"Undoubtedly. Bogus telegrams are not officially recognised by the Stock Exchange."
Alington was certainly at his best, so thought Jack, when things happened. His sleek, unhurried respectability, a little trying and conventional at ordinary times, though unaltered in itself, became admirable, a rare manifestation of self-control. No flurried quickening marked his precise, unhurried sentences; they remained just as leisurely as ever. As in the days when Carmel East and West was behaving in so mercurial a manner, though so consonantly with his wishes, so now, when the greater coup had struck so back-handedly against himself, he did not cease to be imperturbably calm and lucid. Though without breeding in the ordinary sense of the word, he had to a notable extent that most characteristic mark of breeding, utter absence of exaltation in unexpected prosperity and complete composure in disaster. There was nothing affected about him; he was, as always, unimpulsive master of himself, and this, which in the social mill seemed a lack of animation, in the mill of adversity became a thing to respect.
"You take it very quietly," said Jack.
"It is mere habit," said Alington. "By the way, I hope, my dear fellow, that your wife is better?"
"Much better, thanks. We went to Goring yesterday."
"So I saw in the papers. How much had you in Carmel?"
"Eight thousand pounds cash. And half of my shares I have bought only, not paid for."
"Ah! will that be a difficulty?"
"More like an impossibility, unless they go up before settling-day."