l Loan &
Savings Company had enabled him to manipulate to considerable personal
advantage; but he was quite aware of the fact that his methods were
liable to be questioned sooner or later, and the next annual meeting of
the shareholders was not far away. Besides, the unexpected arrival of
Harrington Rives on the scene and his very evident intention of getting
on his feet by hanging on to Mr. Nickleby's coat-tails compelled a
change of plans and the seeking of pastures new. Friend Rives knew too
much and was himself too well known to be a safe companion in their
present location. Rives and he could work together to mutual
advantage, beyond doubt; but it would have to be in some new territory
where the limelight had never played upon either of them in the past.

Accordingly when Nickleby discovered that Rives had some valuable
mining concessions in Mexico, it had seemed very desirable for them to
become partners and try their fortunes in a country where wealth
awaited a pair of up-to-date filibusters like them and where political
disturbances held forth untold opportunities for their peculiar
abilities. To carry out their plans they needed all the capital they
could scrape together. Hence the present proposal to unload all the
Nickleby interests as quickly as possible for as much ready cash as
might be.

The logical victim was the Honorable Milton Waring. Already Nickleby
felt that his cultivation of the honorable gentleman had proceeded far
enough to justify some boldness. He had succeeded in getting the
Honorable Milt pretty well entangled in speculative investments and
under his thumb by way of certain personal loans, protected by personal
notes. In addition, there was the little flyer in real-estate which
the Honorable Milton and his satellite, Blatchford Ferguson, had put
through with Nickleby's assistance. That little transaction would cost
the honorable gentleman his portfolio with the Government if it became
known. So that, taking everything into consideration, Mr. Nickleby
felt quite confident that he could persuade the Honorable Milton Waring
and Blatchford Ferguson to fall in with the somewhat ambitious plans
which President Nickleby had conceived for disposing of his stock in
the Interprovincial Loan & Savings Company at a satisfactory figure.

These plans amounted practically to theft; but this was something which
Nickleby would not admit, even to himself. He preferred to call it
"high finance,"