"Not the slightest! Besides what have you got to lose? Do you possess one farthing? No! Very well then! What do I risk? Five hundred crowns! I shall only take five shares, you see! And five hundred is as much as this to me!"
He took a pinch of snuff and the matter was settled.
The society was floated and during the first ten years of its activity it paid 6, 10, 10, 11, 20, 11, 5, 10, 36, and 20 per cent. The shares were eagerly bought up, and, in order to enlarge the business, more shares were issued; the new issue of shares was followed by a general meeting of shareholders; Falk was sent to report it for the Red Cap, whose assistant reporter he was.
When, on a sunny afternoon in June, he entered the Exchange, the hall was already crowded with people. It was a brilliant assembly. Statesmen, geniuses, men of letters, officers, and civil service men of high rank; uniforms, dress-coats, orders, and ribbons; all those here assembled had one big general interest! The advancement of the philanthropic institution called marine insurance. It required a great love to risk one's money for the benefit of the suffering neighbour whom misfortune had befallen, but here was love! Falk had never seen such an accumulation of it in one spot. Although not yet an entirely disillusioned man, he could not suppress a feeling of amazement.
But he was even more amazed when he noticed the little blackguard Struve, the former Socialist, creeping through the crowd like a reptile, greeted, and sometimes addressed by distinguished people with a familiar nod, a pressure of the hand or a friendly slap on the shoulder. He saw a middle-aged man, wearing a ribbon belonging to a high order, nodding to him, and he noticed that Struve blushed and concealed himself behind an embroidered coat. This brought him into Falk's vicinity, and the latter immediately accosted him and asked him who the man was. Struve's embarrassment increased, but summoning up all his impudence, he replied, "You ought to know that! He's the president of the Board of Payment of Employés' Salaries." No sooner had the words left his lips than he pretended to be called to the other side of the room; but he was in so great a hurry that Falk wondered whether he felt uncomfortable in his society? A blackguard in the company of an honourable man!
The brilliant assembly began to be seated. But the president's chair was still vacant. Falk was looking for the reporter's table, and when he discovered Struve and the reporter for the Conservative sitting at a table on the right-hand side of the secretary he took his courage into his hands and marched through the distinguished crowd; just as he had reached the table, the secretary stopped him with a question. "For which paper?" he asked. A momentary silence ensued. "For the Red Cap," answered Falk, with a slight tremor in his voice; he had recognized in the secretary the actuary of the Board of Payment of Employés' Salaries. A half-stifled murmur ran through the room; presently the secretary said in a loud voice: "Your place is at the back, over there!" He pointed to the door and a small table standing close to it.
Falk realized in a moment the significance of the word "Conservative," and also what it meant to be a journalist who was not a Conservative. Boiling inwardly he retraced his footsteps, walking to his appointed place through the sneering crowd; he stared at the grinning faces, challenging them with burning eyes, when his glance met another glance, quite in the background, close to the wall. The eyes, bearing a strong resemblance to a pair of eyes now closed in death, which used to rest on his face full of love, were green with malice and pierced him like a needle; he could have shed tears of sorrow at the thought that a brother could thus look at a brother.
He took his modest place near the door, for he was determined not to beat a retreat. Very soon he was roused from his apparent calm by a newcomer who prodded him in the back as he took off his coat and shoved a pair of rubber overshoes underneath his chair. The newcomer was greeted by the whole assembly which rose from their seats as one man. He was the chairman of the Marine Insurance Society Limited "Triton," but he was something else beside this. He was a retired district-marshal, a baron, one of the eighteen of the Swedish Academy, an Excellency, a knight of many orders, etc. etc.
A rap with the hammer and amid dead silence the president whispered the following oration: just delivered by him at a meeting of the Coal Company Limited, in the hall of the Polytechnic.
"Gentlemen! Amongst all the patriotic and philanthropic enterprises there are few—if any—of such a noble and beneficial nature as an Insurance Society."