"But I didn't even speak to him," said Paul. "In commercial affairs that matters nothing. It quite justifies you in introducing me. We are not going to ask your friend to do us a favour. We don't want to borrow money." "I thought you did." "If he'll go in for the thing he'd be one of us, and there would be no borrowing then. He'll join us if he's as clever as they say, because he'll see his way to making a couple of million of dollars out of it. If he'd take the trouble to run over and show himself in San Francisco, he'd make double that. The moneyed men would go in with him at once, because they know that he understands the game and has got the pluck. A man who has done what he has by financing in Europe,--by George! there's no limit to what he might do with us. We're a bigger people than any of you and have more room. We go after bigger things, and don't stand shilly-shally on the brink as you do. But Melmotte pretty nigh beats the best among us. Anyway he should come and try his luck, and he couldn't have a bigger thing or a safer thing than this. He'd see it immediately if I could talk to him for half an hour." "Mr. Fisker," said Paul mysteriously, "as we are partners, I think I ought to let you know that many people speak very badly of Mr. Melmotte's honesty." Mr. Fisker smiled gently, turned his cigar twice round in his mouth, and then closed one eye. "There is always a want of charity," he said, "when a man is successful." The scheme in question was the grand proposal for a South Central Pacific and Mexican railway, which was to run from the Salt Lake City, thus branching off from the San Francisco and Chicago line,--and pass down through the fertile lands of New Mexico and Arizona, into the territory of the Mexican Republic, run by the city of Mexico, and come out on the gulf at the port of Vera Cruz. Mr. Fisker admitted at once that it was a great undertaking, acknowledged that the distance might be perhaps something over 2,000 miles, acknowledged that no computation had or perhaps could be made as to the probable cost of the railway; but seemed to think that questions such as these were beside the mark and childish. Melmotte, if he would go into the matter at all, would ask no such questions.