ntieth-century company promoters and magnates of the high
finance, had established his business quarters at his hotel. It was a
wise and pleasant thing to do, he explained to Allerdyke; you had the
advantage of living over the shop, as it were; of being able to go out of
your private sitting-room into your business office; you had the bright
and pleasant surroundings; you had, moreover, all the various rooms and
saloons of a first-rate hotel wherein to entertain your clients if need
be. Certainly you had to pay for these advantages and luxuries, but no
more than you would have to lay out in the rents, rates, and taxes of
palatial offices in a first-class business quarter.

"And my line of business demands luxurious fittings," remarked the
American, as he installed Allerdyke in a sybaritic armchair and handed
him a box of big cigars of a famous brand. "You're not the first
millionaire that's come to anchor in that chair, you know!"

"If they're millionaires in penny-pieces, maybe not," answered Allerdyke.
He lighted a cigar and glanced appraisingly at his surroundings--at the
thick velvet pile of the carpets, the fine furniture, the bookcases
filled with beautiful bindings, the choice bits of statuary, the two or
three unmistakably good pictures. "Doing good business, I reckon?" he
said, with true Yorkshire curiosity. "What's it run to, now?"

Fullaway showed his fine white teeth in a genial laugh.

"Oh, I've turned over two and three millions in a year in this little
den!" he answered cheerily. "Varies, you know, according to what people
have got to sell, and what good buyers there are knocking around."

"You keep a bit of sealing wax, of course?" suggested Allerdyke. "Take
care that some of the brass sticks when you handle it, no doubt?"

"Commission and percentage, of course," responded Fullaway.

"Ah, well, you've an advantage over chaps like me," said Allerdyke. "Now,
you shall take my case. We've made a pile of money in our firm,
grandfather, father, and myself; but, Lord, man, you wouldn't believe
what our expenses have been! Building mills, fitting machinery--and then,
wages! Why, I pay wages to six hundred workpeople every Friday afternoon!
Our wages bill runs to well over fourteen hundred pound a week. You've
naught of that sort, of course--no great staff to keep up?"

"No," answered Fullaway. He nodded his head towards the door of a room
through which they had just passed on their way into the agent's pr