'What's this all about?' he asked, somewhat mystified, and even
alarmed by the extreme seriousness of her face.
'Dad,' the girl began. 'you are very rich, aren't you? very, very rich?'
She smiled anxiously, timidly. He did not remember to have seen
that expression on her face before. He wanted to make a facetious
reply, but checked himself.
'Yes,' he said, 'I am. You ought to know that by this time.'
'How soon could you realize a million pounds?'
'A million - what?' he cried. Even he was staggered by her calm
reference to this gigantic sum. 'What on earth are you driving at?'
'A million pounds, I said. That is to say, five million dollars. How
soon could you realize as much as that?'
'Oh!' he answered, 'in about a month, if I went about it neatly
enough. I could unload as much as that in a month without scaring
Wall Street and other places. But it would want some
arrangement.'
'Useless!' she exclaimed. 'Couldn't you do it quicker, if you really
had to?'
'If I really had to, I could fix it in a week, but it would make things
lively, and I should lose on the job.'
'Couldn't you,' she persisted, 'couldn't you go down this morning
and raise a million, somehow, if it was a matter of life and death?'
He hesitated. 'Look here, Nella,' he said, 'what is it you've got up
your sleeve?'
'Just answer my question, Dad, and try not to think that I'm a stark,
staring lunatic.
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