The Major was shown in to the business-like-looking little grey man in his office at Drapers Buildings, but he did not take the seat offered.
“Now then, Mr Caley, I’ve come up. It is all a scare, is it not?”
The stockbroker shrugged his shoulders.
“Scare, sir? Perhaps; but everybody who holds these shares is realising for anything he can get.”
“But I heard such excellent reasons for buying them on the best authority,” cried the Major. “It promised to be almost a fortune.”
“My dear sir,” said the stockbroker; “most people who invest in mining shares do so on the best authority, and anticipate fortunes.”
“Yes, yes, but—”
“And then, to use the old simile, sir, find that they have cast their money down a deep hole.”
“Tut-tut-tut-tut!” ejaculated the Major. “But the latest news of the mine?”
“The latest news on ’Change, sir, is worse than that which we wired to you. It is disastrous, and seems to me like the bursting of a bubble. But it may not be so bad. We are quiet men, Major Gurdon, and deal with old-fashioned investors in government and corporation stocks. Two and a half, three, three and a half, and debentures. We do nothing with speculative business.”