mind got a little hazy. The matter was getting too
difficult for him, like a rule of three sum at school when he could not
see the relation between the two first terms and the third. Well, if
they didn't like to sell out at the right time, it was their own faults.
Why didn't they? He, Peter Halket, did not feel responsible for them.
Everyone knew that you had to sell out at the right time. If they didn't
choose to sell out at the right time, well, they didn't. "It's the
shares that you sell, not the shares you keep, that make the money."

But if they couldn't sell them?

Here Peter Halket hesitated.--Well, the British Government would have to
buy them, if they were so bad no one else would; and then no one would
lose. "The British Government can't let British share-holders suffer."
He'd heard that often enough. The British taxpayer would have to pay for
the Chartered Company, for the soldiers, and all the other things, if IT
couldn't, and take over the shares if it went smash, because there were
lords and dukes and princes connected with it. And why shouldn't they
pay for his company? He would have a lord in it too!

Peter Halket looked into the fire completely absorbed in his
calculations.--Peter Halket, Esq., Director of the Peter Halket Gold
Mining Company, Limited. Then, when he had got thousands, Peter
Halket, Esq., M.P. Then, when he had millions, Sir Peter Halket, Privy
Councillor!

He reflected deeply, looking into the blaze. If you had five or six
millions you could go where you liked and do what you liked. You could
go to Sandringham. You could marry anyone. No one would ask what your
mother had been; it wouldn't matter.

A curious dull sinking sensation came over Peter Halket; and he drew in
his broad leathern belt two holes tighter.

Even if you had only two millions you could have a cook and a valet, to
go with you when you went into the veld or to the wars; and you could
have as much champagne and other things as you liked. At that moment
that seemed to Peter more important than going to Sandringham.

He took out his flask of Cape Smoke, and drew a tiny draught from it.

Other men had come to South Africa with nothing, and had made
everything! Why should not he?

He stuck small branches under the two great logs, and a glorious flame
burst out. Then he listened again intently. The wind was falling and the
night was becoming very still. It was a quarter to twelve now. His back
ached, and he would