s, then dispersing,
whirled in mighty wreaths over the shining iron roofs, to fall hissing
back into the red-powdery streets whence they arose, choking with
pungent particles the throats, eyes, and ears of the eager, busy,
speculative, acquisitive crowd, who had flocked hither like wasps to a
jar of beer and honey. And to many, indeed, it was destined to prove
just such a trap.

"Well, what do you advise, Rainsford?" said Laurence, after some more
talk about the Rand and its prospects.

"Wait a day or two. You don't want to buy in a falling market. There are
several good companies to put into, but things haven't touched bottom
yet. When they do and just begin to rise, then buy in. Meanwhile lie
low."

"You speak like a book, Rainsford," said one of two men who joined them
at that moment. "There's a capital company now whose shares are on the
rise again. Couldn't do better than take two or three hundred of them.
What do you say?"

"Name?"

"Bai-praatfonteins."

"I'll watch it!" said Rainsford, with an emphatic and negative shake of
the head.

"I say, you don't want a couple of building stands? They'll treble
their value in as many weeks. Going cheap as dirt now."

"Not taking any, Rankin," was the uncompromising reply, for Rainsford
knew something about those building stands.

"You're making a mistake. Bless my soul, if only I had the money to
spare, I'd take them at double myself. I'm only agent in the matter,
though. I can't do any business at all with you fellows this morning."

All this was said in the most genial and good-humoured tone imaginable.
The speaker was a spare, straight, neatly dressed individual of middle
age. His face was of a dark bronze hue, lit up by a pair of keen black
eyes, and his beard was prematurely gray, almost white. The expression
of keenness on a deal was not characteristic of him alone. Everyone wore
it in those days.

"That was a great old shot you did on me, Rainsford, with those Verneuk
Draais," cut in the other man, in a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of
voice. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, whose condition
looked as hard as nails. "_Ja_, it just was."

"Well, I'll buy them back if you like, Wheeler."

"How much?"

"Sixteen and a half."

A roar of good-humoured derision went up from the other.

"Sixteen and a half? And I took them over from you at twenty-eight.
Sixteen and a half?"

"Well, are you taking?" said Rainsford.

"Dead off," returned the