Chapter 216: Rothschild’s Visit (K8)
Chapter 214 A Visit from Rothschild (4K8)
After seeing Vidocq off, the quiet parlor was filled with Dumas and Arthur writing furiously.
Suddenly, a sound of a key opening the door cut through the tranquility of the parlor.
Elder walked through the door grinning broadly with a magazine clutched in his hand, he swept a glance at Dumas and Arthur, then glanced around and opened his mouth to ask, “Just you two? Is Charles not here?”
Arthur leaned back in his chair and stretched, “Charles has gone to the Linnaean Society at Burlington Court for a museum event, I’ve heard that the Linnaean Society has recently received a new shipment of paleontological specimens, and Charles seems to be very interested in that shipment.”
“Wow! Thank goodness he’s finally doing something serious.” Elder spoke up, “I also support his behavior, always studying monkeys will make him lose interest in museum studies.”
“Studying monkeys?” Dumas took a sip of his coffee, “But I heard from Charles that his main study is you.”
“Bull-fucking-shit!” Elder snarled, “I’m superior to monkeys.”
Arthur sniffed and sipped his tea lightly, “Elder, you don’t need to be in a hurry to climb up the ladder when it comes to such things.”
Elder was so disliked by both of them that he had no choice but to make fun of Darwin while he wasn’t present, “But did Charles really go to the Linnaean Society to do research? I remember Alexander said before, isn’t he recently dating a certain mysterious lady? Do you think it’s possible that he is …… Well, truth be told, just now when I was going home I passed by a restaurant, and through the window glass I saw a pretty lady and a little bald guy at a table.”
Dumas said, “In Britain, to be a man is to be bald, you can’t judge a man by that. And Charles can’t be considered bald, if by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, he’s merely in his twenties, with an unfortunate early growth that isn’t very lush in the forehead area.”
“Huh?” Elder said unconvincingly, “It’s a man and he’s bald? And what’s Arthur sort of like?”
Dumas glanced at Arthur’s thick black hair and wrapped his arm around his shoulder and returned, “I told you, Arthur’s an old Frenchman.”
Elder asked again, “What about me?”
Dumas returned, “You? I’m inclined to think that you’re more advanced.”
Elder couldn’t help but cover his wrenching heart when he heard this and hit the bookcase behind him as his legs went weak.
He sadly realized that ever since Dumas had joined their camp, there was just one more person who could beat him, a senior classics student at the University of London, at the mouth.
Even sadder, the guy was actually from France.
“Alexander, you guy, I now know why King Louis-Philippe of France wanted to hang you so badly.”
But Dumas was more than just not angry to hear this, instead he thanked him with a proud look on his face, “Elder, I can’t believe I’m still hearing compliments from your mouth.”
Elder drew out the magazine wedged in his cackle and slapped it on the desk with a snap, “You kid, you can’t keep your hands off the oil, can you?!”
This time, not waiting for Dumas to reply, the red devil sitting on the table wearing glasses to scrutinize Dumas and Arthur’s manuscripts back and forth saw Elder’s magazine, but suddenly froze, he cupped his chin and muttered to himself.
“The Ladies’ Closet? Arthur, your silly friend still has this interest? It’s a good thing this isn’t the Middle Ages, or he’d have his head chopped off sooner or later. It’s clearly written in the Bible that a woman can’t wear a man’s clothes, and with that, the same applies to a man.”
Elder also seemed to have realized that the books he had slapped on the table were not quite right.
He glanced down at the cover of the magazine, slammed his head and exclaimed, “Damn! Why did I bring my sister’s book over here?”
Arthur just sipped his tea, “Forget it, Elder, you don’t need to bother defending yourself, we’re all sitting here on our own, the guys won’t turn you in. If you’re not too busy, next time you can do a training for our LPS intelligence officers. I’ve just exchanged work experience with a master cross-dresser, and there are times when if you can take advantage of a man dressed as a woman, you can often reap unexpected intelligence advantages.”
Elder was about to get angry when he saw Arthur’s disbelief, but when he heard the second half of the sentence, he frowned again and asked, “Male cross-dressing? When did Scotland Yard start playing this game? Can the Ministry of Internal Affairs allow you to do such things?”
Arthur sighed as he put down his teacup, “If it was during the Tory cabinet period, they most likely wouldn’t have allowed us to do this. After all, there is a significant portion of the clerical community among the Tory supporters, and their concepts tend to be on the traditional conservative side. But now that it’s already the world of the Whig Party, and the Whigs even dare to mention parliamentary reforms, I don’t think wearing a skirt in order to get information should be considered too big of a crime, right?”
Dumas suddenly laughed out loud for no reason when he heard this.
Elder was startled by him and asked, “Alexander, what are you laughing at?”
Dumas wiped the tears that came out of his eyes from laughing while speaking, “Arthur’s words just now reminded me of something that Mr. Vidocq mentioned to me before. When he was young, he borrowed a dress from the prostitute who lived next door to him in order to avoid arrest and hanging.
It may have turned out that he had put on too much beautiful make-up. He hadn’t long run out before he was nearly ‘justly executed’ by a group of drunken hooligans on the ground. Luckily, he was physically fit and carried a pocket knife as a self-defense weapon, or else this incident could probably become a shadow for the rest of his life.”
Elder sniffed and winced as he gave a thumbs-up grimace, “This man is an old Parisian by the sound of it.”
No sooner had Elder’s words fallen than another polite knock sounded outside the house.
The door pulled open, and Arthur looked at the mildly smiling face standing outside and couldn’t help but be surprised, “Mr. Rothschild?”
Lionel Rothschild took off his black bowler hat and smiled in greeting, “I am very sorry for the unannounced and sudden visit.”
Seeing his face, which was slightly reddened by the wind, Arthur smiled and gave way, asking, “Would you like to come in and sit down for a while? It’s November and it’s quite cold outside.”
For Arthur’s invitation, Lionel certainly had no reason to refuse.
As the heir of the London branch of the Rothschild family, there must be a reason for him, a busy man, to come over on purpose.
Lionel entered the door and first greeted Elder and Dumas, after a few people exchanged pleasantries for a while and drank a few cups of tea, the body warmed up Lionel finally began to run to the subject.
He took off his white gloves and laid them on the table, and asked with a smile, “You may not know that your friend Mr. Disraeli is as old a friend as I am. I have heard from him that you have been planning lately to get a new literary magazine under the name of The Cockney?”
Arthur probably had an estimate in his mind when he heard the other man take the initiative to mention it.
Disraeli’s father, though, in order to help his son integrate into British society, had converted him to the Anglican religion from a young age by renouncing the Jewish faith.
But in the final analysis, Disraeli was still a Jew by blood, and he was also a rather famous social figure.
Although Disraeli’s reputation was not a good one, it was better than no reputation at all for the Rothschilds’ political goal of expanding Jewish influence.
Add to this the fact that Disraeli was a proper Jewish boy, a real man of his own, and it’s no surprise that the two got along.
As long as Disraeli put forward the request is not excessive, Rothschild is naturally very willing to provide him with some help as much as possible.
Arthur remembered that Disraeli had mentioned before that he might go and seek a magazine sponsorship from the Rothschilds, so was that what Lionel’s sudden visit today was about? Arthur gauged Lionel’s mind and smiled as he opened his mouth, ”Benjamin also talked to me about this matter before. He told me that the Rothschild family, besides being keen on public endeavors like charity and education, is also considering making inroads into the news media and literary arts.
And among all the members of the Rothschild family, you are the one who knows the most about art. So let me guess, do you want to come and submit an article to the magazine today, or are you planning to place an advertisement in the magazine?”
Lionel smiled and returned, “Writing articles and all that, although I also have the intention to do so, the ones I have written are really difficult to be recognized. Especially after I’ve read what I’m going to publish in the first issue of Britannia, I feel that the little ink in my stomach is dwarfed, so I’d better not make a fool of myself in this regard.
Arthur, you should know that although the London real estate property consulting company I manage has a portion of stable clients, it still lacks a certain amount of fame compared to several large London real estate companies. And from what I can see, it won’t be long before The Englishman replaces Blackwood as the new benchmark in British literature.
If we can place advertisements in The Englishman, this will surely bring a huge amount of support to the company. Of this I have no doubt. But what is clear is that the founding of literary magazines are subject to a certain number of difficult periods of business in the early years. I have heard Benjamin say that it seems as if you are a little short-handed at present?”
Arthur looked at Lionel’s smiling face and finally understood the other party’s intention today.
It seemed that he didn’t just wish to place advertisements, if possible, he also wished to acquire a portion of the magazine’s equity.
Lionel also noticed the change in color between Arthur’s brows, he had known that this negotiation would probably not be too easy.
In fact, at the beginning when Disraeli found him, he only thought that it was his drama queen possessed Jewish friend who had come up with some unreliable idea again.
But once he learned that Arthur was actually involved, the new magazine, named The Brit, quickly caught Lionel’s attention.
It was well known that the Rothschilds never considered doing business to be merely business, and an investment of a thousand pounds or so was insignificant compared to the sheer size of the Rothschilds as a whole.
But if this investment can be sustained from the harvest of the new Lord Chancellor Lord Brougham’s favorite pupil, Scotland Yard’s most promising police officer, the British scientific community’s new star Arthur Hastings’s friendship, and even to bind the Rothschild family with him.
Even if the business lost money, then the hidden gains from this investment would more than make up for the monetary losses.
In fact, after the fall of the Tory Party and the discovery of the Duke of Wellington’s lukewarm attitude toward Jewish emancipation, the Rothschilds were thinking internally about whether or not to change the family’s main position of attack from the Tory Party to the Whig Party.
But such a major political shift was obviously not something that could be resolved within the family overnight.
Lionel’s father, Nathan Rothschild, is now in a state of fear of wolves and tigers, continue to invest in the Tory Party cost-effective is too low, and not to mention the Duke of Wellington’s previous indifference to the emancipation of the Jews, alone the Tory Party’s identity in the field also makes him scruples.
And if you give up the Tory party, turn to the embrace of the Whig party, then the previous Rothschild family for more than ten years as one day for the Tory party’s pandering will be all for naught.
And who can not guarantee that when the Tory party will come to power again, if this happens, then the next time the Tory party came to power, Rothschild is bound to meet the end of the disaster.
The practice of putting eggs in one basket is not in the interest of the family from the investment point of view.
Seeing that this year is almost over, the Rothschild family prepared this year’s political contributions still left a little bit of zero, just when they do not know what to spend the remaining money to what place, Arthur’s appearance but gives a new possibility.
After doing a detailed background check on Arthur, Lionel was pleasantly surprised to find that his police officer friend seemed to be at the balance point between the Whigs and the Tories.
On the Tory side, Arthur is admired by the Duke of Wellington and a close confidant of Sir Robert Peel.
And on the Whig side, the guy was one of the first graduates of the University of London, the educational base of the Whig left. And from inside Scotland Yard, the new Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham, broke bread with the Home Office before he even took office in order to keep this favorite student.
All in all, vote for Arthur, and it appears that no bigwigs from either party will be offended.
And to be able to gain such a degree of favor in both parties, this twenty year old young man, even if he is no good in the future, at the very least, he will become the person in charge of dominating the Greater London Police Department, or even the entire local security system of the United Kingdom.
Being able to have a good relationship with him, even if he is not able to fight for the political rights of the Jews, at the very least he will be able to ensure that the Rothschild family’s industries in London are not hit by the mob.
This kind of implicit long-term benefit over a period of decades, yet it only requires an investment of one or two thousand pounds.
For this kind of deal, Lionel could only summarize it in one word – cheap.
Lionel smiled and spoke, “Of course, we only wish to take a small shareholding in The Englishman, after all, as Benjamin said, the life of this magazine is ultimately pinched in the hands of you founding scribes.
The Rothschilds have two options at the moment, one is to provide an injection of two thousand pounds, in addition to the fact that the real estate company under my jurisdiction has an unused site in the vicinity of Fleet Street, which could be used to store the magazine’s printing machines.
With this money and the site, it would be enough to last three to five years, even if The Englishman were always operating at a loss. And after paying so much, in exchange, the Rothschilds needed twenty-five percent of the equity, and an eight-year free advertising agreement.
As for the other, the Rothschilds will take a five-year advertising sponsorship for five hundred pounds outright, for the sake of my friendship with Benjamin and you. You should know, Arthur, that even the hottest literary magazines of the day, or news outlets like The Times, have their advertising space for that price at best.
In that case, though, you might want to consider selling your current holdings in Thames Tunnels and Brunel Road and Bridge Construction.”
With that said, Lionel fished the stock slips out of his pocket and placed them on the table and pushed them over.
He smiled and said, “Just as I promised you before, both of these stocks have risen very nicely, and in the last two months or so they’re up twenty percent. If you intend to sell, I can buy them from you now for twelve hundred pounds. With this money, I believe the magazine could also run smoothly for a few years and help you through a difficult period.”
Lionel factored in all sorts of scenarios, and as for the share of equity he was asking for it wasn’t too much to ask.
Two thousand pounds for a twenty-five percent stake in a start-up magazine, and help with printing space, was almost as good as saying ‘I’m sending you money’ outright.
Although Arthur felt that the valuation of The Englishman would certainly not be low in the future, it would take at least five to eight years for it to reach the price Lionel offered today.
To realize that the other party did not have the eyes of heaven opened, Rothschild dared to put so much money into ‘The Englishman’, almost entirely on Arthur’s behalf.
The other party is so sincere, Arthur naturally has no reason to refuse.
Although the Duke of Wellington did not agree to liberate Judaism, but in the face of pounds, even he could not refuse Rothschild friendship, let alone a Scotland Yard superintendent like Arthur.
He stood up and couldn’t help but smile and sigh as he shook Lionel’s hand and spoke, “Lionel, I have to admit that Rothschild has always appeared to be bold when it comes to investments.”
Lionel smiled back and winked, “No, Arthur, it’s just the opposite. Remember what I told you? What Rothschild lacks the most is boldness, what we are looking for is a thin stream of steady returns.”
There’s more in the evening.
(End of chapter)