ir. Then he smiled
faintly. "I'm afraid we're speaking of different things," he suggested.
"Apparently you refer to the financial papers. I had scarcely given them
a thought. It does not seem to me that I should mind particularly what
they said about me--but I should care a great deal about the other
press--the great public press."

"Oh, what do they know about these things?" said Thorpe, lightly. "So
far as I can see, they don't know about anything, unless it gets into
the police court, or the divorce court, or a court of some kind. They're
the funniest sort of papers I ever saw. Seems as if they didn't think
anything was safe to be printed until it had been sworn to. Why anybody
should be afraid of them is more than I can see."

"Nevertheless," persisted his Lordship, blandly, "I should greatly
dislike any public discussion of our Company's affairs. I hope it is
quite clear that that can be avoided."

"Absolutely!" Thorpe told him, with reassuring energy. "Why, discussions
don't make themselves. Somebody has to kick before anything gets
discussed. And who is to kick here? The public who hold the shares are
not likely to complain because they've gone up fifteen hundred or two
thousand per cent. And who else has any interest in what the Company, as
a Company, does?"

"Ah, that is a question which has occurred to me," said Lord Chaldon,
"and I shall be glad if it is already answered. The only people likely
to 'kick,' as you put it so simply, would be, I take it, Directors and
other officers of the Company who find themselves holding a class of
shares which does not participate in the present rise. I speak with some
confidence--because I was in that position myself until a few
minutes ago--and I don't mind confessing that I had brought myself to
contemplate the contingency of ultimately being compelled to--to 'kick'
a little. Of course, so far as I am concerned, events have put me in a
diametrically different frame of mind. If I came prepared--I won't say
to curse, but to--to criticize--I certainly remain to bless. But you
see my point. I of course do not know what you have done as regards the
other members of the Board."

"I don't care about them," said Thorpe, carelessly. "You are the one
that I wished to bring in on the ground-floor. The others don't matter.
Of course, I shall do something for them; they shan't be allowed to make
trouble--even supposing that it would be in their power to make trouble,
which isn't