'Who?'
'Beaple Yeo, the chief promoter and secretary, and treasurer pro tem. The speculation was certain to bring in twenty-five per cent., and he gave his personal security for seventeen.'
'And have you much capital in this concern?'
'Well—yes. The decimals grow thicker on this part of the coast than anywhere else in the world, and the decimals have an extraordinary healing effect in disease. They are cast up on the shore, and exhale a peculiar odour which is very stimulating. I have smelt the decimals myself—no, what am I saying, it is iodine, not decimals, but on my soul, I don't know exactly what the decimals are, but this I can tell you, they have run away with some good money of mine.'
'I do not understand yet.'
'How dense you are, Philip! For the sake of the iodine, we were going to build a city at or near Bridlington, to which all the sick people in Europe who could afford it, would troop. There was a crescent to be called after Lamb.'
'Well, has the land been bought on which to build and open the quarries?'
'No; that is the misfortune. Mr. Yeo has been unable to induce the landowners to sell, and so he has absconded with the money subscribed.'
'And is there no property on which to fall back?'
'Not an acre. What is to be done?'