It was under these conditions that such an increment of wealth came to him as only befalls men who have earned the apparent accident of fortune by permanent and uncompromising labour.
In the April of that momentous year 1910, Mr. Clutterbuck suddenly achieved a financial position of such eminence as those who have not toiled and thought and planned are too often tempted to believe fortuitous.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The present price of sixpence a share is, in the opinion of the author, merely nominal, and any one with a few pounds to spare would do well to buy, for further Government action in connection with the docks has been rendered inevitable by the necessity of admitting new ships of the Dreadnought type for repair to plates after firing.
[2] After the fruitful interference of the Board of Trade.
CHAPTER III
It was certain, as the month of April 1910 proceeded, that a demand would suddenly be made upon English capital for the exploitation of the Manatasara Syndicate's concession upon the Upper Congo.
I mention the matter only to elucidate what follows, for Mr. Clutterbuck was neither of the social rank nor of the literary world in which the salvation of the unhappy natives of the Congo had been the principal theme for months and years before.