The inspection of the machine was finished at last. Tim stood flushed and triumphant. The child of his ingenious brain had survived the tests of an expert. Mildmay turned to Ascher and bowed again.

"It's a wonderful invention," he said. "I see no reason why it should not be a commercial success."

"Perhaps, Mr. Mildmay," said Ascher, "you will study the subject further and submit a report to us in writing."

Mr. Mildmay left the room. I had no doubt that he would report enthusiastically on the new cash register. Mechanical experts do not, I suppose, write poetry, but there was without doubt a lyric in Mildmay's heart as he left the room. Tim packed the thing up again. Now that the mechanical part of the business was over, he relapsed into shy silence in a corner. His brother took out a cigarette and lit it I would not have ventured to light a cigarette in that sanctuary for a hundred pounds. But Gorman is entirely without reverence.

"Well," he said, "there's no doubt about the value of the invention."

"We shall wait for Mr. Mildmay's report," said Ascher, "before we come to any decision; but in the meanwhile we should like to hear any proposal you have to make."

"Yes," said Stutz, "your proposals. We are prepared to listen to them."

Stutz seemed to me to speak English with difficulty. His native language was perhaps German, perhaps Hebrew or Yiddish or whatever the language is which modern Jews speak in private life.

"The matter is simple enough," said Gorman. "Our machine will drive any other out of the market. There's no possibility of compet.i.tion. The thing is simply a dead cert. It can't help going."

"A large capital would be required," said Stutz, "a very large capital."

"Yes," said Gorman, "a very large capital, much larger than I should care to see invested in the thing. I may as well be quite frank with you gentlemen. At present the patents of my brother's invention are owned by a small company in which I am the chief shareholder. If we ask the public for a million dollars and get them--I don't say we can't get them. We may. But if we do I shall be a very small shareholder. I shall get 5 per cent, or 6 per cent, or perhaps 10 per cent, on my money. Now I want more than that. I'm speaking quite frankly, you see. I believe in frankness."

He looked at Ascher for approval. Stutz bowed, with an impa.s.sive face.

On Ascher's lips there was the ghost of a mournful little smile. I somehow gathered that he had come across frankness like Gorman's before and had not altogether liked it. Gorman went on. He explained, as he had explained to me, the plan he had made for forcing the owners of existing cash registers to buy his company out. At last he got to the central, the vitally important point.

"All we want, gentlemen, is your backing. You needn't put down any money. Your names will be enough. I will make over to you such bonus shares as may be agreed upon. The only risk we run is lawsuits about our patent rights. You understand how that game is worked. I needn't explain."

It was evident that both Ascher and Stutz understood that game thoroughly. It was also plain to me, though not, I think, to Gorman, that it was a game which neither one nor other of them would be willing to play.

"But if we have your names," said Gorman, "that game's off. It simply wouldn't pay. I don't want to flatter you, gentlemen, but there isn't a firm in the world that would care to start feeing lawyers in compet.i.tion with Ascher Stutz & Co."

"That is so," said Stutz.

"And your proposal?" said Ascher.

"If they can't crush us," said Gorman, "and they can't if you're behind us, they must buy us. I need scarcely say that your share in the profits will be satisfactory to you. Sir James Digby is one of our directors.

There are only four others, and three of them scarcely count. There won't be many of us to divide what we get."

I felt that my time had come to speak. If I was to justify Gorman's confidence in me as an "influence," I must say something. Besides Ascher was looking at me inquiringly.

"I'm not a business man," I said, "and I'm afraid that my opinion isn't worth much, but I think----"

I hesitated. Ascher's eyes were fixed on me, and there was a curiously wistful expression in them. I could not understand what he wanted me to say.

"I think," I said, "that Gorman's plan sounds feasible, that it ought to work."

"But your own opinion of it?" said Ascher.

He spoke with a certain gentle insistency. I could not very well avoid making some answer.

"We are able to judge for ourselves," he said, "whether it will work.

But the plan itself--what do you think of it?"

"Well," I said, "I'm a modern man. I have accepted all the ideas and standards of my time and generation. I can hardly give you an opinion that I could call my own, but if my father's opinion would be of any use to you---- He was an old-fashioned gentleman, with all the rather obsolete ideas about honour which those people had."

"He's dead, isn't he?" said Gorman.

"Oh, yes," I said. "He's been dead for fifteen years. Still I'm sure I could tell you what he'd have said about this."

"I do not think," said Stutz, "that we need consider the opinion of Sir James Digby's father, who has been dead for fifteen years."

"I quite agree with you," I said. "It would be out of date, hopelessly."

"But your own opinion?" said Ascher, still mildly insistent.

"Well," I said, "I've been robbed of my property--land in Ireland, Mr.

Stutz--by Gorman and his friends. Everybody says that they were quite right and that I ought not to have objected; so I suppose robbery must be a proper thing according to our contemporary ethics."

"And that is your opinion of the scheme?" said Ascher.

"Yes," I said. "I hope I've made myself clear. I think we are justified in pillaging when we can."

"You Irish," said Ascher, "with your intellects of steel, your delight in paradox and your reckless logic!"

Stutz was not interested in the peculiarities of the Irish mind. He went back to the main point with a directness which I admired.

"This is not," he said, "the kind of business we care to do."

"Mr. Gorman," said Ascher, "we shall wait for Mr. Mildmay's report on your brother's invention. If it turns out to be favourable, as I confidently expect, we may have a proposal to lay before you. Our firm cannot, you will understand, take shares in your company. That is not a bank's business. But I myself, in my private capacity, will consider the matter. So will Mr. Stutz. It may be possible to arrange that your brother's machine shall be put on the market."

"But your proposal," said Stutz obstinately. "It is not the kind of business we undertake."

The interview was plainly at an end. We rose and left the room.

Tim Gorman did not understand, perhaps did not hear, a word of what was said. He followed us out of the office nursing his machine and plainly in high delight. Curiously enough, the elder Gorman seemed equally pleased.

"We've got them," he said when we reached the street. "We've got Ascher, Stutz & Co quite safe. I don't see what's to stop us now."

My own impression was that both Ascher & Stutz had definitely refused to entertain our proposal or fall in with our plans. I said so to Gorman.

"Not at all," he said. "You don't understand business or business men.

Ascher and Stutz are very big bugs, very big indeed, and they have to keep up appearances. It wouldn't do for them to admit to you and me, or even to each other, that they were out for what they could get from the old company. They have to keep up the pretence that they mean legitimate business. That's the way these things are always worked. But you'll find that they won't object to pocketing their cheques when the time comes for smashing up Tim's machine and suppressing his patents."

I turned, when I reached the far side of the street, to take another look at Ascher's office. I was struck again by the purity of line and the severe simplicity of the building. Two thousand years ago men would have had a statue of Pallas Athene in it.

CHAPTER VI.