In the years gone by he had mixed with many of the shady characters of the complex world of the City, but now, in his opulence, he had apparently cut himself adrift from them all, and prided himself upon his eminent respectability.
As he sat there that winter’s morning, leaning back in his big leather armchair before the fire, he was dictating a letter to the governors of a great orphanage at Bristol, promising to defray the cost of building a much needed wing of the institution.
Then, having done so, he added to his secretary, a rather smug looking man in black:
“And you might also write a paragraph to-day, Stone, and send it to the Press Association. You know what to say—‘magnificent gift,’ and all that sort of thing. They’ll send it out to the newspapers.”
“Yes, Sir Felix,” answered the man, making a note in shorthand.
“Let’s see, what else is there? Ah! The Malms Syndicate! Write saying that I withdraw,” he remarked.
His secretary hesitated.
“But that, Sir Felix, means ruin to all three. They are all poor men.”
“That’s just what I intend,” he answered with a smile. “We shall do that business ourselves, as soon as they are out of it.”
So Mr Stone scribbled rapidly a letter in shorthand, which meant the ruin of three honest men, who, believing in the great financier’s promises, had taken upon themselves liabilities which they could not meet.