Oswald Cray's haughty lip took an additional curl. "He may have been looked upon as a respectable man once; but he lost himself. He is not a desirable acquaintance for you."
"I could not help myself," she answered, her cheeks glowing. "It was necessary that I should see him, and the interview could not be delegated to another."
He made no reply: only continued by her side. Not until her house was nearly reached did he leave her. Then he stopped and held out his hand; but he had scarcely spoken a word to her all the way.
"Thank you for your kindness," said Sara. "But I am very sorry you should have troubled yourself to come with me. It must have broken your day greatly."
"Never mind; I shall catch it up," he answered, looking at his watch.. "I do not like to see you in these London streets alone. I cannot forget that Dr. Davenal was once my dear friend, and that you are his daughter."
[CHAPTER XL.]
A FLOURISHING COMPANY.
The Great Wheal Bang Mining Company had its offices in a commodious and irreproachable quarter of the city. If I give the familiar name Wheal Bang, instead of the difficult one Chwddyn, which can only be spelt from copy, letter by letter, and perhaps wrongly then, it is to save myself and my readers trouble. Not being Welsh, they might find a difficulty in arriving at the accurate pronunciation, just as I do at the spelling. The promoter of the Great Wheal Bang Mining Company, Mr. Barker, occupied sumptuous apartments in Piccadilly; and his copartner in the scheme, as Mark Cray was to all intents and purposes now, flourished in his mansion in Grosvenor Place.
The offices were undeniable in their appointments. Situation, width of staircase, size of rooms, decorations, furniture, attendants; all were of the first water. People who play with the money of others do not in general go to work sparingly; and speculative public schemes necessarily entail a large outlay. These schemes, springing up now and again in London, to the beguilement of the unwary--one in about every ten of which may succeed in the end--have been so well described by abler pens than mine, that I might hesitate even to touch upon them, were it not that the story cannot conveniently get on without my doing so, and that I have a true tale to tell. How many hearts have been made to ache from the misery entailed by these uncertain ventures, ushered in with so much pomp and flourish, so full a promise of prosperity; and how many heads unable to bear the weight of the final ruin, have been laid low in the grave, God alone will ever know. They have ruined thousands in body; they have ruined some in soul; and the public is not yet tired of them, and perhaps will not be to the end of time.
If you never had the chance of going to bed at night a poor man, and waking up in the morning with a larger fortune than could be counted, you might have it now. You had only to enter largely into the Great Wheal Bang Company, become the successful possessor of a number of its shares, and the thing was accomplished. For the world was running after it, and some of the applicants were successful in their request for allotments, and some were unsuccessful; and these last went away with a face as long as the Wheal Bang's own prospectus, growling out a prophecy of all manner of ill-fortune for it. Their grapes were sour. The shares were up in the market to a fabulous premium, and a man might take half a dozen into Capel Court, and come out of it with his pockets stuffed full of gold.