"I'll have a little flutter in raspberry jam if you like. Anything as long as I can rush every night for the last edition of the evening papers and say now and then, 'Good heavens, I'm ruined!'"
"Then you'd better try a gold mine," said Henry bitterly, in the voice of one who has tried. "Take your choice," and he threw the paper over to me.
"I don't want a whole mine—only a vein or two. Yes, this is very interesting," I went on, as I got among the West Africans. "The scoring seems to be pretty low; I suppose it must have been a wet wicket. 'H.E. Reef, 1¾, 2'—he did a little better in the second innings. '½, Boffin River, 5/16, 7/16,—they followed on, you see, but they saved the innings defeat. By the way, which figure do I really keep my eye on when I want to watch them go up and down?"
"Both. One eye on each. And don't talk about Boffin River to me."
"Is it like that, Henry? I am sorry. I suppose it's too late now to offer you a safe mortgage at five per cent.? I know a man who has some. Well, perhaps you're right."
On the next day I became a magnate. The Jaguar Mine was the one I fixed upon—for two reasons. First, the figure immediately after it was 1, which struck me as a good point from which to watch it go up and down. Secondly, I met a man at lunch who knew somebody who had actually seen the Jaguar Mine.
"He says that there's no doubt about there being lots there."
"Lots of what? Jaguars or gold?"
"Ah, he didn't say. Perhaps he meant Jaguars."
Anyhow, it was an even chance, and I decided to risk it. In a week's time I was the owner of what we call in the City a "block" of Jaguars—bought from one Herbert Bellingham, who, I suppose, had been got at by his solicitor and compelled to return to something safe. I was a West African magnate.