'Yes, I see that,' said John. 'Good-bye.'
He went to the telegraph-office and sent a cablegram.
Wentworth received the message in London the next morning. It read:
'We are cheated. Longworth has the option on the mine in his own name.'
CHAPTER XXXIII.
When George Wentworth received this message, he read it several times over before its full meaning dawned upon him. Then he paced up and down his room, and gave way to his feelings. His best friends, who had been privileged to hear George's vocabulary when he was rather angry, admitted that the young man had a fluency of expression which was very more terse than proper. When the real significance of the despatch became apparent to him, George outdid himself in this particular line. Then he realized that, however consolatory such language is to a very angry man, it does little good in any practical way. He paced silently up and down the room, wondering what he could do, and the more he wondered the less light he saw through the fog. He put on his hat and went into the other room.
'Henry,' he said to his partner, 'do you know anybody who would lend me twenty thousand pounds?'
Henry laughed. The idea of anybody lending that sum of money, except on the very best security, was in itself extremely comic.
'Do you want it to-day?' he said.