Chapter 3 - Page 2

something. And shove it.... I could.

"Or a play. There's a deal of money in a play, George. What would you think of me writing a play eh?... There's all sorts of things to be done.

"Or the stog-igschange."

He fell into that meditative whistling of his.

"Sac-ramental wine!" he swore, "this isn't the world--it's Cold Mutton Fat! That's what Wimblehurst is! Cold Mutton Fat!--dead and stiff! And I'm buried in it up to the arm pits. Nothing ever happens, nobody wants things to happen 'scept me! Up in London, George, things happen. America! I wish to Heaven, George, I'd been born American--where things hum.

"What can one do here? How can one grow? While we're sleepin' here with our Capital oozing away into Lord Eastry's pockets for rent-men are up there...." He indicated London as remotely over the top of the dispensing counter, and then as a scene of great activity by a whirl of the hand and a wink and a meaning smile at me.

"What sort of things do they do?" I asked.

"Rush about," he said. "Do things! Somethin' glorious. There's cover gambling. Ever heard of that, George?" He drew the air in through his teeth. "You put down a hundred say, and buy ten thousand pounds worth. See? That's a cover of one per cent. Things go up one, you sell, realise cent per cent; down, whiff, it's gone! Try again! Cent per cent, George, every day. Men are made or done for in an hour. And the shoutin'! Zzzz.... Well, that's one way, George. Then another way--there's Corners!"

"They're rather big things, aren't they?" I ventured.

"Oh, if you go in for wheat or steel--yes. But suppose you tackled a little thing, George. Just some little thing that only needed a few thousands. Drugs for example. Shoved all you had into it--staked your liver on it, so to speak. Take a drug--take ipecac, for example. Take a lot of ipecac. Take all there is! See? There you are! There aren't unlimited supplies of ipecacuanha--can't be!--and it's a thing people must have. Then quinine again! You watch your chance, wait for a tropical war breaking out, let's say, and collar all the quinine. Where ARE they? Must have quinine, you know. Eh? Zzzz.

"Lord! there's no end of things--no end of little things. Dill-water--all the suffering babes yowling for it. Eucalyptus again--cascara--witch hazel--menthol--all the toothache things. Then there's antiseptics, and curare, cocaine...."

"Rather a nuisance to the doctors," I reflected.

"They got to look out for themselves. By Jove, yes. They'll do you if they can, and you do them. Like brigands. That makes it romantic. That's the Romance of Commerce, George. You're in the mountains there! Think of having all the quinine in the world, and some millionaire's pampered wife gone ill with malaria, eh? That's a squeeze, George, eh? Eh? Millionaire on his motor car outside, offering you any price you liked. That 'ud wake up Wimblehurst....