"But the trading concessions are all right," insisted the other. "You can't deny that. You understand the Coast customs better than I do. Trading customs hold without endorsement from the Colonial Office."
Bones had to admit that that was a fact.
"I'll think it over," he said. "It appeals to me, old de Vinne. It really does appeal to me. Who own the shares?"
"I can give you a list," said Mr. de Vinne, with admirable calm, "and you'd be well advised to negotiate privately with these gentlemen. You'd probably get the shares for eighteen shillings." He took a gold pencil from his pocket and wrote rapidly a list of names, and Bones took the paper from his hand and scrutinised them.
Hamilton, a silent and an amazed spectator of the proceedings, waited until de Vinne had gone, and then fell upon his partner.
"You're not going to be such a perfect jackass——" he began, but
Bones's dignified gesture arrested his eloquence.
"Dear old Ham," he said, "senior partner, dear old thing! Let old
Bones have his joke."
"Do you realise," said Hamilton, "that you are contemplating the risk of a quarter of a million? You're mad, Bones!"
Bones grinned.
"Go down to our broker and buy ten thousand shares in old Mazeppa, Ham," he said. "You'll buy them on the market for nineteen shillings, and I've an idea that they're worth about the nineteenth part of a farthing."