"Capital," he repeated. "Ah! I suppose capital is necessary."
"In any gambling transaction, you always have to take into account the possibility," David reminded him, "that you might lose."
"Precisely," the Marquis assented, selecting another cigarette, "but that is not the class of speculation I am looking for. I am anxious to discover an enterprise, either by means of my own insight into such matters, which is not inconsiderable, or the good offices of a friend, in which the chances of loss do not exist."
David was a little staggered. He contemplated his host curiously.
"Such speculations," he said at last, "are difficult to find."
"Not to a man of your ability, I am sure, Mr. Thain," the Marquis asserted.
"Do I gather that you wish for my advice?"
David smoked steadily, and his host contemplated him with a certain artistic satisfaction. He had been something of a sculptor in his youth, and he saw possibilities in the shape and pose of the great financier.
"The long and short of it is," David said at last, "that you want to make a million dollars, without any trouble, and without any chance of loss. There are a good many others, Marquis."
"But they have not all the privilege," was the graceful rejoinder, "of knowing personally a Goliath of finance. You will pardon the allegory. I take it from this morning's _Daily Express_."
"In my career," David continued, after a moment's pause, "you would perhaps be surprised to hear that I have done very little speculating. I have made great purchases of railways, and land through which railways must run, because I knew my job and because I had insight. The time for that is past now. To make money rapidly one must, as you yourself have already decided, speculate. I can tell you of a speculation in which I have myself indulged, but I do not for a moment pretend that it is a certainty. It was good enough for me to put in two million dollars, and if what I believe happens, my two millions will be forty millions. But there is no certainty."
"By what means," he asked tentatively, "could I interest myself in this undertaking?"
"By the purchase of shares," was the prompt reply.
The Marquis considered the point. The matter of purchasing anything presented fundamental difficulties to him!