Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Gabriel studied this remarkable advertisement for some time with a feeling of unease

as his partner busied himself preparing an even more expansive version. Pryor's silk

the hat was on the back of his head and he whistled happily as he sat at the table writing,

rewriting, and mentally searching for the adjectives that best suited his style of

literary composition.

"This five million pounds of capital," said Gabriel after a time. "That's not right, you

know, we shouldn't have that in an advertisement."

Pryor considered the matter judicially and found himself in agreement. "Yes, you're quite right, we shouldn't have £5,000,000 there. I'll alter it. We'll make it ten million pounds, or even fifteen. Which do you think would be best?"

Gabriel could see that he was not making any dent in his partner's remarkable optimism. He tried again. "How are we going to pay 8%? What if we have trouble

selling the houses?"

Mr. Pryor leaped to his feet, afire with enthusiasm. "We'll sell 'em, don't you worry about that, Gabby. With two characters like us on the job that builder won't be able to put them up fast enough. And don't worry about the 8% either. In our business, you have to use other people's money all the time. As long as there's some money in the

bank we can keep up the payments and as long as we keep up the payments everyone

will go round telling everyone else what a marvelous firm the Melbourne and

Amicable is, and as long as they keep saying that there will always be more money flooding in from other investors. Our job is to keep ahead of the game and keep on building and selling until we're the richest men in the colony. stay close, Gabby; stay close! If you stand with me nothing can go wrong."

He looked at his papers. "I've written another advertisement; it's very poetic but, I

don't know. I think the first was more dignified."

They studied them both. Fox had to admit that the second advertisement was more flowery than the first. If he had been an investor, with money to spare, he would have been rendered even warier by this than by the original composition. He could not

but feel that Mr. Pryor and Dr. Smith had more in common than an interest in Dr

Smith's Miracle Cure. Still, the Miracle Cure made money, perhaps the advertisement for funds would do the same. In any event, he did not know enough about the

the population of the colony to say that his partner's daring ideas might not do everything

that was claimed for them.

Mr. Pryor made his choice. He clutched the first version of the advertisement in his hand and threw the other into the bin. He knew his countrymen: they would be

repelled by poetry unless it was in the service of patent medicine, or waxworks.

They would be favorably impressed by a reasonably straightforward request for

money. Poetic flourishes or grammatical frills connected with financial matters would

be coldly received.

With the draft crumpled in his hand, Mr. Pryor prepared to depart to the newspaper

office to have the fame of the mighty Melbourne and London Amicable

Building Society trumpeted in the Friday editions of the paper.

"If you have a printer that can work all night," said Fox urgently, "For God's sake get

him to start turning out some receipt books. We will need properly printed receipt

books if we're going to take people's money off them - and you will have to open a

bank account in the name of the society."

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Gabby," said his partner on the way out. "I

need a bloke like you to look after all the practical details; I'm alright with the big

ideas and the big schemes that are going to rake in the brass, but I need someone like

you to make sure I don't run off the rails.''

Receipt books, right! But that doesn't matter. I had my own stationery printed before you came along and I was just waiting for some money to get it off the printer. We can

write anything like that on my letterheads until we get proper books printed."

With a cheerful wave, he departed leaving Gabriel in sole charge of the office.

There were no more irruptions into his day from predatory mothers and daughters or

inebriated wharf laborers and the time passed sedately with the occasional inquiry

about land or houses which Fox handled merely by writing down names and

addresses and stating that he would have the clerks go through the records of the

firm and inform the inquirers immediately if any property was found to be suitable.

Though not satisfactory this was the best he could do considering his double

ignorance of Melbourne and land agency work. Added to this was the fact that any

files the agency might possess were in the head of Mr. Pryor who was not in the habit

of writing down anything if he could avoid doing so.

Mr. Pryor was late into the office on Friday morning. Of course, he had to keep his

appointment with the builder to look over the land and discuss where the cottages

were to be built.

The builder had been cool and distant when they met that morning. He had talked

matters over gravely with his wife the night before to seek her advice, principally

because he knew it would coincide with his own feelings. The upshot of their discussion was that he decided to keep the appointment out of courtesy but to be

quite plain with Mr. Pryor that he had no intention of becoming mixed up in the

project. He desired to go on as before; in a small way; building a spec. the house now and again, and selling it, and accepting the occasional contract. The estate agent's ambitions were too high for him.

Within ten minutes of their meeting, he was looking over the land, albeit reluctantly,

and discussing where they would put the first row of cottages. His explanation had

not made the slightest impression on Pryor who insisted instead on talking about

cottage styles, and patent register grates, and the cost differences between galvanized

iron and slate roofs; and above all the necessity of drawing up plans without the

slightest delay.

He marched the builder over to a particular spot and indicated with his black, tightly

furled umbrella exactly where the first cottage was to be built and why it was

important to start from that precise point and no other.

The builder anxiously stroked his chin and listened while all this was going on and

waited for a break in the monologue so he could inform Mr. Pryor that he would have

to find another builder to carry out this grand design. He intended to mention that

fact that his nerves had been troubling him lately and his wife's heart condition was

causing them some concern, but they're never seemed a suitable pause in Mr. Pryor's

talk into which this information could be inserted, and he was not sure that he would

have been heard anyway.

Eventually, when Pryor had finished with him, he went off muttering and rehearsing

all the excuses and complaints he had been unable to utter to his face while bleakly

considering a future of frenzied activity and responsibility. He wondered what his bank manager would think of all this.

Later, when he went home that evening, he quarrelled with his wife and she

burst into tears. He shouted at her demanding to know why she did not have faith in

the great colonial dream of homes and profits for all, and why shouldn't he build a

hundred, two hundred, a thousand cottages if that was his business judgment.

Unaware of any problems he may have caused the builder the young man bustled into

town and into the office of C & T Ham, a rival estate agency, where he arranged to

split the commission on the sale of five blocks of land he had viewed with the builder

that morning. He did not mention that his own building society was going to buy the land but said he had a purchaser at a pound down and a pound a week. Hams may not

have cared; the land was not selling, anyway.

He called in at the printer to pay his little bill and pick up his stationery and was in the

office of Pryor and Fox just in time to receive £20 from an elderly couple who wished

to invest in the society. They received in return a receipt written in copperplate handwriting on one of his new letterheads.

He took especial care with the receipt because of the historic nature of the moment

and the pleasure of seeing his own name printed on business stationery, marred,

perhaps, only by having to write the 'and Fox' in addition to his own name. However

he did not mind how many times he had to write the sonorous title "The Melbourne

and London Amicable Building Society."

"I'll go to the bank this time," said Gabriel, after the two investors had departed. He

was becoming tired of being in the office all day dealing with inquiries of which he

knew little and waiting nervously for Benno to reel in from one of the local pubs.

Mr. Pryor agreed reluctantly; one of the advantages of having a partner was the opportunity it gave him to get out and around the town on all sorts of important and stimulating errands. Fox, however, insisted on going to the bank with the first £20

they had received and opening yet another account, this time in the name of society.

"Bring back some cheques!" were Mr. Pryor's words as he went out. "I'll go and put a

deposit on ten blocks instead of five. Once people see what's happening the rest of

the land will start to sell, and we don't want to be caught short."

He had forgotten to order receipt books from the printer.

"I'll do it," said Gabriel. The manager of the bank now made a practice of greeting the partners personally whenever they came into the bank to open a new account, or to register a signature. He was a man of large ambitions himself,

somewhat constrained by lack of capital and the cautious financial style that was required of the manager of such a wealthy and respectable bank.

He intended to mention the activities of these new and promising clients in his very next report to the board. In the meantime, he personally saw to the issue of yet more cheques to Mr. Fox. They would have to do until proper cheques could be printed bearing the name of the Melbourne and London Amicable Building Society. He also supervised the clerk when the name of the society was written at the head of a fresh page in the ledger.

"Workmen's cottages, eh?" he said a little dubiously when Fox told him of the scheme.

"No doubt Mr. Pryor has very sound business judgment but I would have thought that

the working classes, as a whole, were not in a position to buy houses on a large scale.

After all, business is depressed, at least for the time being, but that will pass.

The upward cycle will reassert itself once more and then, I think, there would be a

better financial climate for such venture."

He was even more doubtful when he heard that the cottages were to be sold on terms with virtually no deposit. "I would have thought it more advisable to build dwellings

for the better-off classes of society in the colony," he said, "after all they are the folk

with money."

Gabriel did not feel easier in his mind after hearing these remarks. An important bank

Managers such as this must know something about the state of business in Victoria.

Pondering this advice he returned to the office but his gloomy doubts were once more swept aside.

His partner was in a boisterous mood. Another three callers had between them subscribed more than £75. This was so promising he had already decided to repeat the advertisement on the following Monday.

Fortunately, Gabriel knew a little book-keeping and decided it was time they kept

proper books of account so, to that end, he had called into Hyman's the stationer at

number 71 and purchased a cash book, ledger, and a journal for each of the two

businesses, and because of his respectable appearance had been able to open a credit

account.

It was a satisfactory day. Trusting investors would turn up from time to time to hand their savings over to Mr. Pryor's care. He presided graciously over each

transaction reassuring the investors of the solidity of the great and famous building

society. Gabriel made several visits to the bank to deposit the takings while the respect of the manager for their business acumen rose at each visit.

The dispirited builder came in on one occasion to report progress and be clapped on the back by Mr. Pryor and assured that his fortune would soon be made. He was given a personal guarantee that in only a few years he would be able to take his wife in the utmost luxury to visit her relations in England. The man was still not able to find a

suitable point in Mr. Pryor's conversation in which to announce his intention of terminating all connection with the firm. He went away after a while to consider his ulcer and rehearse what he should have said, and wonder what it would be like to really knock off work forever.

Mr. Pryor turned from dealing with the builder to study a contract of sale drawn up for him by a legal man he knew. It was for the sale of the draper's shop in Elizabeth

Street and was written in copperplate hand, but the legal jargon in the contract was almost impenetrable... Mr. Pryor was particularly taken with the impressed seal on the heavy parchment paper and did not care that the document itself was almost impossible to follow without legal training. Sentences, clauses, and parentheses followed and tumbled over each other without punctuation or spacing becoming ever more convoluted until the eye became lost in a wordy thicket of phrases and cunning legal traps. Mr. Pryor did not mind, this was the very first contract of sale he had

negotiated as an independent estate agent and he would have been disappointed if

such an important instrument had been anything but complicated and obscure.

Of course, it had to be submitted to Mr. Kimpton for his signature and he could make even less of it than the estate agent, so it was necessary to find a legal man of his own to make sure the contract was exactly what it purported to be. He promised to come round the next day with the signed document - all being well.

In agreeable activities such as these Gabriel passed his first days in the colony until it was time to lock up the business on Saturday at noon and meet the Flanagan family that evening. Mr. Pryor was cheerfully looking forward to persuading Timothy that the only sure means of attaining great wealth and peace of mind in this world was to entrust his savings to the well-known probity and keen business sense of the directors of that rising organization The Melbourne and London Amicable Building Society. If his arguments failed at least the evening would not be wasted, they would be dining

and attending the theatre at Timothy's expense.