"Buy my shares?" said de Vinne quickly.
"Well, he didn"t exactly say that," said Fred. "But he gave me to understand that he"d rather buy the shares from me than from anybody else, and I thought it was such an excellent idea, and I could fix it up with you on the telephone, so I sold him----"
"How many?" wailed de Vinne.
"A hundred and fifty thousand," said Mr. Fred, and the two men stared at one another.
De Vinne licked his dry lips.
"It comes to this," he said. "Between us we"ve sold him three hundred and thirty thousand shares. There are only two hundred and fifty thousand shares issued, so we"ve got to deliver eighty thousand shares that are non-existent or be posted as defaulters."
Another long pause, and then both men said simultaneously, as though the thought had struck them for the first time:
"Why, the fellow"s a rogue!"
The next morning they called upon Bones, and they were with him for half an hour; and when they went, they left behind them, not only the cheques that Bones had given them, but another cheque for a most substantial amount as consideration.
That night Bones gave a wonderful dinner-party at the most expensive hotel in London. Sanders was there, and Patricia Sanders, and Hamilton, and a certain Vera, whom the bold Bones called by her Christian name, but the prettiest of the girls was she who sat on his right and listened to the delivery of Bones"s great speech in fear and trembling.
"The toast of the evening, dear old friends," said Bones, "is Cupidity and Cupid. Coupled with the names of the Honourable de Vinne and my young and lovely typewriter--my friend and companion in storm and stress, the only jolly old lady, if I may be allowed to say so, that has stirred my young heart"--he caught Patricia Sanders"s accusing eye, coughed, and added--"in Europe!"
THE END