A. Fair - Gold Comes in Bricks

“Fat?”

“No, fairly slender, getting bald on each side of his forehead. Dark hair slicked back. Black eyes, no glasses. Quick, nervous, glib. His nails are well manicured and polished. He’s had a fresh shoeshine this morning, and smells like a barbershop. Do you want to see him?”

“Yes.”

She went out, and Gilbert Rich came in. He crossed the office with quick steps to grab my hand. His manner was nervous and magnetic. He started talking as though he’d been accustomed to try and get in as many words as possible before he got thrown out.

“Doubtless, Mr. Fischler, you’ll wonder about the nature of my business. When I told your secretary it was a sales proposition, perhaps you thought that it was something I had that I wanted you to handle. As a matter of fact, it’s exactly the other way round. I want to make you a lot of money, Mr. Fischler. In order to do that, I’m going to require three minutes of your time.”

He jerked a watch out of his pocket and placed it on my desk in front of me.

“Kindly notice the time, Mr. Fischler. Keep your eyes right on that watch. As soon as my three minutes are up, tell me. That’s all I want, three minutes of your time, and in return I’ll guarantee they’ll be the most profitable three minutes you’ve spent in the last ten years.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “You’ve got three minutes.”

“Mr. Fischler, have you ever paused to think of the marvels of modern science? Don’t bother to answer, because I can see that you have. You realise, Mr. Fischler, that things we regard as everyday occurrences today are things which were scientific impossibilities a few years ago.

“Now then, Mr. Fischler, in order to show you how you are going to make money out of modern scientific developments, it’s necessary for me to turn back a page in the history of our great and glorious state. We’ll turn back, not to the days of forty-nine, but to the days which followed it, days when the state was a swarming horde of gold seekers. Men were grubbing with pick and shovel, with rockers and gold pans, taking gold out of the earth, and there was a vast amount of gold taken out, Mr. Fischler. It poured back to the money centers of the East in a steady golden stream. But there was lots of gold left.

“Up in the country around Valleydale there was a rich placer deposit. The river came roaring out of the mountain carrying gold, depositing it in a vast alluvial plane over the broad agricultural valley which opened out to receive the smiling waters of a river suddenly grown placid. Men, naked to the waist, toiled through the winter rains, through the broiling summer suns, grubbing out gold, and always more gold. Then, as the richer alluvial deposits were exhausted, they moved on down, tracing the course of the river through the geological ages, finding the top soil rich for agricultural purposes, but the gold values collected on bedrock where they had settled — and then just when they were on the verge of reaping their richest harvest, they encountered the problem of surface water. They could dig down to twenty-five feet before encountering water. They got gold almost from the grass roots, but they couldn’t get down to the rich deposits on bedrock. Bedrock at that point lay in a uniform bench at about forty-two feet below the surface.

“But I won’t detain you with sketching the details of that picture, Mr. Fischler. Doubtless, you’re familiar with it from having seen the various historical films which are masterpieces of cinematic art. We will hurry on to the edge of modern inventions. A man of vision conceived the idea of using the water, not as an enemy, but as an aid. He built a big barge, and on that he placed the machinery necessary to dredge. An endless chain of steel buckets dipped far below the surface of the water to scrape the values up from bedrock. The agricultural land was ruined, but in its place the owner received a vast royalty on the gold extracted. The entire topography of the country changed. Because of the peculiar process used in gold dredging, the silt and soil was discharged on the bottom, the rocks and boulders on the top. As a result, the rich agricultural valley became a heap of sun-bleached tailing piles.

“Years passed. The gold dredgers completed chewing up all of the profitable ground, and, as they demolished the last acre, they found themselves trapped in a rocky waste of their own fashioning. There was no further use for them. They were too bulky to dismantle and move, and, even so, there was no place for them to go. They fell into ruins as grim as the ruins of the fair land which they themselves had devastated. The barges began to leak, careened over to one side. The machinery rusted. That which could be profitably transported for junk was sold. The rest became a rusted monument to the greed of man.

“Even the dredgers had not been able to get to bedrock on all the land. In places they had been forced to leave fifteen to twenty feet of the richest pay soil on top of bedrock.

“Now then, Mr. Fischler, we come to a great dream, a golden dream, a dream which is coming true. Modern engineering has devised a means by which the land can be redredged and the boulders placed on the bottom, the silt put back on the top, so that once more the land will be fair and fertile. This has long been known. The Chamber of Commerce of Valleydale had even thought of redredging the land with modern equipment simply for the purpose of restoring it to agricultural productivity, but the process would have been too expensive. What the Chamber of Commerce didn’t realise was that there was still a vast fortune of gold lying on top of bedrock waiting for the proper person to—”

“You’ve used up your three minutes,” I said.

He looked at me, then at the watch, and said, “So I have. Well, I’m all finished, Mr. Fischler. With an ordinary man, I would have to show him the similarity between the situation which confronts the investor today and that which confronted the original operators of the gold dredge. The gold has been there for years. As engineering skill has developed, the ingenuity of man, coping with nature, has rolled over the valley in successive waves, each wave carrying on its crest a new generation of millionaires, sweeping them into power. The history of San Francisco is—”

“Your three minutes was up thirty seconds ago.”

“Exactly,” he said. “I was going to say that with an ordinary man, I would have to point this out, but you, Mr. Fischler, a man who is himself familiar with sales technique and therefore able to grasp business possibilities at a swift glance, can see at once the possibilities of the situation.

“The only question, Mr. Fischler, is whether this crop of new millionaires which are going to be swept into wealth and power is going to have emblazoned on its scroll the name of Charles E. Fischler.”

I twisted a lead pencil between my fingers and tried to avoid his eyes. He kept moving around so that he could make me look at him, making forceful gestures, tapping the desk with his forefinger. “I won’t argue with you, Mr. Fischler. You are a man of discernment. You are a man of quick, accurate judgment, otherwise you would not have made such a success with your business. You can appreciate the enormous possibilities which are offered. Not only do we make a profit from dredging the land, but when the dredging activities are finished, we have restored once more an agricultural land bathed in sunlight, covered with orchards and vineyards, ready for subdivision, while people, hungry for land which can be subdivided into acres of independence, throng eagerly to the tract offices, and lay down the purchase price.

“And in the meantime, Mr. Fischler, I have not called to your attention the most significant point of all because I know that you do not need to have that pointed out. I know that you have been watching me as I made these points and saying to yourself, ‘When is he going to mention the fact that the price of gold today is virtually double that which it was when all of these fortunes were made? When is he going to mention the fact that one who has his money invested in virgin gold need have no fear of inflation? When is he going to mention the fact that gold-bearing properties are the one investment which a man can make, and then regard with equanimity a long succession of unbalanced budgets? When is he—’ ”