‘That is capital. I rather expected to see Harrison in the train. I
shouldn’t be surprised if he calls on his way from the station. He has
to pass our door, you know, on his way to Maybury.’
‘He is sure to call.’
‘What are you holding there?’
‘It’s a paper.’
‘What paper?’
‘Who is it who talks about woman’s curiosity?’
‘Let me see it.’
‘Well, sir, if you must know, it is the _Financial Whisper_.’
‘Where in the world did you get it?’
‘I knew that the Montresors took a financial paper. I remember Mrs.
Montresor saying once how dreadfully dry it was. So when you were gone I
sent Jemima round and borrowed it, and I have read it right through to
see if there was anything about our mine in it—_our_ mine, Frank; does it
not sound splendid?’
‘Well, is there anything?’
She clapped her hands with delight.
‘Yes, there is. “This prosperous mine—” that is what it says. Look
here, it is under the heading of Australian Notes,’ she held out the
paper and pointed, but his face fell as he looked.
‘O Maude, it’s preposterous.’
‘What is preposterous?’
‘The word is preposterous and not prosperous—“this preposterous mine.”’
‘Frank!’ She turned her face away.
‘Never mind, dear! What’s the odds?’
‘O Frank, our first investment—our fifty pounds! And to think that I
should have kept the paper as a surprise for you!’
‘Well, the print is a little slurred, and it was a very natural mistake.
After all, the paper may be wrong. Oh don’t, Maude, please don’t! It’s
not worth it—all the gold on the earth is not worth it. There’s a sweet
girlie! Now, are you better? Oh, damn those open curtains!’
A tall and brisk young man with a glossy hat was coming through the
garden. An instant later Jemima had ushered him in.
‘Hullo, Harrison!’
‘How do you do, Crosse? How are you, Mrs. Crosse?’
‘How do you do? I’ll just order tea if you will excuse me.’
Ordering tea seemed to involve a good deal of splashing water. Maude
came back with a merrier face.
‘Is this a good paper, Mr. Harrison?’
‘What is it? _Financial Whisper_! No, the most venal rag in the city.’
‘Oh, I am so glad!’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know, we bought some shares to-day, and it calls our mine a
preposterous one.’
‘Oh, is that all. Who cares what the _Financial Whisper_ says! It would
call the Bank of England a preposterous institution if it thought it
could bear Consols by doing so. Its opinion is not worth a halfpenny.
By the way, Crosse, it was about those shares that I called.’
‘I thought you might. I have only just got back myself, and I saw by
your wire that you had bought them all right.’
‘Yes, I thought I had better let you have your contract at once.
Settling day is on Monday, you know.’
‘All right. Thank you. I will let you have a cheque. What—what’s
this?’
The contract had been laid face upwards upon the table. Frank Crosse’s
face grew whiter and his eyes larger as he stared at it. It ran in this
way—
13a THROGMORTON STREET.
Bought for Francis Crosse, Esq.
(Subject to the Specific Rules and Regulations of the Stock
Exchange.)
200 El Dorado Proprietaries at 4¾ £950 0 0
Stamps and Fees 4 17 6
Commission 7 10 0
£962 7 6
For the 7th inst.
‘I fancy there is some mistake here, Harrison,’ said he, speaking with a
very dry pair of lips.
‘A mistake!’
‘Yes, this is not at all what I expected.’
‘O Frank! Nearly a thousand pounds!’ gasped Maude.
Harrison glanced from one of them to the other. He saw that the matter
was serious.
‘I am very sorry if there has been any mistake. I tried to obey your
instructions. You wanted two hundred El Dorados, did you not?’
‘Yes, at four and ninepence.’
‘Four and ninepence! They are four pound fifteen each.’
‘But I read that they were only ten shillings originally, and that they
had been falling.’
‘Yes, they have been falling for months. But they were as high as ten
pounds once. They are down at four pound fifteen now.’
‘Why on earth could the paper not say so?’
‘When a fraction is used, it always means a fraction of a pound.’
‘Good heavens! And I have to find this sum before Monday.’
‘Monday is settling day.’
‘I can’t do it, Harrison. It is impossible.’
‘Then there is the obvious alternative.’
‘No, I had rather die. I will never go bankrupt—never!’
Harrison began to laugh, and then turned stonily solemn as he met a pair
of reproachful grey eyes.
‘It strikes me that you have not done much at this game, Crosse.’
‘Never before—and by Heaven, never again!’
‘You take it much too hard. When I spoke of an alternative, I never
dreamed of bankruptcy. All you have to do is to sell your stock
to-morrow morning, and pay the difference.’
‘Can I do that?’
‘Rather. Why not?’
‘What would the difference be?’
Harrison took an evening paper from his pocket. ‘We deal in rails
chiefly, and I don’t profess to keep in touch with the mining market.
We’ll find the quotation here. By Jove!’ He whistled between his teeth.
‘Well!’ said Frank, and felt his wife’s little warm palm fall upon his
hand under the table.
‘The difference is in your favour.’
‘In my favour?’
‘Yes, listen to this. “The mining markets, both the South African and
the Australian, opened dull, but grew more animated as the day proceeded,
prices closing at the best. Out crops upon the Rand mark a general
advance of one-sixteenth to one-eighth. The chief feature in the
Australian section was a sharp advance of five-eighths in El Dorados,
upon a telegram that the workings had been pumped dry.” Crosse, I
congratulate you.’
‘I can really sell them for more than I gave?’
‘I should think so. You have two hundred of them, and a profit of ten
shillings on each.’
‘Maude, we’ll have the whisky and the soda. Harrison, you must have a
drink. Why, that’s a hundred pounds.’
‘More than a hundred.’
‘Without my paying anything?’
‘Not a penny.’
‘When does the Exchange open to-morrow?’
‘The rattle goes at eleven.’
‘Well, be there at eleven, Harrison. Sell them at once.’
‘You won’t hold on and watch the market?’
‘No, no—I won’t have an easy moment until they are sold.’
‘All right, my boy. You can rely upon me. You will get a cheque for
your balance on Tuesday or Wednesday. Good evening! I am so glad that
it has all ended well.’
‘And the joke of it is, Maude,’ said her husband, after they had talked
over the whole adventure from the beginning. ‘The joke of it is that we
have still to find an investment for our original fifty pounds. I am
inclined to put it into Consols after all.’
‘Well,’ said Maude, ‘perhaps it would be the patriotic thing to do.’
* * * * *
Two days later the poor old Broadwood with the squeaky treble and the
wheezy bass was banished for ever from The Lindens, and there arrived in
its place a ninety-five-guinea cottage grand, all dark walnut and
gilding, with notes in it so deep and rich and resonant that Maude could
sit before it by the hour and find music enough in simply touching one
here and one there, and listening to the soft, sweet, reverberant tones
which came swelling from its depths. Her El Dorado piano, she called it,
and tried to explain to lady visitors how her husband had been so clever
at business that he had earned it in a single day. As she was never very
clear in her own mind how the thing had occurred, she never succeeded in
explaining it to any one else, but a vague and solemn impression became
gradually diffused abroad that young Mr. Frank Crosse was a very
remarkable man, and that he had done something exceedingly clever in the
matter of an Australian mine.