d passed him his favourite box of cigars.

"What is it, Dick?" he demanded. "Why bring thunderclouds into my
sunny presence?"

"Not quite so sunny as usual, is it?" Dauncey remarked
sympathetically. "How is Miss Bultiwell?"

"She is taking a course of shorthand and typing," Jacob groaned.

"That seems harmless enough. Why shouldn't she?"

"Don't be a fool," Jacob answered crossly. "Do you realise that my
income is nearly fifty thousand a year, and she has to grind in a
miserable office, in order to be able to earn two or three pounds a
week to provide her mother with small luxuries?"

"From what I remember of Miss Bultiwell, I don't think it will do her
any harm," Dauncey remarked doggedly.

"You're an unfeeling brute," Jacob declared.

Dauncey shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps so," he agreed. "I don't suppose I should like her any better
if she came and ate out of your hand."

"You must admit that she shows a fine, independent spirit," Jacob
insisted.

"Bultiwell obstinacy, I call it!"

Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar.

"Dick," he asked quietly, "is there any sense in two men arguing about
a girl, when one is in love with her and the other isn't?"

"None at all," Dauncey agreed.

"Then shut up and tell me what horrible tragedy you've stumbled upon.
You've something to say to me, haven't you?"

Dauncey nodded.

"It's about Montague and Littleham. I have discovered the fly in the
ointment. I thought those two would never be content with a reasonable
land speculation."

"Proceed," Jacob said encouragingly.

"Most of the idiots who bought these plots of land," Dauncey
continued, "were content to know that the Cropstone Wood, Water and
Electric Light Company was in existence and had commenced the work of
connecting them up. Not one of them had the sense to find out what
they were going to pay for their water and lighting."

"Ah!"

"I've just discovered," Dauncey continued, "that Dane Montague and
Littleham have an option on the Water and Electric Light Company. I
don't suppose they said a word to you about that. You found the money
to buy the land, all right, but they're going to make the bulk of the
profit out of the water and lighting. That young lawyer at Cropstone
gave us a word of warning, you remember, the day we were over there."

"So he did," Jacob murmured reflectively. "I was a mug."

"Not only that," Dauncey reminded him, "but some of the people who've
bought the land are your