ade out at once, allow six per cent interest upon all sums still
owing from depositors, give us a cheque for the whole amount of our
shares on that basis, and Littleham and I are willing to pay you five
hundred pounds each for the accommodation."

"A dissolution of partnership, in fact?"

"Precisely," Montague assented.

"There's the taking over of the Electric Light and Water Company,"
Jacob remarked reflectively. "I suppose you want that kept entirely
separate."

Montague coughed.

"Entirely," he agreed.

"Supposing some of the purchasers should fail to make good their
deposits?"

"Then the deposit would belong to you," Montague pointed out, "and the
land could be resold elsewhere."

"Plenty of applicants for the land still," Littleham interposed
gruffly.

Jacob sipped his champagne and found it excellent.

"Very well," he assented, "make it fifteen hundred between you and
I'll take the whole thing over."...

Mr. Montague and his companion sat for an hour over another bottle of
wine after their guest had departed. The faces of both were flushed
and their voices were a little husky, but they were filled with the
complacency of men who have come out on the right side of a deal. Only
Mr. Montague, every now and then, gave voice to some faint regret.

"He's such a prize mug, James," he said. "It seems a shame we couldn't
have handled him for something bigger."

"What are you grumbling at?" Mr. Littleham replied, letting loose
another button of his waistcoat. "We're getting four thou apiece
profit on the sale of the land, and he's standing the racket for all
of 'em who don't pay up, and there'll be a good few more of them than
he fancies. Then by this time next week we can take up our option on
the Cropstone Wood, Water and Electric Light Company, and if Mr. Jacob
Pratt thinks he's in on that deal, he's making the mistake of his
life. I ain't surprised so much at the land purchasers," the builder
went on reflectively. "They're all the same. They buy a plot of land,
and they think the Lord will send them gas and water and that sort of
thing, and that the price is fixed by Act of Parliament and they can't
be diddled. But a man like Pratt, laying out the money he has, and
simply knowing that there was a water and electric light plant on
which you and I had an option, and imagining we should take him in
without an agreement or even a letter--take him in on a proposition
likely to pay at least thirty per cent-