“The great drawback to having large interests is that you have to delegate so much of the management to others. When we took up this, it ran itself, after a fashion; but since that a dozen other people are making the same thing—of course, with slight variations, but practically the same thing. Patents don’t really protect you much. Now we want our machine pushed; but neither Foster nor I, for different reasons, can do this. The fact is, we don’t want to appear at all. And we’ve had our eye on you for some time.” “This is news to me,” said Alexander. “Now the control of the factory has to be settled suddenly, out of hand; somebody has got to take hold. So we make you the offer. We will deposit fifty thousand to your credit, to be used as working capital—you can’t branch out with less; you’ve got to be able to work to advantage. The days have gone when a business could be set going on a couple of thousand and worked up with industry and frugality, as the copy-books say, into the millions. Small concerns nowadays go to the wall—and serve ’em right, I say; only fools believe in success without money. We’ll see to your backing! Of course, the interest will be paid out of the business, you don’t undertake it individually. At the end of two years more we ought to have a big thing.” “And if we don’t?” said Alexander. The other’s dim gooseberry eyes suddenly flashed. “If you think we will not, you are not the man we want—he’s got to have the courage of his convictions to be worth his salt. But you can’t put me off this way—I know you. Take up the project or leave it—I say this, but in reality you can’t leave it, and you know it. A man doesn’t get a chance like this twice. Hamilton came to us the other day for the position, and we refused him, although he had capital and we wouldn’t have had to advance a cent of the money we’re willing to put up for you.” “But why are you willing to?” Justin looked with his bright eyes at the other. “Because you are the man we want!” Leverich leaned forward eagerly, and shifted his large frame so as to put each muscle into an easier position. “Don’t let’s go over that old ground again. You’ve had just the experience in the old company that we need; but it’s your wide acquaintance that tells, and it’s that that we’re willing to buy. We believe you can make a market for our goods.” “It is an important step,” said the other thoughtfully, “to leave a certainty for an uncertainty—not that I should regard it as an uncertainty if I took it,” he added, with a smile.