FULL DETAILS.

"What d'ye think of that?" cried O'Flaherty, triumphantly, as if he had
had some hand in the matter. "Now I must git off to me work, and you'll
have it all before long in your hands. Ye should bliss your stars that
ye have some one among ye to offer ye the convanience of the latest
news. Good noight to ye all," and he trotted back into his office with
his hat and its silver contents in his hand.

The crowd broke up into a score of gesticulating chattering groups, and
wandered up or down the street. Ezra Girdlestone waited until they had
cleared away, and then stepped into the office of the _Advertiser_.

"What's the matter now?" asked O'Flaherty, angrily. He was a man who
lived in a state of chronic irritation.

"Have you a duplicate of that paper?"

"Suppose I have?"

"What will you sell it for?"

"What will you give?"

"Half a sovereign."

"A sovereign."

"Done!" and so Ezra Girdlestone walked out of the office with full
details in his hand, and departed to his hotel, where he read the
account through very slowly and deliberately. It appeared to be
satisfactory, for he chuckled to himself a good deal as he perused it.
Having finished it, he folded the paper up, placed it in his breast
pocket, and, having ordered his horse, set off to the neighbouring
township of Dutoitspan with the intention of carrying the news with him.

Ezra had two motives in galloping across the veldt that October night.
One was to judge with his own ears and eyes what effect the news would
have upon practical men. The other was a desire to gratify that
sinister pleasure which an ill-natured man has in being the bearer of
evil tidings. They had probably heard the report by this time, but it
was unlikely that any details had reached them. No one knew better than
young Girdlestone that this message from Europe would bring utter ruin
and extinction to many a small capitalist, that it would mean the
shattering of a thousand hopes, and the advent of poverty and misery to
the men with whom he had been associating. In spite of this knowledge,
his heart beat high, as his father's had done in London, and as he
spurred his horse onwards through the darkness, he was hardly able to
refrain from shouting and whooping in his exultation.

The track from Kimberley to Dutoitspan was a rough one, but the moon was
up, and the young merchant found no difficulty in following it. When he
reached the summi