— This?
— Yes it’s a thousand shares of a…
— Fine, yes, serve the same purpose as your Norma Mining there.
— No but you see here’s their little booklet that…
— Look here Mister Bast, a mining company incorporated under the rules of Delaware, capitalization limited to three hundred thousand a year you don’t know what that means?
— Well I suppose it just…
— Means their disclosure papers don’t have to be audited by the SEC. I don’t deal in penny stock Mister Bast.
— But you see their little booklet here shows…
— Trees! nothing but trees! Doesn’t even say they own it, probably just filed an exploration claim and…
— But these pictures of all their equipment are…
— Who says it’s their equipment! Anything here say this equipment belongs to this what is it? Ace Development Company? Pretty pictures Mister Bast, pretty pictures. Anybody can print pretty pictures.
— But isn’t the…
— W Decker, Underwriter, who in the hell is W Decker? Know him? No, nobody does. Probably put out a million of these shares and has another million tucked away just in case a virgin mineral should turn up, posing as the underwriter here to disguise his ownership. Childish nonsense Mister Bast, your associate must be…
— No but, just one more moment, there’s something else, right under there…
— This? Hi Tiger. That’s me in the photo hon, I put it on my letter as a sorta sample of a set I posed for with each and every one of you guys in mind, posed the way you like to see a, what in the, just what is this sir!
— But it, I don’t know I, I meant that red thing there that, that red…
— This? Here comes another first in the marital relations field, my, my God sir! Perfectly barbaric! He tipped back and the mass of the chair tipped with him, cornering with a dulled blucher a delicately striped and more delicately shaded hindquarter remnant of one of the lives lost to the walls beyond now covering the wastebasket where he dropped these solicitations coming forward with a reach that commanded the entire expanse of teak and blotter stretched before him to seize a small bottle beside an opened book there and get its cap off. — Get out very much do you, Mister Bast?
— Out, where…
— Outdoors sir! Out of doors! Just what is it you do Mister Bast? Outside of being a ah, business representative as your card here has it.
— I’m a composer I, I compose…
— Music?
— Yes, you see I…
— Ought to get some outdoor interests Mister Bast, these ah, these indoor pastimes breed a sort of a, not the healthiest state of mind… he popped a small pill into his mouth and snapped the cap back on the bottle. — Best medicine there is.
— Oh, what, what is it…
— No no, not this, this is just nitroglycerine… He pushed the bottle to a distant teak expanse, — the outdoors sir, the outdoors. Now if we’ve cleared up our business…
— Yes well there was just one more thing there if you could, it’s a bond, that red thing, I think it’s a bond…
— You understand I’m a very busy man Mister Bast, if you hadn’t come so highly recommended I don’t know what I’d…
— Yes well I, I did appreciate her writing that note to you for me, she…
— Says anything I can do for you will be a kindness to her, yes. Just how do you come to know Amy Joubert, Mister Bast?
— Well you see we both…
— Always had a kind of weakness for the arts though didn’t she, probably why she refers to you here as such a dear person. Charming girl yes, lovely girl, almost say generous to a fault.
— Did she… did she, really say that?
— Say what.
— That, that dear person, that I was such a…
— Don’t sound like my words do they, Mister Bast? Now, you want to clear up this…
— Yes well you see I’ve been carrying her note around for quite a while and then yesterday when I went out to pick up this check I…
— No no no this, this red thing as you call it. What do you want to know.
— Well I just wanted, I mean I think my associate wants…
— Looks perfectly clear to me, bond issue that defaulted ten, let’s see there, thirteen years ago, company still losing money faster than they can write the figures. Wallpaper Mister Bast, wallpaper. Know what wallpaper is?
— Well I thought I…
— Good goat country, happened to know a little about this Eagle Mills myself, used to go up there for goat. Nobody else ever heard of them, they went to sleep up there before you were born and nobody woke them up. Did they get out of woollens and into synthetics after the war, no. Did they move south to a cheap labor pool where some red union wouldn’t run them down? No, they sat up at Union Falls and put out a million dollar bond issue.
— But if they haven’t got any money how do they…
— Didn’t say they didn’t have any money did I? Net worth’s probably around a million, most of it probably in their net property account, may even be sitting on a fat pension fund they’ve forgotten exists… he came forward again to paw at the heap. — Pick these up a few cents on the dollar, this the only one you, your associate has, is it?
— Well no, no he said he’s getting a whole bunch, he…
— A what?
— A lot. He says he…
— One lot? Nothing to cry about, client of mine got stuck with twenty lots of Boston and Maine interest been due on it for ten or fifteen years, pick one up for you for ten any time you like.
— Dollars?
— When we say ten we mean hundred, Mister Bast… and he sank back from the heap before him, eyes taking on the glassine vacancy of the rest of the audience.
— Yes well there was just one more thing here I, that I think you might…
— That? My God, haven’t seen one in years.
— No this isn’t what I… what is it.
— Russian Imperial Bond.
— You mean it isn’t worth any, worth very…
— Mister Bast, anything is worth whatever some damn fool will pay for it, only reason somebody can make a market in Russian Imperials is because some damn, somebody like your associate will buy them. Happen to know how he, how this associate of yours got into all this?
— By, well buying and selling at first I think and then he had some stock in a company and was going to bring some kind of legal suit for, for his class, I mean he…
— A class action? What was the company, another Ace Development outfit?
— No it was a, Diamond, the Diamond Cable Company he, well maybe I should just tell you the whole story, you see he’s only…
— No please Mister Bast, for the love of God please! You don’t mind if I give you both a bit of advice?
— No, no well of course that’s why I came in to…
— Stay in music Mister Bast. Stay in music and advise your, your associate here to stay in whatever in the name of God he’s in, where neither of you will ever have to know the value of anything.
— Well but, well yes thank you then but if I could just ask you why this company of, this Eagle Mills, if they have a million dollars why they don’t…
— Mister Bast I, I didn’t say they had a million dollars, I said their net worth…
— Yes but what does net…
— Mister Bast… he loomed slowly forward toward the heap on the blotter, — Mister Bast I, I’ve just had a thought.
— Yes what does net…
— I take it a composer’s life is no easier than it ever was, Mister Bast.
— Yes well that’s true of course but I, that’s the reason I…
— Suppose I was able to throw something your way Mister Bast, something a little more in your line.
— In, do you mean in music?