‘Yes.’
‘And what is the best price to-day?’
‘Well,’ said Lock, looking Sir Arthur straight in the face, ‘I have had shares offered to me this morning at twenty-five.’
Sir Arthur’s reply was to rush to the sideboard and help himself to a glass of brandy. He was a timid creature, despite his appearance.
‘And that figure means that we should lose the sum of twenty-two pounds on each share. Twenty-two times one hundred and twenty thousand, Sir Arthur, is two millions six hundred and forty thousand pounds. That would be the amount of our loss on the transaction.’
‘But this is child’s play, Lock.’
‘Excuse me, it isn’t,’ said Simon Lock. ‘It is men’s play, and desperately serious.’
‘I don’t understand the methods of the Stock Exchange—never did,’ said Sir Arthur Custer, M.P. ‘I only came into the City because a lot of fellows like yourself asked me to. But it seems to me the only thing to do is to cry off.’
‘Cry off?’
‘Yes. Tell all these people to whom we have contracted to sell Princesse shares that we simply can’t supply ’em, and tell ’em to do their worst. Their worst won’t be worse than a dead loss of over two and a half millions.’