“Oh, they'll be all right,” Thorpe affirmed. He laughed unconsciously as he did so. “No, what I want to get at is your idea of what should come to you, as a bonus, when I scoop the board.”
“Twenty thousand pounds,” said Semple, readily.
Thorpe's slow glance brightened a trifle. “I had thought thirty would be a fairer figure,” he remarked, with an effort at simplicity.
The broker put out his under-lip. “You will find people rather disposed to distrust a man who promises more than he's asked,” he remarked coldly.
“Yes—I know what you mean,” Thorpe hurried to say, flushing awkwardly, even though the remark was so undeserved; “but it's in my nature. I'm full of the notion of doing things for people that have done things for me. That's the way I'm built. Why”—he halted to consider the advisability of disclosing what he had promised to do for Lord Plowden, and decided against it—“why, without you, what would the whole thing have been worth to me? Take one thing alone—the money for the applications—I could have no more got at it than I could at the Crown Jewels in the Tower. I've wondered since, more than once—if you don't mind the question—how did you happen to have so much ready money lying about.”
“There are some Glasgow and Aberdeen folk who trust me to invest for them,” the broker explained. “If they get five per cent. for the four months, they'll be very pleased. And so I shall be very pleased to take thirty thousand instead of twenty—if it presents itself to your mind in that way. You will give me a letter to that effect, of course.”
“Of course,” assented Thorpe. “Write it now, if you like.” He pushed his chair forward, closer to the desk, and dipped a pen in the ink. “What I want to do is this,” he said, looking up. “I'll make the promise for thirty-two thousand, and I'll get you to let me have two thousand in cash now—a personal advance. I shall need it, if I'm to hang about on the Continent for four months. I judge you think it'll be four months before things materialize, eh?”
“The Special Settlement, in the natural order of events, would come shortly after the Christmas holidays. That is nearly three months. Then the work of taking fort-nightly profits will begin—and it is for you to say how long you allow that to go on.”
“But about the two thousand pounds now,” Thorpe reminded him.
“I think I will do that in this way,” said Semple, kicking his small legs nonchalantly. “I will buy two thousand fully-paid shares of you, for cash down, NOT vendor's shares, you observe—and then I will take your acknowledgment that you hold them for me in trust up to a given date. In that way, I would not at all weaken your market, and I would have a stake in the game.” “Your stake's pretty big, already,” commented Thorpe, tentatively.