“It’s a small world this,” said Fairfax, sententiously, “and coincidences are the commonest things in it. I suppose in a novel the pair of them ought to have come together, and forgiven the past, and married, and settled down in a villa residence with ivy and clematis attachment, and lived happily ever afterwards. Unfortunately, real life is balder and far less romantic.”
“You seem out of spirits,” said his fiancée, linking her fingers over his arm.
“I suppose I am. To begin with, this Port Edes business isn’t calculated to enliven one; and then, on the top of that, I’ve had another taste of your blessed guardian’s business methods, which has nearly sickened me out of the office altogether. You know about this ‘Brothers Steamship Company’ which he is trying to float? Well, we had a preliminary meeting to-day—quite a thousand people, and all, comparatively speaking, poor. They were, for the most part, the gang he preaches to on Sunday, with a sprinkling of skippers out of work, and other sea-faring folk who had saved a trifle of money.
“Shelf commenced the business with prayer, which is right enough at its proper time, but struck me as being particularly out of place there. The audience, however, groaned approval, and their confidence in the man seemed to be strengthened. He followed this up with a clever speech about the profits to be made out of the modern sea-carrying trade, and enlarged upon the notorious fact that the losses of the business largely arose from the lack of interest on the part of the ship-masters and other officers. This last, he said, would be entirely removed in the Brothers S. S. Co., because, by the articles of association, no man would hold a responsible position on any one of their vessels who was not an actual shareholder of the company. And then he pointed out that there was an eight per cent. dividend guaranteed on preference stock, and a certain fifteen or eighteen per cent. on the ordinary, and wound up with another dose of cant. The company, he said, would not be alone content with earning income for its bond-holders; it would have as its equal object the spreading of the Gospel and the civilization of England to the uttermost parts of the globe.
“Then the meeting cheered and amenned, and wrote out an application for 10,000 £5 shares then and there in the room on forms which were handed round; and down your blessed guardian went on his knees again, and prayed for grace to bless his efforts; and when the poor fools dispersed, Mr. Theodore Shelf and I drove back to the offices.
“‘Look here,’ I said to him; ‘you’ve put me down on the directorate of this thing with a salary of £1000 a year. I want to resign.’
“‘What on earth for?’
“‘Oh! Shall we say I haven’t sufficient loose money to take up enough shares?’
“‘But,’ he said quickly, ‘you needn’t take up many. You can draw your first quarter’s salary and pay that back to the company’s bankers on your first call. That will qualify you.’