he country, and if I'd got it, and could find
time to manage it,--my word, you'd see! No! What's done me in is a pure
and simple Stock Exchange gamble, my dear father. Nothing but that! R.R.
shares."

"R.R. What's that?"

"Dad! Where have you been living these years? Royal Rubber Corporation,
of course. They dropped to eighteen shillings, and they oughtn't to have
done. I bought a whole big packet on the understanding that I should
have a fortnight to fork out. They were bound to go up again. Hadn't
been so low for eleven years. How could I have foreseen that old Sampler
would go and commit suicide and make a panic?"

"I never read the financial news, except the quotations of my own little
savings, and I've never heard of old Sampler," said Mr. Prohack.

"Considering he was a front-page item for four days!" Charlie exclaimed,
raising his voice, and then dropping it again. And he related in a few
biting phrases the recent history of the R.R. "I wouldn't have minded so
much," he went on. "If your particular friend, Mr. Softly Bishop, wasn't
at the bottom of my purchase. His name only appears for some of the
shares, but I've got a pretty good idea that it's he who's selling all
of them to yours truly. He must have known something, and a rare fine
thing he'd have made of the deal if I wasn't going bust, because I'm
sure now he was selling to me what he hadn't got."

Mr. Prohack's whole demeanour changed at the mention of Mr. Bishop's
name. His ridiculous snobbish pride reared itself up within him. He
simply could not bear the idea of Softly Bishop having anything
'against' a member of his family. Sooner would the inconsistent fellow
have allowed innocent widows and orphans to be ruined through Charlie's
plunging than that Softly Bishop should fail to realise a monstrous
profit through the same agency.

"I'll see you through, my lad," said he, briefly, in an ordinary casual
tone.

"No thanks. You won't," Charlie replied. "I wouldn't let you, even if
you could. But you can't. It's too big."

"Ah! How big is it?" Mr. Prohack challengingly raised his chin.

"Well, if you want to know the truth, it's between a hundred and forty
and a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I mean, that's what I should
need to save the situation."

"You?" cried the Terror of the departments in amaze, accustomed though
he was to dealing in millions. He had gravely miscalculated his son. Ten
thousand he could have understood; even twenty tho