Rostocker was the older and stronger man, and when at last he spoke it was with the decision of one in authority. “It is your game,” he said, with grave imperturbability. “Eight thousand five hundred at twenty-five. Will you deliver at the Credit Lyonnais in half an hour?”
Thorpe nodded, impassively. Then a roving idea of genial impertinence brought a gleam to his eye. “If you should happen to want more Rubber Consols at any time,” he said, with a tentative chuckle, “I could probably let you have them at a reduced price.”
The two received the pleasantry without a smile, but to Thorpe's astonishment one of them seemed to discern something in it beside banter. It was Rostocker who said: “Perhaps we may make a deal with you,” and apparently meant it.
They went out at this, ignoring ceremony upon their exit as stolidly as they had done upon their entrance, and a moment later Thorpe called in the Secretary, and despatched a messenger to bring Semple from Capel Court. The formalities of this final transfer of shares had been dictated to the former, and he had gone off on the business, before the Broker arrived.
Thorpe stood waiting near the door, and held out his hand with a dramatically significant gesture when the little Scotchman entered. “Put her there!” he exclaimed heartily, with an exuberant reversion to the slang of remote transatlantic bonhomie.
“Yeh've done it, then!” said Semple, his sharp face softening with pleasure at the news. “Yeh've pulled it off at twenty-three!”
The other's big countenance yielded itself to a boyish grin. “Twenty-FIVE!” he said, and laughed aloud. “After you left this morning, it kind o' occurred to me that I'd raise it a couple of pounds. I found I was madder about those pieces in the newspapers than I thought I was, and so I took an extra seventeen thousand pounds on that account.”
“God above!” Semple ejaculated, with a satisfaction through which signs of an earlier fright were visible. “It was touch-and-go if you didn't lose it all by doing that! You risked everything, man!”
Thorpe ponderously shrugged his shoulders. “Well—I did it, anyhow, and it came off,” was his comment. Then, straightening himself, he drew a long, long breath, and beamed down at the little man. “Think of it! God! It's actually all over! And NOW perhaps we won't have a drink! Hell! Let's send out for some champagne!” His finger was hovering over the bell, when the Broker's dissuading voice arrested it. “No, no!” Semple urged. “I wouldn't touch it. It's no fit drink for the daytime—and it's a scandal in an office. Your clerks will aye blab it about hither and yon, and nothing harms a man's reputation more in the City.”
“Oh, to hell with the City!” cried Thorpe, joyously. “I'm never going to set foot in it again. Think of that! I mean it!”