human
Of course, I was quite prepared to have you stand off and throw stones at our little cob house of a venture, Brouillard, the host allowed at the lighting of the gold-banded cigars.
gpt
You're the government engineer and the builder of the big dam; it's only natural that your horizons should be filled with government-report pictures and half-tones of what's going to be when you get your dam done. But you can't build your dam in one day, or in two, and the interval is ours. I tell you, we're going to make Mirapolis a buzz-hummer while the daylight lasts. Don't you forget that.
human
queried Brouillard.
gpt
Is that the new name?
human
It's Gene's name--'Miracle City.' Fits like the glove on a pretty girl's arm, doesn't it?
gpt
It does. But the miracle is that there should be any money daring enough to invest itself in the Niquoia.
human
There you go again, with your ingrained engineering ideas that to be profitable a scheme must necessarily have rock-bottom foundations and a time-defying superstructure, chuckled the host.
gpt
Why, bless your workaday heart, Brouillard, nothing is permanent in this shuffling, growing, progressive world of ours--absolutely nothing. Some of the biggest and costliest buildings in New York and Chicago are built on ground leases. Our ground lease will merely be a little shorter in the factor of time.
human
So much shorter that the parallel won't hold,
gpt
The parallel does hold; that is precisely the point. Every ground-lease investment is a gamble. The investor simply bets that he can make the turn within the time limit.
human
Yes; but a long term of years----
gpt
There you are, cut in the financier.
human
Now you've got it down to the hard-pan basis: long time, small profits and a slow return; short time, big profits and a quick return. You've eaten here before; what do you pay Bongras for a reasonably good dinner?
gpt
Oh, Poodles. He cinches us, all right; four or five times as much as it's worth--or would cost anywhere else.
human
That's it. He knows he has to make good on all these little luxuries he gives you--cash in every day, as you might say, and come out whole before you stop the creek and drown him. Let me tell you something, Brouillard; San Francisco brags about being the cheapest city in the country; they'll tell you over there that you can buy more for your money than you can anywhere else on earth. Well, Mirapolis is going to take the trophy at the other end of the speedway. When we get in motion we're going to have Alaska faded to a frazzle on prices--and you'll see everybody paying them joyfully.
gpt
And in the end somebody, or the final series of somebodies, will be left to hold the bag,
human
That's a future. What is it the Good Book says? 'Let us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.' That's philosophy, and it's good business, too. Not that I'm admitting your pessimistic conclusions for a single minute; don't mistake me on that point. There needn't be any bag holders, Brouillard. Let me put it in a nutshell: we're building a cement plant, and we shall sell you the output--at a good, round price, I promise you, but still at a lower figure than you're paying for the imported article now, or than you will pay even after the railroad gets in. When our government orders are filled we can afford to wreck the plant for what it will bring as junk. We'll be out of it whole, with a nice little profit.
gpt
That is only one instance,
human
Well, Bongras, here, is one more, laughed the host.
gpt
He gets a piece of his investment back every time anybody looks over his _menu_ card. And our power plant is another. You made your little kick on that to Washington--you thought the government ought to control its own power. That was all right, from your point of view, but we beat you to it. Now the Reclamation Service gets all the power it needs at a nominal price, and we're going to sell enough more to make us all feel happy.
human
Sell it? To whom?
gpt
That's inside information, but I don't mind taking you in on it, he said between leisurely puffs at his cigar.
human
We've just concluded a few contracts: one with Massingale--he's going to put in power drills, electric ore-cars, and a modern equipment generally and shove the development of the 'Little Susan'; one with a new mining syndicate which will begin operations at once on half a dozen prospects on Jack's Mountain; and one with a lumber combination that has just taken over the sawmills, and will install others, with a planing-mill and sash factory.
gpt
But that isn't all, continued the promoter.
human
We are about to reincorporate the power plant as the Niquoia Electric Power, Lighting, and Traction Company. Within a fortnight we'll be lighting Mirapolis, and within a month after the railroad gets in we'll be operating trolley-cars.