“I am sorry to have troubled you in the matter, Schwartz. And I fear you are having a poor time of it, what between the recital of my difficulties and the unfortunate incident which took place last night.”
“Last night’s affair will adjust itself in a day or two,” answered Schwartz, grimly, thinking, no doubt, of the £50 note he had just tossed to Minkie. “The really important item now is this absurd predicament of yours, Grosvenor—”
“Don’t forget that the suggestion came from you in the first instance.”
“I am well aware you asked me to let you know if there was anything good going,” said Schwartz, rather stiffly. “My friends usually follow my judgment with satisfactory results, and I was quite certain that this Kwantu mine was a swindle, but how was I to ascertain that this special flotation was to be made use of for a squeeze? And you are not the only fish struggling in the net.”
“Then the others have my sympathy. Yet it was a piece of lunacy on my part to indulge in a heavy bear speculation in interests of which I was utterly ignorant. I don’t mind losing a hundred or two in a fair gamble, and I have usually come out on the right side of the ledger, but it was the worst sort of madness to sell a thousand shares in a West African Company. Good heavens! What right has a man who is almost a sleeping partner in a city warehouse to dabble in concerns like that!”
“Let me see,” said Schwartz, giving his friend a quick side look as he took a letter from his pocket, “you sold at something over par?”
“Yes,” answered the Guv’nor, still gazing at the fire.
“And they are now at 6-1/4?”
“Yes. Over £5,000 gone already, and the special settlement due on the 10th of next month.”
“Can you buy at that price?”