“That is possible,” he said gravely, setting down his cup. “And now I must find my way back to The Hague. Good night.”
“He is clever,” said Dorothy, when Roden returned after having shown Cornish the way.
“Yes,” answered Roden, without enthusiasm.
“You do not seem to be pleased at the thought,” she said carelessly.
“Oh—it will be all right! If his cleverness runs in the right direction.”
CHAPTER VII. OFFICIAL.
“One may be so much a man of the world as to be nothing in
the world.”
Political Economy will some day have to recognize Philanthropy as a possible—nay, a certain stumbling-block in the world's progress towards that millennium when Supply and Demand shall sit down together in peace. Charity is certainly sowing seed into the ridges of time which will bear startling fruit in the future. For Charity does not hesitate to close up an industry or interfere with a trade that supplies thousands with their daily bread. Thus the Malgamite scheme so glibly inaugurated by Lord Ferriby in his drawing-room bore fruit within a week in a quarter to which probably few concerned had ever thought of casting an eye. The price of a high-class tinted paper fell in all the markets of the world. This paper could only be manufactured with a large addition of malgamite to its other components. In what may be called the prospectus of the Malgamite scheme it was stated that this great charity was inaugurated for the purpose of relieving the distress of the malgamiters—one of the industrial scandals of the day—by enabling these afflicted men to make their deadly product at a cheaper rate and without danger to themselves. This prospectus naturally came to the hands of those most concerned, namely, the manufacturers of coloured papers and the brokers who supply those manufacturers with their raw material.