Chapter 33 - Page 2

shoulders," he remarked.

"You've carried it quite through?" inquired Tembarom.

"We have set on foot one of the largest, most substantially capitalized companies in the European business world," Palliser replied, with the composure which is almost indifference.

"Good!" said Tembarom cheerfully.

He watched his guest a good deal during the day. He was a bad color for a man who had just steered clear of all shoals and reached the highest point of success. He had a haggard eye as well as a haggard face. It was a terrified eye when its desperate determination to hide its terrors dropped from it for an instant, as a veil might drop. A certain restlessness was manifest in him, and he talked more than usual. He was going to make a visit in Northumberland to an elderly lady of great possessions. It was to be vaguely gathered that she was somewhat interested in the great company--the Cedric. She was a remarkable old person who found a certain agreeable excitement in dabbling in stocks. She was rich enough to be in a position to regard it as a sort of game, and he had been able on several occasions to afford her entertainment. He would remain a few days, and spend his time chiefly in telling her the details of the great scheme and the manner in which they were to be developed.

"If she can play with things that way, she'll be sure to want stock in it," Tembarom remarked.

"If she does, she must make up her mind quickly," Palliser smiled, "or she will not be able to get it. It is not easy to lay one's hands on even now."

Tembarom thought of certain speculators of entirely insignificant standing of whom he had chanced to see and hear anecdotes in New York. Most of them were youths of obscure origin who sold newspapers or blacked boots, or "swapped" articles the value of which lay in the desire they could excite in other persons to possess them. A popular method known as "bluff" was their most trusted weapon, and even at twelve and fifteen years of age Tembarom had always regarded it as singularly obvious. He always detested "bluff," whatsoever its disguise, and was rather mystified by its ingenious faith in itself.

"He's got badly stung," was his internal comment as he sucked at his pipe and smiled urbanely at Palliser across the room as they sat together. "He's come here with some sort of deal on that he knows he couldn't work with any one but just such a fool as he thinks I am. I guess," he added in composed reflectiveness, "I don't really know how big a fool I do look."

Whatsoever the deal was, he would be likely to let it be known in time.

"He'll get it off his chest if he's going away to-morrow," decided Tembarom. "If there's anything he's found out, he'll use it. If it doesn't pan out as he thinks it will he'll just float away to his old lady."

He gave Palliser every chance, talking to him and encouraging him to talk, even asking him to