The capital was not large: the district was but one of many, but the strong interest which the place had aroused and the very restriction in the number of available shares had roused the public.
The allotment had been followed by a sharp rise. There were dealings in the new quotation so continual and so vigorous as to recall the great days before the South African War. The premium upon "Congoes," as they were affectionately called, rose without ceasing—and just at the moment when Mr. Clutterbuck was beginning, but only beginning, to grasp the story of the company, he was permitted, somewhat doubtfully, by his doctor to return for an hour or two to the City.
He reached his office, where a warm and cordial welcome awaited him; his correspondence had already been opened, and an abstract made by his Clerk and Secretary, when, before he had fully mastered what had happened, that admirable assistant remarked to him in a tone more deferential than he had expected, that he had received full allotment for his application in consideration of the very early date on which he approached the Syndicate.
"What allotment?" said the enfeebled Mr. Clutterbuck, as he looked up in some astonishment from the paper before him.
"The allotment in Congoes, sir. I understood I was to apply. I kept the money ready, sir."
"You've paid nothing I hope," said Mr. Clutterbuck in a testy voice too often associated with convalescents. "You haven't been such a fool as to pay anything on your own?"
"Well, sir——" said the Clerk hesitatingly. Then he waited for a moment for the full effect of his good fortune to penetrate Mr. Clutterbuck's renewed conceptions of the outer world.
Mr. Clutterbuck read the letter before him twice over, slowly. He had received allotment to the full amount; the call had been for a half-crown on 60,000. He did not appreciate how he stood. His mind, always rather sane than alert, was enfeebled by illness and long absence from affairs.
"You've been doing something silly," he said again peevishly, "something damned silly. I don't understand. I'll repudiate it. I don't understand what you've done—I don't believe it's meant for me at all."