

"Foolish people think it a game of gambling. So it is – for them. What is it to us? It is the forecasting of events. It is the pitting of our experience, our sagacity, against what some outsiders call chance and some Providence. We anticipate events; we read the future by the light of the present."

"Then it isn't true about Malachi," said Mr. Beck. "And he wasn't the last prophet."

Mr. Cassilis went on without regarding this observation:

"There is no game in the world so well worth playing. Politics? You stake your reputation on the breath of the mob. War? You throw away your life at the stockade of savages before you can learn it. Trade? It is the lower branch of the game of speculation. In this game those who have cool heads and iron nerve win. To lose your head for a moment is to lose the results of a lifetime – unless," he murmured, as if to himself – "unless you can wait."

"Well, sir," said Gilead, "I am a scholar, and I learn something new every day. Do you wish me to learn this game? It seems to me – "

"You?" Contempt that could not be repressed flashed for a moment across the thin features of the speculator. "You? No. Perhaps, Mr. Beck, I do not interest you." He resumed his habitually cold manner, and went on: "I propose, however, to give you my assistance in investing your money, to such advantage as I can, in English and foreign stocks, including railway companies, but not in the shares of newly-formed trading companies."

"Sir, that is very kind."

"You trust me, then, Mr. Beck?"

Again the joyless smile, which gleamed for a moment on his lips and disappeared.

"That is satisfactory to both of us," he said. "And I will send up the power of attorney to-day."

Mr. Cassilis departed. By the morning's work he had acquired absolute control over a quarter of a million of money. Before this he had influence, but he required persuasion for each separate transaction. Now he had this great fortune entirely in his own control. It was to be the same as his own. And by its means he had the power which every financier wants – that of waiting. He could wait. And Gilead Beck, this man of unparalleled sharpness and unequalled experience, was a Fool. We have been Christians for nearly two thousand years, and yet he who trusts another man is a Fool. It seems odd.

Mr. Cassilis felt young again. He held his head erect as he walked down the steps of the Langham Hotel. He lost his likeness to old Father Time, or at least resembled that potentate in his younger days, when he used to accommodate himself to people, moving slowly for the happy, sometimes sitting down for a few weeks in the case of young lovers, and galloping for the miserable. He strode across the hall with the gait of a Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, and drove off to the City with the courage of five-and-twenty and the wisdom of sixty.

Before him stretched an endless row of successes, bigger than anything he had ever yet tried. For him the glory of the coup and the profit; for Gilead Beck the interest on his money.

In his inner room, after glancing at the pile of letters and telegrams, noting instructions, and reserving a few for private reply, he rang his bell.

The private secretary of Mr. Gabriel Cassilis did not disdain personally to answer that bell. He was a middle-aged man, with a sleek appearance, and a face which, being fat, shiny, and graced only with a slight fringe of whisker lying well behind, somehow conveyed the impression of a Particular Baptist who was also in the oil-trade. That was not the case, because Mr. Mowll was a member of the Church of England and a sidesman. He lived at Tulse Hill, and was a highly-respectable man. Mr. Cassilis gave him a fair salary, and a small amount – a very small amount – of his confidence. He also, when anything good in a humble way offered, tossed the information to his secretary, who was thus enabled to add materially to his salary.

In the outer world Mr. Mowll was the right-hand man of Gabriel Cassilis, his factotum, and the man, according to some, by whose advice he walked. Gabriel Cassilis walked by no man's advice save his own.

"For you, Mowll," said his employer briefly. "These I will attend to. Telegraph to – wherever his address is – to the man Wylie – the writing man" – newspaper people and writers of articles were "writing men" to Gabriel Cassilis – "I want him at once."

Then he absorbed himself again in his papers.

When he was left alone he pulled some printed documents out of a drawer, and compared them with letters which had the New York post-mark upon them. He read carefully, and made notes at various points with a stump of a blue crayon pencil. And he was still engaged on them when, half an hour later, his secretary asked him through a tube whether he would see Mr. Wylie.

Mr. Wylie was an elderly man – a man of sixty – and he was a man on whose face many years of rum-and-water were beginning to tell. He was a man of letters, as he said himself; he had some kind of name, in virtue of certain good things he had written, in his early manhood, before the rum-and-water period set in. Now he went up and down, doing odd jobs of literary work, such as are always wanting some one to do them in this great city. He was a kind of literary cab.

"You are free to-day, Mr. Wylie?"

"I am, Mr. Cassilis."

"Good. Do you remember last year writing a short political pamphlet – I think at my suggestion – on the prospects of Patagonian bond-holders?"

"You gave me all the information, you know."

"That is, you found the papers in my outer office, to which all the world has access, and on them you based your opinion."

"Quite so," said the pamphleteer. "I also found five-and-twenty pounds in gold on your secretary's table the day after the pamphlet appeared."

"Ah! Possibly – perhaps my secretary had private reasons of his own for – "

"Let us talk business, Mr. Cassilis," said the author a little roughly. "You want me to do something. What is it?"

"Do you know the affairs of Eldorado?"

"I have heard of Eldorado bonds. Of course, I have no bonds either of Eldorado or any other stock."

"I have here certain papers – published papers – on the resources of the country," said Mr. Cassilis. "I think it might pay a clever man to read them. He would probably arrive at the conclusion that the Republic, with its present income, cannot hope to pay its dividends – "

"Must smash up, in short."

"Do not interrupt. But with any assurance of activity and honesty in the application of its borrowed money, there seems, if this paper is correct – it is published in New York – no doubt that the internal resources would be more than sufficient to carry the State triumphantly through any difficulty."

"Is it a quick job, or a job that may wait?"

"I dislike calling things jobs, Mr. Wylie. I give you a suggestion which may or may not be useful. If it is useful – it is now half-past twelve o'clock – the pamphlet should be advertised in to-morrow's papers, in the printer's hand by four, and ready on every counter by ten o'clock in the morning. Make your own arrangements with printers, and call on me to-morrow with the pamphlet. On me, mind, not Mr. Mowll."

"Yes – and – and – "

"And, perhaps, if the pamphlet is clever, and expresses a just view of Eldorado and its obligations, there may be double the sum that you once found on my secretary's table."

Mr. Wylie grasped the papers and departed.

The country of Eldorado is one of the many free, happy, virtuous, and enlightened republics of Central America. It was constituted in the year 1839, after the Confederation broke up. During the thirty years which form its history, it has enjoyed the rule of fifteen Presidents. Don Rufiano Grechyto, its present able administrator, a half-blood Indian by birth, has sat upon the chair of state for nearly a year and a half, and approaches the period of two years, beyond which no previous President has reigned. He is accordingly ill at ease. Those who survive of his fourteen predecessors await his deposition, and expect him shortly in their own happy circle, where they sit like Richard II., and talk of royal misfortunes. Eldorado is a richly-endowed country to look at. It has mountains where a few inches of soil separate the feet of the rare wayfarer from rich lodes of silver; forests of mahogany cover its plains; indigo and tobacco flourish in its valleys; everywhere roam cattle waiting to be caught and sent to the London market. Palms and giant tree-ferns rise in its woods; creepers of surpassing beauty hang from tree to tree; in its silent recesses stand, covered with inscriptions which no man can read, the ruins of a perished civilization. Among these ruins roam the half-savage Indians who form nine-tenths of the population. And in the hot seaboard towns loll and lie the languid whites and half-castes who form the governing class. They never do govern at all; they never improve; they never work; they are a worthless hopeless race; they hoard their energies for the excitement of a pronunciamiento; their favourite occupation is a game of monte; they consider thought a wicked waste of energy, save for purposes of cheating. They ought all, and without exception, to be rubbed out. And it is most unfortunate, in the interests of humanity, that their only strong feeling is an objection to be rubbed out. Otherwise we could plant in Eldorado a colony of Germans; kill the pythons, alligators, jaguars, and other impediments to free civilisation; open up the mines, and make it a country green with sugar-canes and as sweet as Rimmel's shop by reason of its spicy breezes. There are about five thousand of the dominant class; they possess altogether a revenue of about £60,000 a year, a good deal less than a first-class fortune in England. As every man of the five thousand likes to have his share of the £60,000 there is not much saved in the year. Consequently, when one reads that the Republic of Eldorado owes the people of Great Britain and France, the only two European States which have money to lend, the sum of six millions, one feels sorry for the people of Eldorado. It must be a dreadful thing for a high-minded republican to have so little and to owe so much. Fancy a man with £600 a year in debt to the tune of £60,000.

It all grew by degrees. Formerly the Eldoradians owed nothing. In those days champagne was unknown, claret never seen, and the native drink was rum. Nothing can be better for the natives than their rum, because it kills them quickly, and so rids the earth of a pestilent race. In an evil moment it came into the head of an enterprising Eldoradian President to get up a loan. He asked for a million, which is, of course, a trifle to a nation which has nothing, does nothing, and saves nothing. They got so much of their million as enabled them to raise everybody's salary and the pay of the standing army, also to make the dividend certain for a few years. After this satisfactory transaction, somebody boldly ordered the importation of a few cases of brandy. The descent of Avernus is easy and pleasant. Next year they asked for two millions and a half. They got this small trifle conceded to them on advantageous terms – 10 per cent., which is nothing to a Republic with £60,000 a year, and the stock at 60. The pay of every official was doubled, the army had new shirts issued, and there were fireworks at San Mercurio, the principal town. They promised to build railways leading from nowhere into continental space, to carry passengers who did not exist, and goods not yet invented. The same innovator who had introduced the brandy now went farther, and sent for claret and champagne. Then they asked for more loans, and went ahead quite like a First-class Power.

When there was no more money to pay the dividends with, and no more loans to be raised, Eldorado busted up.

The gallant officers who commanded the standing army are now shirtless and bootless; the men of the standing army have disappeared; grass grows around the house of the importer of European luxuries; but content has not returned to San Mercurio. The empty bottles remain to remind the populace of lost luxuries; the national taste in drink is hopelessly perverted; San Mercurio is ill at ease; and Don Rufiano trembles in his marble palace.

But a year ago the country was not quite played out. There seemed a chance yet to those who had not the materials at hand for a simple sum in Arithmetic.

The next morning saw the appearance of the pamphlet – a short but telling pamphlet of thirty-two pages – called "Eldorado and her Resources. Addressed to the Holders of Eldorado Stock, by Oliver St. George Wylie."

The author took a gloomy but not a despairing view. He mentioned that where there was no revenue there could be no dividends. Therefore, he said, it behooved Eldorado stock-holders to be sure that something was being done with their money. Then he gave pages of facts and figures which proved the utter insolvency of the State unless something could be done. And he then proceeded to point out the amazing resources of the country, could only a little energy be introduced into the Council. He drew a lively picture of millions of acres, the finest ground in the world, planted with sugar-cane; forests of mahogany; silver mines worked by contented and laborious Indians; ports crowded with merchant fleets, each returning home with rich argosies; and a luxurious capital of marble made beautiful by countless palaces.

At eleven Mr. Wylie called on Gabriel Cassilis again. He brought with him his pamphlet.

"I have read it already," said Mr. Cassilis. "It is on the whole well done, and expresses my own view, in part. But I think you have piled it up too much towards the end."

"Why did you not give me clearer instructions, then?"

"I dare say it will have a success. Meantime," said the financier, pushing over a little bag, "you can count that. There ought to be fifty sovereigns. Good-morning, Mr. Wylie."

"Good-morning, Mr. Cassilis. I don't know" – he turned the bag of gold over in his hands – "I don't know; thirty years ago I should have looked with suspicion on such a job as this; thirty years ago – "

"Good-morning, Mr. Wylie."

"Thirty years ago I should have thought that a man who could afford fifty pounds for a pamphlet – "

"Well?"

"Well – that he had his little game. And I should have left that man to play it by himself. Good-morning again, Mr. Cassilis. You know my address, I believe, in case of any other little job turning up."

That afternoon Eldorado stock went down. It was lucky for Mr. Gabriel Cassilis, because he wished to buy – and did – largely.