Black Diamonds Part 36

"I did not want to run them down; I only wanted to ascertain if it was really the case that such an advance on the price could be realized."

"Oh, that's the way with you," returned Spitzhase, in an aggrieved tone. "Well, I can tell you the exchange is not a good place to try jokes in. It was all quite authentic. The Bondavara scrip is as sound as ready-money. To-day it is thirty for scrip, eight-and-twenty for gold; to-morrow it will be thirty-two, and so on--always getting higher. If I had the money I would put in my last farthing. I know what I know, and I have studied the weather on 'change, but what I have learned from Kaulmann I cannot tell; my lips are sealed."

Upon this Csanta pressed the clerk very hard. "You can tell me," he said; "I am already in the boat. What have you heard?"

"Well," said Spitzhase, lowering his voice and looking round cautiously, "what you say is true; you are a large holder of stock, so perhaps I may give you this hint. _Puntafar has not reached its highest point yet._ Oho! they are very tricky who hold over. I am in the secret, and there is a plan, the details of which I durst not reveal, which will give such an impulse as will drive the shares still higher. In six months one impulse will be given, in another six months another. Oh, the world will open its eyes and its ears; but what I say to you, you will see! In a year's time Puntafar will be at one hundred over par."

"A hundred!" repeated Csanta, falling back against the wall in his astonishment. But he soon recovered himself. He was angry with Spitzhase for treating him as if he were a fool.

"I tell you what you are," he said; "you are a great boaster. Leave me; I shall get home by myself." And he dismissed Spitzhase angrily.

The next morning his first word was to ask the waiter for the papers.

His eyes eagerly sought the exchange column, and there, just as Spitzhase had prophesied, silver currency had dropped two per cent.

Bondavara stood at thirty to thirty-two florins, and what is written is gospel truth.

"Not one shall I sell!" cried Csanta, clapping his hands.

And then he got up and dressed himself. Here was a stroke of luck. It was like a fairy-tale; a man had only to leave the window open at night and next morning his pockets are full of gold.

He was swallowing his breakfast when Spitzhase was ushered in, his face beaming with triumph.

"Now, what did I tell you?" he cried, as he laid down the paper before Csanta, pointing with his finger to the exchange column.

The old Greek said not a word of having read the good news; he nodded his head as he answered, with great composure:

"Is it really true? Well, that is satisfactory."

"I rather think so; by the evening they will be up to thirty-two. Oh, if I had only some money!"

"Well, here is another note for you. Go and buy yourself a share.

There, don't kiss my hand. I cannot allow it." But he did allow it.

"Don't sell the share," he went on; "keep it for yourself. When the next instalment comes due I will pay it for you. For G.o.d's sake, don't kiss my hand again! I will do more than that for you. If you kiss my hand every time I shall have no hands left. Remember that I shall expect you to show your grat.i.tude in a more tangible manner. You must let me know the first thing if the head of your bank is going to try any tricks with the bonds. You will be sure to give me the first news as to when I should sell. Do you understand me? Good! Now that you have a share yourself you have an interest in the matter, and if we sell our shares are we not ent.i.tled to a commission?"

Spitzhase kissed every finger of the old man's hand.

"I implore one thing of you, master," he said; "don't betray me to Kaulmann. If he found out that I betrayed his secrets to any one he would dismiss me on the spot."

"Don't be afraid. You have to do with an honorable gentleman,"

returned the Greek, with an air of dignity.

The honorable gentleman believed that he had won over the honest clerk to betray the secrets of the honorable banker, his employer. It was an honorable game all round. We shall see which of the honorable gentlemen played it best.

CHAPTER XX

NO, EVELINE!

It was high time Ivan returned to his coal-mine; he was needed there.

While he was fighting duels in Pesth, strange things were happening in Bondathal. Not far from his workmen's colony there arose enormous buildings with almost miraculous quickness. As often happens when no difficulty is made as to price, the only question asked is, how soon shall the work be finished? The shares had not yet been issued, and the company had already spent in the interest of the undertaking a million of money. Everything was pressed forward at fever-heat. Here was a new invention for making tiles by machinery, there a donkey-engine supplied the materials for building the walls. The earthworks were in a most advanced condition, the chimneys smoked, the roofs were covered, a whole street was already built, a new town was rising as if by magic.

Of all this activity Ivan had been kept in ignorance by his a.s.sistant, Raune, who had, likewise, been silent as to another disturbing element which had made its appearance for the first time among the workmen, and which disputed the palm with "choke-damp" and "foul air," and was quite as fatal as either. This new element was "a strike." A portion of Ivan's workmen struck for higher wages, otherwise they would join the new coal-mine, which was called "The Gentleman's Colony." It offered nearly double the wages, certainly more than the half again, of what Ivan paid. This happened after Raune had explained to the men that he had accepted the office of director, which had been offered to him by the new company, and he naturally wished to take with him the best and cleverest among Ivan's men, so that they, too, might profit by the higher wages. Who could resist such advantageous offers? Miners are like all other men; they have their price.

Ivan now gnawed the bitter bread of self-reproach. He saw the folly he had committed in taking into his service and admitting into the secrets of the business the paid director of a company created to bring about his own ruin.

A scientific man is not a good business man. While he was making investigations as to the probability of animal life existing in the antediluvian strata of coal-mines, he was blind to the danger of a rival company close to his own factory. Nay, more; he had allowed himself to be hoodwinked by an inferior intelligence, and had fallen into the trap set for him by his old friend Felix. Ivan was philosopher enough to accommodate himself to circ.u.mstances. There was little use, he told himself, in crying over spilt milk; he had broad shoulders, and they should, if it were possible, push the wheel of fortune. But though he said this, he had little hope of succeeding.

On his return, and when he got, as he thought, to the bottom of the evil, he called his workmen together.

"Comrades," he said, "a great undertaking has risen up beside us; the company of the new coal-mines offers you wages which I give you my word of honor it is impossible to pay without considerable loss to themselves. Up to the present I have worked my mines with a certain amount of profit; I offer you to-day, in addition to your usual wages, a share out of this profit. For the future we shall divide with one another what we earn. At the end of the year I shall lay my accounts before you; one of your number, chosen by yourselves, shall examine and audit them, and according to the wages of each man and the work he has done he shall receive his share. If you agree to this fair offer I shall continue the work. If, however, you think it better for your interests to take the higher wages offered by the company, I shall not enter into compet.i.tion with men who have millions to spend; it would be a folly on my part. I shall, therefore, sell them my mine, and you may then be certain of one thing, that when they have both mines in their own hands, and find that no rivalry is possible, the rate of wages will be lowered. To those who stand by me I offer a contract _for life_; the profits of this mine, so long as I live, shall be divided between myself and my workmen."

This was an excellent stroke, especially as the company could not imitate it. More than half the men closed with Ivan's offer, and undertook to remain with him. A great number, however, influenced by paid agents, who were sent about to stir them up, went over to the "Gentleman's Colony."

Those who remained had a great deal to suffer from the ones who left.

Not a Sunday pa.s.sed without fights taking place between the two parties.

Ivan soon heard that his powerful rival had found a way of checkmating him. His customers, to whom he sent large consignments not only of coal but also of copper and iron bars, wrote to him that the new Bondavara Coal Company had offered the same cla.s.s of goods at fifty per cent. less, and that therefore, unless he was prepared to make a similar reduction, they could not deal with him. Fifty per cent.

higher wages and fifty per cent. less profit means working for nothing. Raune had Ivan's business in the hollow of his hand; he could ruin it, and he meant to do so. Ivan saw this quite clearly, but he did not lose heart. He wrote to all his former customers that it was not possible to give either the coal or the iron a farthing cheaper, not if it hung round his neck as a dead weight. The consequence was his coal and his iron acc.u.mulated in his warehouses; scarcely a wagon with his name was to be seen in the streets of Bondathal. He had to work the mine and the foundry for himself alone.

For the men who had remained true to him there was, indeed, a bad outlook. Their former comrades jeered at them in the open street.

"Where is the profit?" was a popular cry. Ivan tried to quiet the disappointed men; he asked them to wait patiently. By the end of the year, he prophesied, they would be on the right side. To give things for nothing was not trade, and if the company chose to do it he wasn't going to follow such a suicidal example.

The great buildings of the new colony being now completed, the directors of the company announced that they would hold high festival in honor of the opening of the undertaking. The princ.i.p.als, directors, managers, shareholders were to come from Vienna and be entertained at a banquet. The largest room in the factory was fitted up as a dining-room, the tables being laid for workmen as well as for the distinguished company of strangers. It was widely circulated that the prince was coming. The company had chosen him as their president. Both the princes were patrons of commercial and industrial undertakings, but Prince Theobald possessed an extraordinary financial talent; any speculation he engaged in was a sound and sure one, so it was said, as also that he had taken a million shares in the new company. It was so far true that Kaulmann had offered him this million, which was to increase the value of the Bondavara property, but it is needless to remark that the million of shares had no tangible existence. Previous to the inaugural ceremony a religious service was to take place, and, as was only fitting, this was to be conducted by the eminent Abbe Samuel. Before such distinguished guests it would hardly be in keeping to have a man such as pastor Mohak, although it was true that he slaved all through the year among the people.

The guests came from the castle, where they had arrived the previous day. They drove into the town in splendid coaches. That of Prince Theobald came first, with his armorial bearings emblazoned on the panels. Behind two footmen with dazzling liveries of scarlet and gold.

On the box the coachman with a powdered wig and three-cornered hat.

The coach drew up at the church door, the footmen jumped down and opened the carriage door. There alighted first an old gentleman with white hair, a clean-shaven, soft, friendly face, and a very distinguished air. He gave his hand to a splendidly dressed lady in a velvet and lace costume, who descended from the equipage with graceful nonchalance. The crowd saw her violet velvet boots and embroidered silk stockings.

"What a great lady!" cried the boors to one another. "She must be a princess, for all the gentlemen at the church door received her hat in hand."

Only one man in a rough workman's coat called out: "Evila!"

It was Peter Saffran who had recognized her.

The lady heard the exclamation, and turned a laughing face to the crowd outside.

"No," she said; "it is _Eveline_."

She bowed her head sweetly as she crossed the threshold of the church.

Eveline's vanity had brought her to Bondathal; she wanted to show her silk stockings to her former companions, who had seen her in wooden shoes with no stockings, except on occasions. It was the vanity of the peasant girl--not pride, take notice, but mere vanity. She did not look down upon her friends, as some upstarts do; she wanted to do good to every one of them. She was ready to give them money, to earn their grateful thanks, particularly to those who had been kind to her in the old days; to those especially she wished to prove that, although she had risen to a high position, she had never forgotten how much she owed to them. She would now, in her turn, do them good. Eveline had looked forward to seeing her former bridegroom. Most probably he had long since consoled himself for her loss, and had married another. A present of money would make _him_ happy. She had also counted on meeting Ivan. She had the most grateful remembrance of his goodness, and she was glad to think she had it in her power to prove her grat.i.tude by deeds. She could not give him a present, but she could tell him of the dangers that threatened his property from the large undertaking of the company, and she promised herself to use all her influence to make the best terms for Ivan in case he would consent to arrange matters with his gigantic rival.

Yes, it was indeed the vain desire of doing good that had brought Eveline to Bondathal. She had arranged how and where she would have her first meeting with Ivan.

The notabilities and proprietors of the neighborhood had been invited in the name of the prince to the banquet, which was to inaugurate the opening of the works. No one could refuse such an invitation. It was true that when Eveline had proposed to the Abbe Samuel that he should undertake the office of intermediary, and call on his learned colleague Behrend, and bring him with him to the banquet, the abbe had exclaimed not for all the world would he venture to propose such a thing as that Behrend should wait upon their excellencies. And when he said this he knew very well what he was saying.