‘I WANT your advice, Maude.’
She was looking very sweet and fresh in the morning sunlight. She wore a
flowered, French print blouse—little sprigs of roses on a white
background—and a lace frill round her pretty, white, smooth throat. The
buckle of her brown leather belt just gleamed over the edge of the
table-cloth. In front of her were a litter of correspondence, a white
cup of coffee, and two empty eggshells—for she was a perfectly healthy
young animal with an excellent appetite.
‘Well, dear, what is it?’
‘I shall take the later train. Then I need not hurry, and can walk down
at my ease.’
‘How nice of you!’
‘I am not sure that Dinton will think so.’
‘Only one little hour of difference—what can it matter?’
‘They don’t run offices on those lines. An hour means a good deal in the
City of London.’
‘Oh, I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes
between us.’
‘I suppose that it separates a good many loving couples every morning.’
He had come across and an egg-cup had been upset. Then he had been
scolded, and they sat together laughing upon the sofa. When he had
finished admiring her little, shining, patent-leather, Louis shoes and
the two charming curves of open-work black stocking, she reminded him
that he had asked for her advice.
‘Yes, dear, what was it?’ She knitted her brows and tried to look as her
father did when he considered a matter of business. But then her father
was not hampered by having a young man’s arm round his neck. It is so
hard to be business-like when any one is curling one’s hair round his
finger.
‘I have some money to invest.’
‘O Frank, how clever of you!’
‘It is only fifty pounds.’
‘Never mind, dear, it is a beginning.’
‘That is what I feel. It is the foundation-stone of our fortunes. And
so I want Her Majesty to lay it—mustn’t wrinkle your brow though—that is
not allowed.’
‘But it is a great responsibility, Frank.’
‘Yes, we must not lose it.’
‘No, dear, we must not lose it. Suppose we invest it in one of those
modern fifty-guinea pianos. Our dear old Broadwood was an excellent
piano when I was a girl, but it is getting so squeaky in the upper notes.
Perhaps they would allow us something for it.’
He shook his head.
‘I know that we want one very badly, dear. And such a musician as you
are should have the best instrument that money can buy. I promise you
that when we have a little to turn round on, you shall have a beauty.
But in the meantime we must not buy anything with this money—I mean
nothing for ourselves—we must invest it. We cannot tell what might
happen. I might fall ill. I might die.’
‘O Frank, how horrid you are this morning!’
‘Well, we have to be ready for anything. So I want to put this where we
can get it on an emergency, and where in the meantime it will bring us
some interest. Now what shall we buy?’
‘Papa always bought a house.’
‘But we have not enough.’
‘Not a little house?’
‘No, not the smallest.’
‘A mortgage, then?’
‘The sum is too small.’
‘Government stock, Frank—if you think it is safe.’
‘Oh, it is safe enough. But the interest is so low.’
‘How much should we get?’
‘Well, I suppose the fifty pounds would bring us in about thirty
shillings a year.’
‘Thirty shillings! O Frank!’
‘Rather less than more.’
‘Fancy a great rich nation like ours taking our fifty pounds and treating
us like that. How _mean_ of them! Don’t let them have it, Frank.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘If they want it, they can make us a fair offer for it.’
‘I think we’ll try something else.’
‘Well, they have only themselves to thank. But you have some plan in
your head, Frank. What is it?’
He brought the morning paper over from the table. Then he folded it so
as to bring the financial columns to the top.
‘I saw a fellow in the City yesterday who knows a great deal about
gold-mining. I only had a few minutes’ talk, but he strongly advised me
to have some shares in the El Dorado Proprietary Gold Mine.’
‘What a nice name! I wonder if they would let us have any?’
‘Oh yes, they are to be bought in the open market. It is like this,
Maude. The mine was a very good one, and paid handsome dividends. Then
it had some misfortunes. First, there was no water, and then there was
too much water, and the workings were flooded. So, of course, the price
of the shares fell. Now they are getting the mine all right again, but
the shares are still low. It certainly seems a very good chance to pick
a few of them up.’
‘Are they very dear, Frank?’
‘I looked them up in the _Mining Register_ before I came home yesterday.
The original price of each share was ten shillings, but as they have had
these misfortunes, one would expect to find them rather lower.’
‘Ten shillings! It does not seem much to pay for a share in a thing with
a name like that.’
‘Here it is,’ said he, pointing with a pencil to one name in a long
printed list. ‘This one, between the Royal Bonanza and the Alabaster
Consols. You see—El Dorado Proprietary! Then after it you have printed,
4¾—4⅞. I don’t profess to know much about these things, but that of
course means the price.’
‘Yes, dear, it is printed at the top of the column—“Yesterday’s prices.”’
‘Quito so. Well, we know that the original price of each share was ten
shillings, and of course they must have dropped with a flood in the mine,
so that these figures must mean that the price yesterday was four
shillings and nine-pence, or thereabouts.’
‘What a clear head for business you have, dear!’
‘I think we can’t do wrong in buying at that price. You see, with our
fifty pounds we could buy two hundred of them, and then if they went up
again we could sell, and take our profit.’
‘How delightful! But suppose they don’t go up.’
‘Well, they can’t go down. I should not think that a share at four
shillings and ninepence _could_ go down very much. There is no room.
But it may go up to any extent.’
‘Besides, your friend said that they would go up.’
‘Yes, he seemed quite confident about it. Well, what do you think,
Maude? Is it good enough or not?’
‘O Frank, I hardly dare advise you. Just imagine if we were to lose it
all. Do you think it would be wiser to get a hundred shares, and then we
could buy twenty-five pounds’ worth of Royal Bonanza as well. It would
be impossible for them both to go wrong.’
‘The Royal Bonanza shares are dear, and then we have had no information
about it. I think we had better back our own opinion.’
‘All right, Frank.’
‘Then that is settled. I have a telegraph-form here.’
‘Could you not buy them yourself when you are in town?’
‘No, you can’t buy things yourself. You have to do it through a broker.’
‘I always thought a broker was a horrid man, who came and took your
furniture away.’
‘Ah, that’s another kind of broker. He comes afterwards. I promised
Harrison that he should have any business which I could put in his way,
so here goes. How is that?’—
‘Harrison, 13a Throgmorton Street, E.C.—Buy two hundred El Dorado
Proprietaries.
‘CROSSE, Woking.’
‘Doesn’t it sound rather peremptory, Frank?’
‘No, no, that is mere business.’
‘I hope he won’t be offended.’
‘I think I can answer for that.’
‘You have not said the price.’
‘One cannot say the price because one does not know it. You see, it is
always going up and down. By this time it may be a little higher or a
little lower than yesterday. There cannot be much change, that is
certain. Great Scot, Maude, it is ten-fifteen. Three and a half minutes
for a quarter of a mile. Good-bye, darling! I just love you in that
bodice. O Lord—good-bye!’
* * * * *
‘Well, has anything happened?’
‘Yes, you have come back. Oh I am so glad to see you, you dear old boy!’
‘Take care of that window, darling!’
‘Oh, my goodness, I hope he didn’t see. No, it’s all right. He was
looking the other way. We have the gold shares all right.’
‘Harrison has telegraphed?’
‘Yes, here it is.’—
‘Crosse, The Lindens, Woking.—Bought two hundred El Dorados at 4¾.