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A third of the land so rich in oil already belonged to the Moliterno estates, but it was necessary to obtain possession of the other two thirds "before the secret leaks into Naples." So far, it was safe, the peasants of Basilicata being "as medieval a lot as one could wish."
But most of all we want money to get hold of the land; we must control the whole field, and it's big!" "How did you happen to come here to finance it?" "I was getting to that. Moliterno himself is as honourable a man as breathes God's air. But my experience has been that Neapolitan capitalists are about the cleverest and slipperiest financiers in the world.
Moliterno and I talked it over many, many times; we thought of going to Rome for the money, to Paris, to London, to New York; but I happened to remember the old house here that my aunt had left me I wanted to sell it, to add whatever it brought to the money I've already put in and then it struck me I might raise the rest here as well as anywhere else." The other nodded. "I understand."
He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian: MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MOLITERNO: We live but learn little. As to myself it appears that I learn nothing nothing! You will at once convey to me by cable five thousand lire.
Does your partner know of your success in raising a large investment?" "You mean Lindley's? Certainly." Corliss waved his hand in light deprecation. "Of course that's something, but Moliterno would hardly be apt to think of it as very large! You see he's putting in about five times that much, himself, and I've already turned over to him double it for myself.
As he sped the car up Corliss Street, he decided to anticipate his letter to Moliterno by a cable. He had stayed too long. Cora looked charming in a new equipment for November motoring; yet it cannot be said that either of them enjoyed the drive.
He sketched a portrait of his friend, Prince Moliterno, bachelor chief of a historic house, the soul of honour, "land-poor"; owning leagues and leagues of land, hills and mountains, broken towers and ruins, in central Basilicata, a province described as wild country and rough, off the rails and not easy to reach.
I'll begin by telling you of Moliterno he's been my most intimate friend in that part of the continent for a great many years; since I went there as a boy, in fact."
He pictured himself in the rear room of the bar in the Rue Auber, relating, across the little marble-topped table, this American adventure, to the delight of that blithe, ne'er-do-well outcast of an exalted poor family, that gambler, blackmailer and merry rogue, Don Antonio Moliterno, comrade and teacher of this ductile Valentine since the later days of adolescence.
Corliss described picturesquely the difficulties of this enterprise, the hardships and disappointments; how they dragged the big tools over the mountains by mule power; how they had kept it all secret; how he and Moliterno had done everything with the help of peasant labourers and one experienced man, who had "seen service in the Persian oil-fields."
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