't be. Titles on prospectuses are played out in London.
I've rather a notion, indeed, that they're apt to do more harm than
good--just at present, at least. But all that aside--you are the man who
was civil to me at the start, when you knew nothing whatever about my
scheme, and you are the man who was good to me later on, when I didn't
know where to turn for a friendly word. Very well; here I am! I've made
my coup! And I'd be a sweep, wouldn't I? to forget to-day what I was so
glad to remember a week ago. But you see, I don't forget! The capital
of the Company is 500,000 pounds, all in pound shares. We offered the
public only a fifth of them. The other four hundred thousand shares are
mine as vendor--and I have ear-marked in my mind one hundred thousand of
them to be yours."

Lord Plowden's face paled at the significance of these words. "It is
too much--you don't reflect what it is you are saying," he murmured
confusedly. "Not a bit of it," the other reassured him. "Everything that
I've said goes."

The peer, trembling a little, rose to his feet. "It is a preposterously
big reward for the merest act of courtesy," he insisted. "Of course it
takes my breath away for joy--and yet I feel I oughtn't to be consenting
to it at all. And it has its unpleasant side--it buries me under a
mountain of obligation. I don't know what to do or what to say."

"Well, leave the saying and doing to me, then," replied Thorpe, with a
gesture before which the other resumed his seat. "Just a word more--and
then I suppose we'd better be going. Look at it in this way. Your
grandfather was Lord Chancellor of England, and your father was
a General in the Crimea. My grandfather kept a small second-hand
book-shop, and my father followed him in the business. In one sense,
that puts us ten thousand miles apart. But in another sense, we'll say
that we like each other, and that there are ways in which we can be of
immense use to each other, and that brings us close together. You need
money--and here it is for you. I need--what shall I say?--a kind of
friendly lead in the matter of establishing myself on the right footing,
among the right people--and that's what you can do for me. Mind--I'd
prefer to put it all in quite another way; I'd like to say it was
all niceness on your part, all gratitude on mine. But if you want to
consider it on a business basis--why there you have it also--perfectly
plain and clear."

He got up as he finished, and Lord Plowd