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His father’s associate, with the reverend gray of hair thatching his roof of crooked brain, shook the thatch.

‘Why,’ he amplified, ‘it may be just a flurry, or it may be a hunch on the stock public that it’s really good. What do you say?’

‘Of course it’s good,’ was Francis’ warm response. ‘I’ve got reports, Regan, so good they’d make your hair stand up. As I tell all my friends, this is the real legitimate. It’s a damned shame I had to let the public in on it. It was so big, I just had to. Even all the money my father left me, couldn’t swing it I mean, free money, not the stuff tied up money to work with.’

‘Are you short?’ the older man queried.

‘Oh, I’ve got a tidy bit to operate with,’ was the airy reply of youth.

‘You mean…?’

‘Sure. Just that. If she drops, I’ll buy. It’s finding money.’

‘Just about how far would you buy?’ was the next searching interrogation, masked by an expression of mingled good humor and approbation.

‘All I’ve got,’ came Francis Morgan’s prompt answer. ‘I tell you, Regan, it’s immense.’

‘I haven’t looked into it to amount to anything, Francis; but I will say from the little I know that it listens good.’

‘Listens! I tell you, Regan, it’s the Simon-pure, straight legitimate, and it’s a shame to have it listed at all. I don’t have to wreck anybody or anything to pull it across. The world will be better for my shooting into it I am afraid to say how many hundreds of millions of barrels of real oil say, I’ve got one well alone, in this Huasteca field, that’s gushed 27,000 barrels a day for seven months. And it’s still doing it. That’s the drop in the bucket we’ve got piped to market now. And it’s twenty — two gravity, and carries less than two-tenths of one per cent, of sediment. And there’s one gusher sixty miles of pipe to build to it, and pinched down to the limit of safety, that’s pouring cut all over the landscape just about seventy thousand barrels a day. Of course, all in confidence, you know. We’re doing nicely, and I don’t want Tampico Petroleum to skyrocket.’

‘Don’t you worry about that, my lad. You’ve got to get your oil piped, and the Mexican revolution straightened out before ever Tampico Petroleum soars. You go fishing and forget it.’ Regan paused, with finely simulated sudden recollection, and picked up Alvarez Torres’ card with the pencilled note. ‘Look, who’s just been to see me.’ Apparently struck with an idea, Regan retained the card a moment. ‘Why go fishing for mere trout? After all, it’s only recreation. Here’s a thing to go fishing after that there’s real recreation in, full-size man’s recreation, and not the Persian palace recreation of an Adirondack camp, with ice and servants and electric push-buttons. Your father always was more than a mite proud of that old family pirate. He claimed to look like him, and you certainly look like your dad.’