E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
1921
The Marchioness of Amesbury was giving a garden party in the spacious butsomewhat urban grounds of her mansion in Kensington. Perhaps because itwas the first affair of its sort of the season, and perhaps, also,because Cecilia Amesbury had the knack of making friends in every walk oflife, it was remarkably well attended. Two stockbrokers, Roger Kendrickand his friend Maurice White, who had escaped from the City a littleearlier than usual, and had shared a taxicab up west, congratulatedthemselves upon having found a quiet and shady seat where iced drinkswere procurable and the crush was not so great.
"Anything doing in your market to-day?" Kendrick asked his youngerassociate.
White made a little grimace.
"B. & I., B. & I., all the time," he grumbled. "I'm sick of the name ofthe damned things. And to tell you the truth, Ken, when a client asks formy advice about them, I don't know what to say."
Kendrick contemplated the tips of his patent boots. He was awell-looking, well-turned-out and well-to-do representative of theoccupation which he, his father and grandfather had followed,—ten yearsolder, perhaps, than his companion, but remarkably well-preserved. He hadmade money and kept it.
"They say that Rockefeller's at the back of them," he remarked.
"They may say what they like but who's to prove it?" his young companionargued. "They must have enormous backing, of course, but until theydeclare it, I'm not pushing the business. Look at the Board on theirmerits, Ken."
Roger Kendrick nodded. Every one on the Stock Exchange was interested inB. & I.'s, and he settled himself down comfortably to hear what hiscompanion had to say on the matter.
"There's old Dreadnought Phipps," White continued. "Peter Phipps, togive him his right name. Well, has ever a man who aspires to beconsidered a financial giant had such a career? He was broken on the NewYork Stock Exchange, went to Montreal and made a million or so, back toNew York, where he got in with the copper lot and no doubt made realmoney. Then he went for that wheat corner in Chicago. He got out of thatwith another fortune, though they say he sold his fellow directors. Nowhe turns up here, chairman of the B. & I., who must have bought fiftymillion pounds' worth of wheat already this year. Well, unless he'sconsiderably out of his depth, he must have some one else's money toplay with besides his own."
"Let me see, who are the other directors?" Kendrick enquired.
"Well, there's young Stanley Rees, Phipps' nephew, who came in for threehundred thousand pounds a few years ago," Maurice White answered; "oldskinflint Martin, who may be worth half a million but certainly not more;and Dredlinton. Dredlinton's rabbit, of course. He hasn't got a bob.There's money enough amongst the rest for any ordinary businessundertaking, if only one could understand what the mischief they were upto. They can't corner wheat in this country."
"I wonder," Kendrick murmured. "The harvests last year were bad all overthe world, you know, and this year, except in the States and Canada, theywill be worse. With another fifty million it might be done."
"But they're taking deliveries," White pointed out. "They have granariesall over the kingdom, sub