"What's that, Fred?"
"Bones," said Fred, in tones sufficiently sepulchral to be appropriate, "and, Joe, he's one of those bones I want to pick."
There was another office in that great and sorrowful City. It was perhaps less of an office than a boudoir, for it had been furnished on the higher plan by a celebrated firm of furnishers and decorators, whose advertisements in the more exclusive publications consisted of a set of royal arms, a photograph of a Queen Anne chair, and the bold surname of the firm. It was furnished with such exquisite taste that you could neither blame nor praise the disposition of a couch or the set of a purple curtain.
The oxydized silver grate, the Persian carpets, the rosewood desk, with its Venetian glass flower vase, were all in harmony with the panelled walls, the gentlemanly clock which ticked sedately on the Adam mantelpiece, the Sheraton chairs, the silver—or apparently so—wall sconces, the delicate electrolier with its ballet skirts of purple silk.
All these things were evidence of the careful upbringing and artistic yearnings of the young man who "blended" for the eminent firm of Messrs. Worrows, By Appointment to the King of Smyrna, His Majesty the Emperor —— (the blank stands for an exalted name which had been painted out by the patriotic management of Worrows), and divers other royalties.
The young man who sat in the exquisite chair, with his boots elevated to and resting upon the olive-green leather of the rosewood writing-table, had long since grown familiar with the magnificence in which he moved and had his being. He sat chewing an expensive paper-knife of ivory, not because he was hungry, but because he was bored. He had entered into his kingdom brimful of confidence and with unimagined thousands of pounds to his credit in the coffers of the Midland and Somerset Bank.
He had brought with him a bright blue book, stoutly covered and brassily locked, on which was inscribed the word "Schemes."
That book was filled with writing of a most private kind and of a frenzied calculation which sprawled diagonally over pages, as for example:
Buy up old houses . . . . . . . . . say 2,000 pounds.
Pull them down . . . . . . . . . . . say 500 pounds.
Erect erect 50 Grand Flats . . . . . say 10,000 pounds.
Paper, pante, windows, etc. . . . . say 1,000 pounds.
———
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,000 pounds.
50 Flats let at 80 pounds per annum. 40,000 lbs.
Net profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . say 50 per cent.
NOTE.—For good middel class familys steady steady people. By this means means doing good turn to working classes solving houseing problem and making money which can be distribbuted distribbutted to the poor.