He begged his mother to move to a bigger house: he could easily afford to pay the rent. She refused, and told him to save his money and build up his capital. However, he persuaded her to take on another servant to help Mrs. Builth, her aging housekeeper.
Next day he took the London, Chatham and Dover Railway and arrived in London at Holborn Viaduct Station. A vast new hotel had been built at the station by people who thought Holborn was going to become a busy stopover for Englishmen on their way to Nice or St. Petersburg. Hugh would not have put money into it: he guessed the station would be used mostly by City workers who lived in the expanding suburbs of southeast London.
It was a bright spring morning. He walked to Pilasters Bank. He had forgotten the smoky taste of London's air, much worse than Boston or New York. He paused for a moment outside the bank, looking at its grandiose facade.
He had told the partners that he wanted to come home on furlough, to see his mother and sister and the old country. But he had another reason for returning to London.
He was about to drop a bombshell.
He had arrived with a proposal to merge Pilasters' North American operation with the New York bank of Madler and Bell, forming a new partnership that would be called Madler, Bell and Pilaster. It would make a lot of money for the bank; it would crown his achievements in the United States; and it would allow him to return to London and graduate from scout to decision maker. It would mean the end of his period of exile.
He straightened his tie nervously and went in.
The banking hall, which years ago had so impressed him with its marble floors and ponderous walkers, now seemed merely staid. As he started up the stairs he met Jonas Mulberry, his former supervisor. Mulberry was startled and pleased to see him. 'Mr. Hugh!' he said, shaking hands vigorously. 'Are you back permanently?'
'I hope so. How is Mrs. Mulberry?'
'Very well, thank you.'
'Give her my regards. And the three little ones?'
'Five, now. All in fine health, God be thanked.'
It occurred to Hugh that the Principal Clerk might know the answer to a question on Hugh's mind. 'Mulberry, were you here when Mr. Joseph was made a partner?'
'I was a new junior. That was twenty-five years ago come June.'
'So Mr. Joseph would have been ...'
'Twenty-nine.'
'Thank you.'
Hugh went on up to the Partners' Room, knocked on the door and went in. The four partners were there: Uncle Joseph, sitting at the Senior Partner's desk, looking older and balder and more like old Seth; Aunt Madeleine's husband, Major Hartshorn, his nose turning red to match the scar on his forehead, reading The Times beside the fire; Uncle Samuel, beautifully dressed as ever in a charcoal-gray double-breasted cutaway jacket with a pearl-gray waistcoat, frowning over a contract; and the newest partner, Young William, now thirty- one, sitting at his desk and writing in a notebook.
Samuel was the first to greet Hugh. 'My dear boy!' he said, getting up and shaking hands. 'How well you look!'
Hugh shook hands with all of them and accepted a glass of sherry. He looked around at the portraits of previous Senior Partners on the walls. 'Six years ago in this room I sold Sir John Cammel a hundred thousand pounds' worth of Russian government bonds,' he remembered.
'So you did,' said Samuel.
'Pilasters' commission on that sale, at five percent, still amounts to more than I've been paid in the entire eight years I've worked for the bank,' he said with a smile.
Joseph said tetchily: 'I hope you're not asking for a rise in salary. You're already the highest-paid employee in the entire firm.'
'Except the partners,' said Hugh.
'Naturally,' Joseph snapped.
Hugh perceived that he had got off to a bad start. Too eager, as always, he told himself. Slow down. 'I'm not asking for a rise,' he said. 'However, I do have a proposition to put to the partners.'
Samuel said: 'You'd better sit down and tell us about it.'
Hugh put his drink down untasted and gathered his thoughts. He desperately wanted them to agree to his proposition. It was both the culmination and the proof of his triumph over adversity. It would bring more business to the bank at one stroke than most partners could attract in a year. And if they agreed they would be more or less obliged to make him a partner.
'Boston is no longer the financial center of the United States,' he began. 'New York's the place now. We really ought to move our office. But there's a snag. A good deal of the business I've done in the last six years has been undertaken jointly with the New York house of Madler and Bell. Sidney Madler rather took me under his wing when I was green. If we moved to New York we'd be in competition with them.'
'Nothing wrong with competition, where appropriate,' Major Hartshorn asserted. He rarely had anything of value to contribute to a discussion, but rather than stay silent he would state the obvious in a dogmatic way.
'Perhaps. But I've got a better idea. Why not merge our North American operation with Madler and Bell?'
'Merge?' said Hartshorn. 'What do you mean?'
'Set up a joint venture. Call it Madler, Bell and Pilaster. It would have an office in New York and one in Boston.'
'How would it work?'
'The new house would deal with all the import-export financing currently done by both separate houses, and the profits would be shared. Pilasters would have the chance to participate in all new issues of bonds and stocks marketed by Madler and Bell. I would handle that business from London.'
'I don't like it,' said Joseph. 'It's just handing over our business to someone else's control.'
'But you haven't heard the best part,' Hugh said. 'All of Madler and Bell's European business, currently distributed among several agents in London, would be handed over to Pilasters.'
Joseph grunted in surprise. 'That must amount to ...'
'More than fifty thousand pounds a year in commissions.'
Hartshorn said: 'Good Lord!'
They were all startled. They had never set up a joint venture before and they did not expect such an innovative proposition from someone who was not even a partner. But the prospect of fifty thousand a year in commissions was irresistible.
Samuel said: 'You've obviously talked this over with them.'
'Yes. Madler is very keen, and so is his partner, John James Bell.'
Young William said: 'And you would supervise the joint venture from London.'
Hugh saw that William regarded him as a rival who was much less dangerous three thousand miles away. 'Why not?' he said. 'After all, London is where the money is raised.'
