The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1915-12-23
! A Millionaire. Mo-
Ementous Transaction
BY FRED s. BROWN.

oy O06O % DIV WV
Copyright, Paget Newspaper Service.
III you can do that, I will make you
rich, and, in my estimation, you will
become famous" And the speaker
was worth 100000 0
II q do it as sure as you are on
this ship" was the reply. And this
speaker was worth $50.
There is nothing more certain than
that am on this ship, I am sorry to
say. l would give $40, 900, 900 if l were
not"
There are worse places to be in
than on a ship as well found as this
one is, even If she hasn't any propel-
Ter or motive power"
"True, but in my estimation, being
out here helpless on the ocean, en-
tirely cut off from communication
with interests whose vastness you
cannot conceive, is absolutely indie
scribable torture. 1t is not dollars and
cents alone that is involved. If it
were merely money l could stand the
strain a thousand times easier"
The liner whose decks the two men
who thus conversed were pacing was
| thirty days overdue. While she was
given up for lost by nearly everybody
in the several countries interested in
| her fate, the actual facts were that
she had only dropped her propeller
and performed the unusual feat of
| drifting for almost a month without
being sighted.
Among the passengers of the Grip
| pied liner were a score of men who in
! the financial world ranked as million
aires, and they were hundred times as
fretful as those of moderate means
who were in the same boat.
The enforced idleness made life in.
tolerable to the financiers, and if any
body could have set them ashore in a
! civilized community, he could have
collected about a billion dollars-pro'
vided the men of money made good
the offers they voiced.
But the man most anxious to escape
from the lolling liner was Jacob J
| IlOUlilSOu, tEc AAlpoIAShC
who declared that he would give $40,
900, 900 to safely terminate the exas
perating voyage.
He said so much about a vastly i'm
portant transaction in which he was
vitality interested that everybody or
board the ship at last became so i'm
bued with anxiety as to it's outcome
that that anxiety amounted to a posi-
tive relief to them, because it kept all
hands from brooding owe their owr
troubles.
The transaction harped on by the
fnancier had been in negotiation be
fore he had started on a hurried busi
ness trip abroad, and, according tt
his assertion, he had received cable
advices as to it's progress up to the
hour when he set out to return home
but, of course, wha. had happened il
the month he was at sea was a mys
terry to him.
So he pranced to and fro, daily
looking for a vessel which might be
SHRED or bought" as he put it, IL
OIueT ludL lie ullSHI OO ioLiopoA'SU ~
a point where he could gain the keen
ly coveted information.
Other millionaires on the helpless
ship had big transactions pending
but, in comparison with the Robinson
affair they shrank into dimensions O.
bucket shop deals, as the indication:
were that it was something tina
would, or maybe had, turned the fin
nancial world wrong end first, or hat
whirled the governments of severa
biz nations into such a tangle tina
chaos reigned, or at least a genera
war was already being waged.
The impatient millionaire gave NJ
details, but always talked in gilt
ing generalities, and no n had tn
temerity to ask for specific informa
ton on such a momentous subject
The other millionaires discussed tn
question among themselves, and in
dulged in all kinds Of 'surmises-a
many of which they shivered-but tn
mystery remained impenetrable. Yet
none could doubt that the 'transac
C1On was something AWFUL duu III
sympathy awakened at length attain
ed such a depth that a blind pool o
fabulous proportions was made up b.
the money kings to be offered in cas-
it should be needed-provided, Away
rescue came.
Mr.. Robinson was so sincere an
vet so mild-mannered in all he sal,
that his assertions were convincin
to the minds of all. Even Jack AL
bright, the least anxious passenger
who admitted that he was glad he die
Mt have to pay his board on the pro
longed voyage, was convinced tina
the fnancier was not crazy.
Jack was about thirty-fve years oil
and was having the time of his life
He didn't care how long the trip last
ed. He treated the millionaires a
more or less Of a joke, or as he Nigh
q lot of college chums, paying them n
more difference than he would hav
accorded fellow-members Of a clul