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Paper-making is one of the great industries of the world, and without malgamite, paper cannot be made at a profit to-day." Roden seemed to have his subject at his fingers' ends, and if he spoke without enthusiasm, the reason was probably that he had so often said the same thing before. "I am much interested," said Mrs. Vansittart, in her half-foreign way, which was rather pleasing.
A few of the malgamite workers were seen at times, when they could get leave, on the Digue, or outside the smaller cafes. Inoffensive, stricken men these appeared to be, and the big-limbed, hardy fishermen looked on them with mingled contempt and pity. No one knew what the works were, and no one cared.
"Oh, that is all right!" answered her brother, carelessly, as one who in his time has handled great sums. "Then we are prosperous?" inquired Dorothy, mindful of other great schemes which had not always done their duty by their originator. "Oh yes! We shall make a good thing out of this Malgamite. The labourer is worthy of his hire, you know.
"Tell me more about it." "The malgamite makers," went on Roden, willingly enough, "are fortunately but few in numbers and they are experts. They are to be found in twos and threes in manufacturing cities Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Leith, New York, and even Barcelona. Of course there are a number in England.
He was rather travel-worn, and seemed to be feeling the heat. "Tony Cornish has probably written to you about his discoveries as to the malgamite works. We have no time to go into that question, however," said Mrs. Vansittart, who was already beginning to be impatient with this placid man.
The account of affairs that awaited his lordship at the works was, no doubt, satisfactory enough, for the manufacture of malgamite had been proceeding at high pressure night and day. Von Holzen had, as he told Marguerite, been poor all his life, and poverty is a hard task-master. He was not going to be poor again.
Who knows? the Malgamite is perhaps the time; you are perhaps the man." She gave her disquieting little laugh again, and sat looking at him. "I understand," he said at length. "Before, I was puzzled. There seemed no reason why you should take any interest in the scheme." "My interest in the Malgamite scheme narrows down to an interest in one person," answered Mrs.
Cornish broke what threatened to be an awkward silence by referring at once to the subject in hand. "It seems," he began, "that this Malgamite scheme is not what we took it to be." Lord Ferriby looked surprised and slightly scandalized. Could it be possible for a fashionable charity to be anything but what it appeared to be?
Our scheme, briefly, is to collect these men together, to build a manufactory and houses for them to form them, in fact, into a close corporation, and then supply the world with malgamite." "It is a great scheme, Mr. Roden." "Yes, it is a great scheme; and it is, I think, laid upon the right lines. These people require to be saved from themselves. As they now exist, they are well paid.
Roden smiled, with his long white fingers at his moustache. "From the figures supplied to me by Mr. Wade," continued Cornish, "I see that there is an enormous profit lying idle so large a profit that even between ourselves it is better not mentioned. There are, or there were yesterday, two hundred and ninety-two malgamite makers in active work."
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