"Whatever is it all about?" mildly asked Mrs. Fearns, a quiet and dignified, youngish woman whom motherhood had made somewhat absent-minded when she was away from her children.
"Missing-word competition," Fearns explained to her with curt, genial superiority. He laughed outright. "You do go it, some of you chaps," he said. "Why, that telegram cost over a couple of bob, I bet!"
"Well, you see," said Tom Swetnam, "three of us share it. We get it thirty-six hours before the paper's out--fellow in London--and there's so much more time to read the dictionary. No use half doing a thing! Twenty-seven pounds odd! Not a bad share this week, eh?"
"Won anything?"
"Rather. We had the wire about the winning word this morning. We'd sent it in four times. That makes about £110, doesn't it? Between three of us. We sent in nearly two hundred postal orders. Which leaves £100 clear. Thirty-three quid apiece, net."
He tried to speak calmly and nonchalantly, but his excitement was extreme. The two younger Swetnams regarded him with awe. Everybody was deeply impressed by the prodigious figures, and in many hearts envy, covetousness, and the wild desire for a large, free life of luxury were aroused.
"Seems to me you've reduced this game to a science," said Edwin.
"Well, we have," Tom Swetnam admitted. "We send in every possible word."
"It's a mere thousand per cent profit per week," murmured Fearns. "At the rate of fifty thousand per cent per annum."
Albert Benbow, entering, caught the last phrase, which very properly whetted his curiosity as a man of business. Clara followed him closely. On nearly all ceremonial occasions these two had an instinctive need of each other's presence and support; and if Albert did not run after Clara, Clara ran after Albert.