"Well, sir," said the financier, "you've brought this thing to me.
You want my advice. Well, my advice is, don't fool away the only
good thing that will ever happen to you. Luck such as this doesn't
come more than once in a lifetime."
"I have been offered ten thousand pounds for my estate."
"Oh! Have you! Ten thousand? That was very liberal--very liberal
indeed. Ten thousand for a gold reef."
"But I thought as an old friend of my father you would, perhaps--"
"Young man, don't fool it away. He's waiting for you, I suppose,
round the corner, with a bottle of fizz, ready to close."
"He is."
"Well, go and drink his champagne. Always get whatever you can. And
then tell him that you'll see him--"
"I certainly will, sir, if you advise it. And then?"
"And then--leave it to me. And--young man--I think I heard, a year
or two ago, something about you and my girl Rosie."
"There was something, sir. Not enough to trouble you about it."
"She told me. Rosie tells me all her love affairs."
"Is she--is she unmarried?"
"Oh, yes, and for the moment I believe she is free. She has had one
or two engagements, but, somehow, they have come to nothing. There
was the French Count, but that was knocked on the head very early in
consequence of things discovered. And there was the Boom in Guano,
but he fortunately smashed, much to Rosie's joy, because she never
liked him. The last was Lord Evergreen. He was a nice old chap when
you could understand what he said, and Rosie would have liked the
title very much, though his grandchildren opposed the thing. Well,
sir, I suppose you couldn't understand the trouble we took to keep
that old man alive for his own wedding. Science did all it could,
but 'twas of no use--" The financier sighed. "The ways of
Providence are inscrutable. He died, sir, the day before."
"That was very sad."
"A dashing of the cup from the lip, sir. My daughter would have been
a Countess. Well, young gentleman, about this estate of yours. I
think I see a way--I think, I am not yet sure--that I do see a way.
Go now. See this liberal gentleman, and drink his champagne. And
come here in a week. Then, if I still see my way, you shall
understand what it means to hold the position in the city which is
mine."
"And--and--may I call upon Rosie?"
"Not till this day week, not till I have made my way plain."