Ruined City (23 page)

'How long have you been back from Visgrad?' asked the

girl.

'Getting on for a month. I was out there for about a fortnight after we had lunch together.'

She smiled. 'Did you take out the umbrella with you?'

He nodded.

'And it worked?'

'I got what I wanted — the right to float the business on the London market.'

She wrinkled her brows. 'Does that mean orders for ships?'

'Broadly speaking, it does. If that issue goes all right, and I have no doubt that it will, it means that the Company, Laevol Ltd., will have to order tankers.'

'Will they be ordered from us, here?'

'I've arranged for that.'

She stared into the fire. 'It's wonderful,' she said quietly. The change that it will mean — to everything. I can't get used to the idea.'

He smiled. 'That isn't quite the end of the story. The next thing is, we've got to get some capital for the Yard to work with, to finance the order and for new equipment and machinery. That means another issue.'

She wrinkled her brows again. 'You mean, because of the order from Laevol, you'll be able to get in more money to capitalize the Yard?'

'That's it, broadly.'

They went on with their lunch, talking of Sharples, of the Yard, and of the hospital. And presently she said:

'About this new company, Laevol Ltd., Mr Warren. I'd like to take up some shares in it, if I may. I had a legacy the other day, so I've got a little money to invest now.'

He did not answer for a minute. Then he said, 'How much did you think of putting into it?'

'About five hundred pounds.' She hesitated, and then said, 'Could you arrange that for me?'

He shook his head, smiling. 'No, I couldn't.'

'But why not?'

He eyed her for a moment. 'I wouldn't play about with foreign industrials, if I were you,' he said. 'Leave that to the people who make a study of that sort of thing — the big corporations and insurance companies.'

She met his eyes. 'But you're offering the shares to people like me, aren't you?'

'That's a matter of form,' he said easily. 'There's only one way to make a public issue, and that's to offer it to the public. But the bulk of this issue will be taken up by the investment corporations.'

She said, 'I see.'

'I think you might split your five hundred into two lots,' he remarked. 'If you'll let me look into it when I get back to town, I can let you have details of a couple of sound investments that will give you a safe dividend, and a slow capital appreciation
.
Then you could tell your bank to buy the shares — or, if you like, I'll handle it for you.'

She turned and faced him. 'You mustn't take that trouble, Mr Warren,' she said evenly. 'I haven't got any money to invest, really. I only asked you that because I wanted to know what you really thought of Laevol Ltd.'

There was a little silence.

'Well,' he said heavily. 'You know that now.'

'Let's have our coffee by the fire,' she said gently. 'The maid can clear the table then.' She made him sit in the armchair, and poured out coffee for him.

'I'm sorry I did that,' she said at last, and smiled at him. 'It was mean. But since we had that talk in London, in your rooms, I've known that things weren't right, I felt then that you hated the whole thing. You do, don't you?'

He sat there in the chair before the fire, and sipped his coffee. 'It's autumn now,' he said at last. 'I told you in the spring that I would get this place going again, that day we went to see the mine. And I'm doing it. You don't imagine I hate doing that, do you?'

'No,' she said wonderingly, 'I don't.'

He went on, half to himself, 'In my sort of business it's not very easy to see clearly what one's working for. A young man works to make money, or to get married.' He raised his head.'You know that I'm divorcing my wife?'

'Yes,' she said quietly. 'I know that.'

'Well. One gets to a stage, later on in life, when the things one used to work for don't quite fit. I've got all the money I could ever want to use. And it's when you get tb my age that you begin to wonder what in hell you go on working for. What you expect to get out of it.'

There was a silence. She did not interrupt and presently he went on.

'One can't just give up working, and do nothing. And so one's got to find a motive, an excuse for going on doing the job one knows. I had time to think about all this when I was here in hospital. I was right away from it then, able to see my job from the outside. And it seemed to me then, as it does now,'that there's only one thing really worth working for in the City. That's to create work.

'I don't know if you've ever thought about machines,' he said. 'Every machine mat's put into a factory displaces labour. That's a very old story, of course. The man who's put to work the machine isn't any better off than he was before; the three men that are thrown out of a job are very much worse off. But the cure isn't Socialism — or if it is, I'm too much of a capitalist myself to see it. The cure is for somebody to buckle to and make a job for the three men.

'I believe that mat's the thing most worth doing in this modern world,' he said quietly. 'To create jobs that men can work at, and bc proud of, and make money by their work. There's no dignity, no decency, or health today for men that haven't got a job. All other things depend on work today: without work men are utterly undone.'

He had been speaking so softly that she had to strain to hear what he was saying; now he was silent for a very long time. At last he raised his head.

'You asked me about Laevol. Laevol's a rotten company. But you know that already.'

She stirred in her chair. 'How is it rotten?'

'It's like an apple with a worm in it. It looks all right outside. If the worm's got into the core, you may be able to eat the whole apple, and never know it's there. Alternatively, you may find half of him after the first bite.'

She smiled faintly. 'I see. You mean it's not a very reliable company?'

'That is so. But nobody knows just what's wrong with it but me.'

'And you can't put it right?'

He shook his head. 'It's all set now. I've got all the underwriting contracts in. You'll see the prospectus advertised next Friday, in the papers; it goes to the public on Tuesday following. The issue's going to be a great success.'

'What happens after that?'

He lit a cigarette. 'After that? The first thing Laevol does is to place its order for the ships, three oil tankers. The Hawside Ship and Engineering Company takes that order -and glad to get it.'

She exclaimed, 'Hawside? Did you call the Company after our little river here, the Haws?'

He nodded, 'As good a name as any other. I never put much weight on names, myself.'

She wrinkled her brows. 'Is that the Company that's going to work here, then?'

He nodded, blowing out a cloud of smoke. 'The Hawside Company was registered some weeks ago. I sold the Yard to them the other day — on paper. You might say that the Hawside Company is here already.'

She stared at him wonderingly. 'But — but what does the Company consist of?'

He smiled. 'Seven clerks, with a one pound share each. My own accountant is the secretary; the shareholders haven't elected a Board yet. It's got a capital of one hundred pounds, but that's not all paid up, of course.'

'Is that the Company that's going to build the ships?'

He nodded. 'That's right. It's going to suffer a sea change next week — into something rich and strange, as you might say. It's going to print itself a lot more shares. And it's going to acquire a Board. I'm going to be chairman.'

'And what happens then?'

'Then it's ready to take the Laevol order for the oil tankers — four hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of work. It won't have any money to build them with, of course, so it goes to the public with its new shares, and makes an issue for five hundred thousand pounds. Then it gets down to work and builds the ships.'

She eyed him steadily. 'Is a company of that sort going to be all right?'

He passed his hand across his eyes, a little wearily. 'It's going to be as right as I can make it. I can't say more than that. It will have money, and an order to work at, good premises, a good secretary, and Mr Grierson. I'm going to be chairman myself, to stand by the Company for the first year or two. If I bring that to Sharples, I'll have done the best I can to get things started here again.'

She laid her hand impulsively upon his arm. 'Don't think I'm criticizing what you've done.'

'You'd have a right to,' he replied. 'It's not a very bright set-up, and I'm not proud of it. But to get anything at all to start up in the middle of a slump like this is difficult. I've done the best I can. You'll get some work in Sharples — for a time, at any rate.'

'The Hawside Company hasn't got a worm?'

He smiled and shook his head. 'You needn't worry about that. When that gets going it depends upon itself alone. It may lose money at the start; I think it will. But there'll be no trickery in it that you need fear, no conjuring with cards, or umbrellas.'

She turned and faced him. 'And this is really going to happen? We're going to have a company established here with four hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth of work, and a capital of five hundred thousand?'

He nodded. 'You can count on that within two months from now. After that, we've got to tackle the rolling mills and see if we can get them started up again.'

She eyed him steadily. 'You've done a very splendid thing,' she said. 'I knew that somebody would come to help us. It must give you a great feeling of satisfaction to have done all this.'

He smiled. 'I suppose it ought to,' he said quietly. 'I've been too tired to think about it much.'

The Laevol issue, on the whole, was well received. The
Financial Argus
described is as 'an interesting issue, designed to develop the great natural resources of the Balkans, launched under the most favourable auspices'. The
Daily Toiler
referred to it as 'financial chicanery; sponsored by the Government in a futile attempt to bolster up an outworn Capitalist regime in Laevatia'. In Warren's view the quite unfounded reference to the Government in the latter excerpt was as great an asset to the issue as the restrained benediction of the
Argus;
in any event, the issue was oversubscribed three times.

'Get going on this right away,' said Warren to Morgan. 'I want an analysis of the applications by Friday; I've fixed the allotment committee for Monday morning. See if you can think of some formula to squeeze out the little chaps.'

His secretary glanced at him curiously. I'll do my best to get out something, sir. You would like to eliminate the small investor, so far as possible?'

Warren nodded. 'Get them right out of it.'

They were got out of it, by more or less questionable devices, and to their own exceeding discontent. A number of letters reached the Company voicing their grievance, amongst them six pages from Canon Ward-Stephenson of The Nook, Shoreham-on-Sea. It appeared that the Canon had applied for six hundred one pound shares, and had been allotted sixty. He threatened legal action. The threat being accepted, he approached Mr Castroni, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, for his intervention in the matter. Mr Castroni rang up Mr Warren.

'Of course,' said Warren easily. 'I felt myself that the allotment committee were perhaps a little hard on the smaller subscribers. If he's really very anxious, I daresay I could get him five hundred privately — at par.'

'That's very good of you,' said Mr Castroni. 'He's a cantankerous old man, and we don't want any bother.'

Warren rang off, and sat for a minute marvelling at the simple cupidity of the religious orders. Then he turned to the consideration of the Hawside Ship and Engineering Company Ltd.

The increase of the capital was in the hands of his solicitors; within the next few days he had to form his Board. He reached out for the telephone, and asked Lord Cheriton to lunch with him.

Over the cheese he said, 'I've got a job for you,' and told him of the Hawside Ship and Engineering Company. 'I'm going to take the chair; I'd like it if you'd come upon the Board.'

The young man flushed with pleasure. 'I'd like nothing better, as you know. But I'd want to work at any business I go into — not just attend a meeting once a month.'

Warren nodded. 'That's what I want you for. I can't be up in Sharples all the time myself; I've got to keep things spinning round down here. I want you to be vice-chairman and work in the business.'

The other frowned. 'I don't want to be a passenger. And there's one small point you seem to have forgotten; I don't know anything about building ships.'

'I know. But I've got to have someone there that I can trust, who can make a team out of the staff I'm going to take on. And with your position in the county, the Company will have prestige that it will need, in the difficult years at first.'

The other grinned. 'Pull my weight as a figurehead until I've learned to talk sense about the business? All right, I'm on. I never thought I'd earn my living as a guineapig.' He paused
.
'But who
is
going to build the ships? We'd better get in somebody, one man at any rate, who knows something about the job. Just for the sake of appearances, what? I mean, the public will expect it.'