nd went down to
Liverpool.

If the flour-mill had frightened him, what must the present project
have done! Fisker explained that he had come with two objects,--first to
ask the consent of the English partner to the proposed change in their
business, and secondly to obtain the cooperation of English
capitalists. The proposed change in the business meant simply the
entire sale of the establishment at Fiskerville, and the absorption of
the whole capital in the work of getting up the railway. 'If you could
realise all the money it wouldn't make a mile of the railway,' said
Paul. Mr Fisker laughed at him. The object of Fisker, Montague, and
Montague was not to make a railway to Vera Cruz, but to float a
company. Paul thought that Mr Fisker seemed to be indifferent whether
the railway should ever be constructed or not. It was clearly his idea
that fortunes were to be made out of the concern before a spadeful of
earth had been moved. If brilliantly printed programmes might avail
anything, with gorgeous maps, and beautiful little pictures of trains
running into tunnels beneath snowy mountains and coming out of them on
the margin of sunlit lakes, Mr Fisker had certainly done much. But
Paul, when he saw all these pretty things, could not keep his mind
from thinking whence had come the money to pay for them. Mr Fisker had
declared that he had come over to obtain his partner's consent, but it
seemed to that partner that a great deal had been done without any
consent. And Paul's fears on this hand were not allayed by finding
that on all these beautiful papers he himself was described as one of
the agents and general managers of the company. Each document was
signed Fisker, Montague, and Montague. References on all matters were
to be made to Fisker, Montague, and Montague,--and in one of the
documents it was stated that a member of the firm had proceeded to
London with the view of attending to British interests in the matter.
Fisker had seemed to think that his young partner would express
unbounded satisfaction at the greatness which was thus falling upon
him. A certain feeling of importance, not altogether unpleasant, was
produced, but at the same time there was another conviction forced
upon Montague's mind, not altogether pleasant, that his, money was
being made to disappear without any consent given by him, and that it
behoved him to be cautious lest such consent should be extracted from
him unawares.

'What has become of the