Mr. Augustus Tibbetts, called "Bones," made money by sheer luck—he made more by sheer artistic judgment. That is a fact which an old friend sensed a very short time after he had renewed his acquaintance with his sometime subordinate.
Yet Bones had the curious habit of making money in quite a different way from that which he planned—as, for example, in the matter of the great oil amalgamation. In these days of aeroplane travel, when it is next to impossible to watch the comings and goings of important individuals, or even to get wind of directors' meetings, the City is apt to be a little jumpy, and to respond to wild rumours in a fashion extremely trying to the nerves of conservative brokers.
There were rumours of a fusion of interests between the Franco-Persian Oil Company and the Petroleum Consolidated—rumours which set the shares of both concerns jumping up and down like two badly trained jazzers. The directorate of both companies expressed their surprise that a credulous public could accept such stories, and both M. Jorris, the emperor of the Franco-Persian block, and George Y. Walters, the prince regent of the "Petco," denied indignantly that any amalgamation was even dreamt of.
Before these denials came along Bones had plunged into the oil market, making one of the few flutters which stand as interrogation marks against his wisdom and foresight.
He did not lose; rather, he was the winner by his adventure. The extent of his immediate gains he inscribed in his private ledger; his ultimate and bigger balance he entered under a head which had nothing to do with the oil gamble—which was just like Bones, as Hamilton subsequently remarked.
Hamilton was staying with Sanders—late Commissioner of a certain group of Territories—and Bones was the subject of conversation one morning at breakfast.
The third at the table was an exceedingly pretty girl, whom the maidcalled "Madame," and who opened several letters addressed to "Mrs.Sanders," but who in days not long past had been known as PatriciaHamilton.
"Bones is wonderful," said Sanders, "truly wonderful! A man I know in the City tells me that most of the things he touches turn up trumps. And it isn't luck or chance. Bones is developing a queer business sense."
Hamilton nodded.
"It is his romantic soul which gets him there," he said. "Bones will not look at a proposition which hasn't something fantastical behind it. He doesn't know much about business, but he's a regular whale on adventure. I've been studying him for the past month, and I'm beginning to sense his method. If he sees a logical and happy end to the romantic side of any new business, he takes it on. He simply carries the business through on the back of a dream."
The girl looked up from the coffee-pot she was handling.
"Have you made up your mind, dear?"
"About going in with Bones?" Hamilton smiled. "No, not yet. Bones is frantically insistent, has had a beautiful new Sheraton desk placed in his office, and says that I'm the influence he wants, but——"
He shook his head.
"I think I understand," said Sanders. "You feel that he is doing it all out of sheer generosity and kindness. That would be like Bones. But isn't there a chance that what he says is true—that he does want a corrective influence?"
"Maybe that is so," said Captain Hamilton doubtfully. "And then there's the money. I don't mind investing my little lot, but it would worry me to see Bones pretending that all the losses of the firm came out of his share, and a big slice of the profits going into mine."
"I shouldn't let that worry you," said his sister quietly. "Bones is too nice-minded to do anything so crude. Of course, your money is nothing compared with Bones's fortune, but why don't you join him on the understanding that the capital of the Company should be—— How much would you put in?
"Four thousand."
"Well, make the capital eight thousand. Bones could always lend theCompany money. Debentures—isn't that the word?"
Sanders smiled in her face.
"You're a remarkable lady," he said. "From where on earth did you get your ideas on finance?"
She went red.
"I lunched with Bones yesterday," she said. "And here is the post."
"Silence, babbler," said Hamilton. "Before we go any farther, what about this matter of partnership you were discussing with Patricia?"
The maid distributed the letters. One was addressed:
"Captin Captian Hamilton, D.S.O."
"From Bones," said Hamilton unnecessarily, and Bones's letter claimed first attention. It was a frantic and an ecstatic epistle, heavily underlined and exclaimed.
"Dear old old Ham," it ran, "you simply must join me inmagnifficantnew sceme sheme plan! Wonderfull prophits profets! The most extraordinychancefor a fortune…"
"For Heaven's sake, what's this?" asked Hamilton, handing the letter across to his sister and indicating an illegible line. "It looks like 'a bad girl's leg' to me."
"My dear!" said the shocked Mrs. Sanders, and studied the vile caligraphy. "It certainly does look like that," she admitted, "and—— I see! 'Legacy' is the word."
"A bad girl's legacy is the titel of the play story picture" (Bones never crossed anything out). "There's a studyo at Tunbridge and two cameras and a fellow awfully nice fellow who understands it. A pot of money the story can be improve improved imensely. Come in it dear old man—magnifficantchance. See me at office eariliest earilest ealiest possible time.
"Thine in art for art sake,"BONES."
"From which I gather that Bones is taking a header into the cinema business," said Sanders. "What do you say, Hamilton?"
Hamilton thought a while.
"I'll see Bones," he said.
He arrived in Town soon after ten, but Bones had been at his office two hours earlier, for the fever of the new enterprise was upon him, and his desk was piled high with notes, memoranda, price lists and trade publications. (Bones, in his fine rage of construction, flew to the technical journals as young authors fly to the Thesaurus.)
As Hamilton entered the office, Bones glared up.
"A chair," said the young man peremptorily. "No time to be lost, dear old artist. Time is on the wing, the light is fadin', an' if we want to put this jolly old country—God bless it!—in the forefront——"
Bones put down his pen and leant back in his chair.
"Ham," he said, "I had a bit of a pow-pow with your sacred and sainted sister, bless her jolly old heart. That's where the idea arose. Are you on?"
"I'm on," said Hamilton, and there was a moving scene. Bones shook his hands and spoke broken English.
"There's your perfectly twee little desk, dear old officer," he said, pointing to a massive piece of furniture facing his own. "And there's only one matter to be settled."
He was obviously uncomfortable, and Hamilton would have reached for his cheque-book, only he knew his Bones much better than to suppose that such a sordid matter as finance could cause his agitation.
"Ham," said Bones, clearing his throat and speaking with an effort, "old comrade of a hundred gallant encounters, and dear old friend——"
"What's the game?" asked Hamilton suspiciously.
"There's no game," said the depressed Bones. "This is a very serious piece of business, my jolly old comrade. As my highly respected partner, you're entitled to use the office as you like—come in when you like, go home when you like. If you have a pain in the tum-tum, dear old friend, just go to bed and trust old Bones to carry on. Use any paper that's going, help yourself to nibs—you'll find there's some beautiful nibs in that cupboard—in fact, do as you jolly well like; but——"
"But?" repeated Hamilton.
"On one point alone, dear old thing," said Bones miserably, yet heroically, "we do not share."
"What's that?" asked Hamilton, not without curiosity.
"My typewriter is my typewriter," said Bones firmly, and Hamilton laughed.
"You silly ass!" he said. "I'm not going to play with your typewriter."
"That's just what I mean," said Bones. "You couldn't have put it better, dear old friend. Thank you."
He strode across the room, gripped Hamilton's hand and wrung it.
"Dear old thing, she's too young," he said brokenly. "Hard life … terrible experience… Play with her young affections, dear old thing? No…"
"Who the dickens are you talking about? You said typewriter."
"I said typewriter," agreed Bones gravely. "I am speaking about my——"
A light dawned upon Hamilton.
"You mean your secretary?"
"I mean my secretary," said Bones.
"Good Heavens, Bones!" scoffed Hamilton. "Of course I shan't bother her. She's your private secretary, and naturally I wouldn't think of giving her work."
"Or orders," said Bones gently. "That's a point, dear old thing. I simply couldn't sit here and listen to you giving her orders. I should scream. I'm perfectly certain I can trust you, Ham. I know what you are with the girls, but there are times——"
"You know what I am with the girls?" said the wrathful Hamilton. "What the dickens do you know about me, you libellous young devil?"
Bones raised his hand.
"We will not refer to the past," he said meaningly and was so impressive that Hamilton began to search his mind for some forgotten peccadillo.
"All that being arranged to our mutual satisfaction, dear old partner," said Bones brightly, "permit me to introduce you."
He walked to the glass-panelled door leading to the outer office, and knocked discreetly, Hamilton watching him in wonder. He saw him disappear, closing the door after him. Presently he came out again, following the girl.
"Dear young miss," said Bones in his squeakiest voice, a sure sign of his perturbation, "permit me to introduce partner, ancient commander, gallant and painstaking, jolly old Captain Hamilton, D.S.O.—which stands, young typewriter, for Deuced Satisfactory Officer."
The girl, smiling, shook hands, and Hamilton for the first time looked her in the face. He had been amazed before by her classic beauty, but now he saw a greater intelligence than he had expected to find in so pretty a face, and, most pleasing of all, a sense of humour.
"Bones and I are very old friends," he explained.
"Hem!" said Bones severely.
"Bones?" said the girl, puzzled.
"Naturally!" murmured Bones. "Dear old Ham, be decent. You can't expect an innocent young typewriter to think of her employer as 'Bones.'"
"I'm awfully sorry," Hamilton hastened to apologise, "but you see,Bones and I——"
"Dicky Orum," murmured Bones. "Remember yourself, Ham, old indiscreet one—Mr. Tibbetts. And here's the naughty old picture-taker," he said in another tone, and rushed to offer an effusive welcome to a smart young man with long, black, wavy hair and a face reminiscent, to all students who have studied his many pictures, of Louis XV. Strangely enough, his name was Louis. He was even called Lew.
"Sit down, my dear Mr. Becksteine," said Bones. "Let me introduce you to my partner. Captain Hamilton, D.S.O.—a jolly old comrade-in-arms and all that sort of thing. My lady typewriter you know, and anyway, there's no necessity for your knowing her—— I mean," he said hastily, "she doesn't want to know you, dear old thing. Now, don't be peevish. Ham, you sit there. Becksteine will sit there. You, young miss, will sit near me, ready to take down my notes as they fall from my ingenious old brain."
In the bustle and confusion the embarrassing moment of Hamilton's introduction was forgotten. Bones had a manuscript locked away in the bottom drawer of his desk, and when he had found the key for this, and had placed the document upon the table, and when he had found certain other papers, and when the girl was seated in a much more comfortable chair—Bones fussed about like an old hen—the proceedings began.
Bones explained.
He had seen the derelict cinema company advertised in a technical journal, had been impressed with the amount of the impedimenta which accompanied the proprietorship of the syndicate, had been seized with a brilliant idea, bought the property, lock, stock, and barrel, for two thousand pounds, for which sum, as an act of grace, the late proprietors allowed him to take over the contract of Mr. Lew Becksteine, that amiable and gifted producer.
It may be remarked, in passing, that this arrangement was immensely satisfactory to the syndicate, which was so tied and bound to Mr. Becksteine for the next twelve months that to have cancelled his contract would have cost them the greater part of the purchase price which Bones paid.
"This is the story," said Bones impressively. "And, partner Ham, believe me, I've read many, many stories in my life, but never, never has one touched me as this has. It's a jolly old tear-bringer, Ham. Even a hardened, wicked old dev—old bird like you would positively dissolve. You would really, dear old Ham, so don't deny it. You know you've got one of the tenderest hearts in the world, you rascal!"
He got up and shook hands with Hamilton, though there was no necessity for him to move.
"Now, clever old Becksteine thinks that this is going to be a scorcher."
"A winner, a winner," murmured Mr. Becksteine, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He spoke on this occasion very softly, but he could raise his voice to thrilling heights. "A sure winner, my dear sir. I have been in the profession for twenty-seven years, and never in my life have I read a drama which contains so much heart appeal——"
"You hear?" said Bones in a hoarse whisper.
"—so much genuine comedy——"
Bones nodded.
"—so much that I might say goes straight to the passionate heart of the great public, as this remarkable, brilliantly planned, admirably planted, exquisitely balanced little cameo of real life."
"It's to be a two-roller," said Bones.
"Reeler," murmured Mr. Becksteine.
"Reeler or roller, dear old thing; don't let's quarrel over how a thing's spelt," said Bones.
"Who wrote it?" asked Hamilton.
Mr. Becksteine coughed modestly.
"Jolly old Becksteine wrote it," said Bones. "That man, Ham, is one of the most brilliant geniuses in this or any other world. Aren't you? Speak up, old playwright. Don't be shy, old thing."
Mr. Becksteine coughed again.
"I do not know anything about other worlds," he admitted.
"Now, this is my idea," said Bones, interrupting what promised to be a free and frank admission of Mr. Becksteine's genius. "I've worked the thing out, and I see just how we can save money. In producing two-roller cinematographs—that's the technical term," explained Bones, "the heavy expense is with the artistes. The salaries that these people are paid! My dear old Ham, you'd never believe."
"I don't see how you can avoid paying salaries," said Hamilton patiently. "I suppose even actors have to live."
"Ah!" said Mr. Becksteine, shaking his head.
"Of course, dear old thing. But why pay outside actors?" said Bones triumphantly.
He glared from one face to the other with a ferocity of expression which did no more than indicate the strength of his conviction.
"Why not keep the money in the family, dear old Ham? That's what I ask you. Answer me that." He leaned back in his chair, thrust his hands in his trousers pockets, and blandly surveyed his discomfited audience.
"But you've got to have actors, my dear chap," said Hamilton.
"Naturally and necessarily," replied Bones, nodding with very large nods. "And we have them. Who is Jasper Brown, the villain who tries to rob the poor girl of her legacy and casts the vilest aspersions upon her jolly old name?"
"Who is?" asked the innocent Hamilton.
"You are," said Bones.
Hamilton gasped.
"Who is Frank Fearnot, the young and handsome soldier—well, not necessarily handsome, but pretty good-looking—who rescues the girl from her sad predicament?"
"Well, that can't be me, anyway," said Hamilton.
"It is not," said Bones. "It is me! Who is the gorgeous but sad old innocent one who's chased by you, Ham, till the poor little soul doesn't know which way to turn, until this jolly young officer steps brightly on the scene, whistling a merry tune, and, throwing his arms about her, saves her, dear old thing, from her fate—or, really, from a perfectly awful rotten time."
"Who is she?" asked Hamilton softly.
Bones blinked and turned to the girl slowly.
"My dear old miss," he said, "what do you think?"
"What do I think?" asked the startled girl. "What do I think about what?"
"There's a part," said Bones—"there's one of the grandest parts that was ever written since Shakespeare shut his little copybook."
"You're not suggesting that I should play it?" she asked, open-mouthed.
"Made for you, dear old typewriter, positively made for you, that part," murmured Bones.
"Of course I shall do nothing so silly," said the girl, with a laugh."Oh, Mr. Tibbetts, you really didn't think that I'd do such a——"
She didn't finish the sentence, but Hamilton could have supplied the three missing words without any difficulty.
Thereafter followed a discussion, which in the main consisted of joint and several rejection of parts. Marguerite Whitland most resolutely refused to play the part of the bad girl, even though Bones promised to change the title to "The Good Girl," even though he wheedled his best, even though he struck attitudes indicative of despair and utter ruin, even though the gentle persuasiveness of Mr. Lew Becksteine was added to his entreaties. And Hamilton as resolutely declined to have anything to do with the bad man. Mr. Becksteine solved the difficulty by undertaking to produce the necessary actors and actresses at the minimum of cost.
"Of course you won't play, Bones?" said Hamilton.
"I don't know," said Bones. "I'm not so sure, dear old thing. I've got a lot of acting talent in me, and I feel the part—that's a technical term you won't understand."
"But surely, Mr. Tibbetts," said the girl reproachfully, "you won't allow yourself to be photographed embracing a perfectly strange lady?"
Bones shrugged his shoulders.
"Art, my dear old typewriter," he said. "She'll be no more to me than a bit of wood, dear old miss. I shall embrace her and forget all about it the second after. You need have no cause for apprehension, really and truly."
"I am not at all apprehensive," said the girl coldly, and Bones followed her to her office, showering explanations of his meaning over her shoulder.
On the third day Hamilton went back to Twickenham a very weary man.
"Bones is really indefatigable," he said irritably, but yet admiringly. "He has had those unfortunate actors rehearsing in the open fields, on the highways and byways. Really, old Bones has no sense of decency. He's got one big scene which he insists upon taking in a private park. I shudder to think what will happen if the owner comes along and catches Bones and his wretched company."
Sanders laughed quietly.
"What do you think he'll do with the film?" he asked.
"Oh, he'll sell it," said Hamilton. "I tell you, Bones is amazing. He has found a City man who is interested in the film industry, a stockbroker or something, who has promised to see every bit of film as it is produced and give him advice on the subject; and, incredible as it may sound, the first half-dozen scenes that Bones has taken have passed muster."
"Who turns the handle of the camera?" asked the girl.
"Bones," said Hamilton, trying not to laugh. "He practised the revolutions on a knife-cleaning machine!"
The fourth day it rained, but the fifth day Bones took his company in a hired motor into the country, and, blissfully ignoring such admonitions as "Trespassers will be shot," he led the way over a wall to the sacred soil of an Englishman's stately home. Bones wanted the wood, because one of his scenes was laid on the edge of a wood. It was the scene where the bad girl, despairing of convincing anybody as to her inherent goodness, was taking a final farewell of the world before "leaving a life which had held nothing but sadness and misunderstanding," to quote the title which was to introduce this touching episode.
Bones found the right location, fitted up his camera, placed the yellow-faced girl—the cinema artiste has a somewhat bilious appearance when facing the lens—and began his instructions.
"Now, you walk on here, dear old Miss What's-Your-Name. You come from that tree with halting footsteps—like this, dear old thing. Watch and learn."
Bones staggered across the greensward, clasping his brow, sank on his knees, folded his arms across his chest, and looked sorrowfully at the heavens, shaking his head.
Hamilton screamed with laughter.
"Behave yourself, naughty old sceptic," said Bones severely.
After half an hour's preliminary rehearsal, the picture was taken, andBones now prepared to depart; but Mr. Lew Becksteine, from whose handsBones had taken, not only the direction of the play, but the veryexcuse for existence, let fall a few uncomfortable words.
"Excuse me, Mr. Tibbetts," he said, in the sad, bored voice of an artiste who is forced to witness the inferior work of another, "it is in this scene that the two lawyers must be taken, walking through the wood, quite unconscious of the unhappy fate which has overtaken the heiress for whom they are searching."
"True," said Bones, and scratched his nose.
He looked round for likely lawyers. Hamilton stole gently away.
"Now, why the dickens didn't you remind me, you careless old producer, to bring two lawyers with me?" asked Bones. "Dash it all, there's nothing here that looks like a lawyer. Couldn't it be taken somewhere else?"
Mr. Becksteine had reached the stage where he was not prepared to make things easy for his employer.
"Utterly impossible," he said; "you must have exactly the same scenery.The camera cannot lie."
Bones surveyed his little company, but without receiving any encouragement.
"Perhaps I might find a couple of fellows on the road," he suggested.
"It is hardly likely," said Mr. Lew Becksteine, "that you will discover in this remote country village two gentlemen arrayed in faultlessly fitting morning-coats and top-hats!"
"I don't know so much about that," said the optimistic Bones, and took a short cut through the wood, knowing that the grounds made an abrupt turn where they skirted the main road.
He was half-way through the copse when he stopped. Now, Bones was a great believer in miracles, but they had to be very spectacular miracles. The fact that standing in the middle of the woodland path were two middle-aged gentlemen in top-hats and morning-coats, seemed to Bones to be a mere slice of luck. It was, in fact, a miracle of the first class. He crept silently back, raced down the steps to where the little party stood.
"Camera!" he hissed. "Bring it along, dear old thing. Don't make a noise! Ham, old boy, will you help? You other persons, stay where you are."
Hamilton shouldered the camera, and on the way up the slope Bones revealed his fell intention.
"There is no need to tell these silly old jossers what we're doing," he said. "You see what I mean, Ham, old boy? We'll just take a picture of them as they come along. Nobody will be any the wiser, and all we'll have to do will be to put a little note in." All the time he was fixing the camera on the tripod, focussing the lens on a tree by the path. (It was amazing how quickly Bones mastered the technique of any new hobby he took up.)
From where Hamilton crouched in the bushes he could see the two men plainly. His heart quaked, realising that one at least was possibly the owner of the property on which he was trespassing; and he had all an Englishman's horror of trespass. They were talking together, these respectable gentlemen, when Bones began to turn the handle. They had to pass through a patch of sunlight, and it was upon this that Bones concentrated. Once one of them looked around as the sound of clicking came to him, but at that moment Bones decided he had taken enough and stopped.
"This," said he, as they gained the by-road where they had made their unauthorised entry into the park, "is a good day's work."
Their car was on the main road, and to Hamilton's surprise he found the two staid gentlemen regarding it when the party came up. They were regarding it from a high bank behind the wall—a bank which commanded a view of the road. One of them observed the camera and said something in a low tone to the other; then the speaker walked down the bank, opened a little wicker door in the wall, and came out.
He was a most polite man, and tactful.
"Have you been taking pictures?" he asked.
"Dear old fellow," said Bones. "I will not deceive you—we have."
There was a silence.
"In the—park, by any chance?" asked the gentleman carelessly.
Bones flinched. He felt rather guilty, if the truth be told.
"The fact is——" he began.
The elderly man listened to the story of "The Bad Girl's Legacy," its genesis, its remarkable literary qualities, and its photographic value. He seemed to know a great deal about cinematographs, and asked several questions.
"So you have an expert who sees the pieces as they are produced?" he asked. "Who is that?"
"Mr. Tim Lewis," said Bones. "He's one of the——"
"Lewis?" said the other quickly. "Is that Lewis the stockbroker? And does he see every piece you take?"
Bones was getting weary of answering questions.
"Respected sir and park proprietor," he said, "if we have trespassed, I apologise. If we did any harm innocently, and without knowing that we transgressed the jolly old conventions—if we, as I say, took a picture of you and your fellow park proprietor without a thank-you-very-much, I am sorry."
"You took me and my friend?" asked the elderly man quickly.
"I am telling you, respected sir and cross-examiner, that I took you being in a deuce of a hole for a lawyer."
"I see," said the elderly man. "Will you do me a favour? Will you let me see your copy of that picture before you show it to Mr. Lewis? As the respected park proprietor"—he smiled—"you owe me that."
"Certainly, my dear old friend and fellow-sufferer," said Bones."Bless my life and heart and soul, certainly!"
He gave the address of the little Wardour Street studio where the film would be developed and printed, and fixed the morrow for an exhibition.
"I should very much like to see it to-night, if it is no trouble to you."
"We will certainly do our best, sir," Hamilton felt it was necessary to interfere at this point.
"Of course, any extra expense you are put to as the result of facilitating the printing, or whatever you do to these films," said the elderly man, "I shall be glad to pay."
He was waiting for Bones and Hamilton at nine o'clock that night in the dingy little private theatre which Bones, with great difficulty, had secured for his use. The printing of the picture had been accelerated, and though the print was slightly speckled, it was a good one.
The elderly man sat in a chair and watched it reeled off, and when the lights in the little theatre went up, he turned to Bones with a smile.
"I'm interested in cinema companies," he said, "and I rather fancy that I should like to include your property in an amalgamation I am making. I could assist you to fix a price," he said to the astonished Bones, "if you would tell me frankly, as I think you will, just what this business has cost you from first to last."
"My dear old amalgamator," said Bones reproachfully, "is that business?I ask you."
"It may be good business," said the other.
Bones looked at Hamilton. They and the elderly man, who had driven up to the door of the Wardour Street studio in a magnificent car, were the only three people, besides the operator, who were present.
Hamilton nodded.
"Well," said Bones, "business, dear old thing, is my weakness. Buying and selling is my passion and Lobby. From first to last, after paying jolly old Brickdust, this thing is going to cost me more than three thousand pounds—say, three thousand five hundred."
The elderly man nodded.
"Let's make a quick deal," he said. "I'll give you six thousand pounds for the whole concern, with the pictures as you have taken them—negatives, positives, cameras, etc. Is it a bargain?"
Bones held out his hand.
They dined together, a jubilant Bones and a more jubilant Hamilton, at a little restaurant in Soho.
"My dear old Ham," said Bones, "it only shows you how things happen. This would have been a grand week for me if those beastly oil shares of mine had gone up. I'm holding 'em for a rise." He opened a newspaper he had bought in the restaurant. "I see that Jorris and Walters—they're the two oil men—deny that they've ever met or that they're going to amalgamate. But can you believe these people?" he asked. "My dear old thing, the mendacity of these wretched financiers——"
"Have you ever seen them?" asked Hamilton, to whom the names of Jorris and Walters were as well known as to any other man who read his daily newspaper.
"Seen them?" said Bones. "My dear old fellow, I've met them time and time again. Two of the jolliest old birds in the world. Well, here's luck!"
At that particular moment Mr. Walters and Mr. Jorris were sitting together in the library of a house in Berkeley Square, the blinds being lowered and the curtains being drawn, and Mr. Walters was saying:
"We'll have to make this thing public on Wednesday. My dear fellow, I nearly fainted when I heard that that impossible young person had photographed us together. When do you go back to Paris?"
"I think I had better stay here," said Mr. Jorris. "Did the young man bleed you?"
"Only for six thousand," said the pleasant Mr. Walters. "I hope the young beggar's a bear in oil," he added viciously.
But Bones, as we know, was a bull.
It is a reasonable theory that every man of genius is two men, one visible, one unseen and often unsuspected by his counterpart. For who has not felt the shadow's influence in dealing with such as have the Spark? Napoleon spoke of stars, being Corsican and a mystic. Those who met him in his last days were uneasily conscious that the second Bonaparte had died on the eve of Waterloo, leaving derelict his brother, a stout and commonplace man who was in turn sycophantic, choleric, and pathetic, but never great.
Noticeable is the influence of the Shadow in the process of money-making. It is humanly impossible for some men to be fortunate. They may amass wealth by sheer hard work and hard reasoning, but if they seek a shorter cut to opulence, be sure that short cut ends in a cul-de-sac where sits a Bankruptcy Judge and a phalanx of stony-faced creditors. "Luck" is not for them—they were born single.
For others, the whole management of life is taken from their hands by their busy Second, who ranges the world to discover opportunities for his partner.
So it comes about that there are certain men, and Augustus Tibbetts—or, as he was named, "Bones"—was one of these, to whom the increments of life come miraculously. They could come in no other way, be he ever so learned and experienced.
Rather would a greater worldliness have hampered his familiar and in time destroyed its power, just as education destroys the more subtle instincts. Whilst the learned seismographer eats his dinner, cheerfully unconscious of the coming earthquake, his dog shivers beneath the table.
By this preamble I am not suggesting that Bones was a fool. Far from it. Bones was wise—uncannily wise in some respects. His success was due, as to nine-tenths, to his native sense. Hisxsupplied the other fraction.
No better illustration of the working of this concealed quantity can be given than the story of the great jute sale and Miss Bertha Stegg.
The truth about the Government speculation in jute is simply told. It is the story of an official who, in the middle of the War, was seized with the bright idea of procuring enormous quantities of jute for the manufacture of sand-bags. The fact that by this transaction he might have driven the jute lords of Dundee into frenzy did not enter into his calculations. Nor did it occur to him that the advantageous position in which he hoped to place his Department depended for its attainment upon a total lack of foresight on the part of the Dundee merchants.
As a matter of fact, Dundee had bought well and wisely. It had sufficient stocks to meet all the demands which the Government made upon it; and when, after the War, the Department offered its purchase at a price which would show a handsome profit to the Government, Dundee laughed long and loudly.
And so there was left on the official hands, at the close of the War, a quantity of jute which nobody wanted, at a price which nobody would pay. And then somebody asked a question in the House of Commons, and the responsible Secretary went hot all over, and framed the reply which an Under-secretary subsequently made in such terms as would lead the country to believe that the jute purchased at a figure beyond the market value was a valuable asset, and would one day be sold at a profit.
Mr. Augustus Tibbetts knew nothing about jute. But he did read, almost every morning in the daily newspapers, how one person or another had made enormous purchases of linen, or of cloth, or of motor chassis, paying fabulous sums on the nail and walking off almost immediately with colossal profits; and every time Bones read such an account he wriggled in his chair and made unhappy noises.
Then one afternoon there came to his office a suave gentleman in frock-coat, carrying with him a card which was inscribed "Ministry of Supplies." And the end of that conversation was that Bones, all a twitter of excitement, drove to a gloomy office in Whitehall, where he interviewed a most sacred public official, to whom members of the public were not admitted, perhaps, more than four times a year.
Hamilton had watched the proceedings with interest and suspicion. When Bones was mysterious he was very mysterious; and he returned that night in such a condition of mystery that none but a thought-reading detective could have unravelled him.
"You seem infernally pleased with yourself, Bones," said Hamilton."What lamentable error have you fallen into?"
"Dear old Ham," said Bones, with the helpless little laugh which characterised the very condition of mind which Hamilton had described, "dear old pryer, wait till to-morrow. Dear old thing, I wouldn't spoil it. Read your jolly old newspaper, dear old inquirer."
"Have you been to the police court?" asked Hamilton.
"Police court? Police court?" said Bones testily. "Good Heavens, lad! Why this jolly old vulgarity? No, dear boy, live and learn, dear old thing!"
Hamilton undoubtedly lived until the next morning, and learnt. He saw the headlines the second he opened his newspaper.
Hamilton was on his way to the office, and fell back in the corner of the railway carriage with a suppressed moan. He almost ran to the office, to find Bones stalking up and down the room, dictating an interview to a reporter.
"One minute, one minute, dear old Ham," said. Bones warningly. And then, turning to the industrious journalist, he went on where Hamilton had evidently interrupted him. "You can say that I've spent a great deal of my life in fearfully dangerous conditions," he said. "You needn't say where, dear old reporter, just say 'fearfully dangerous conditions.'"
"What about jute?" asked the young man.
"Jute," said Bones with relish, "or, as we call it,Corcharis capsilaris, is the famous jute tree. I have always been interested in jute and all that sort of thing—— But you know what to say better than I can tell you. You can also say that I'm young—no, don't say that. Put it like this: 'Mr. Tibbetts, though apparently young-looking, bears on his hardened old face the marks of years spent in the service of his country. There is a sort of sadness about his funny old eyes——' You know what to say, old thing."
"I know," said the journalist, rising. "You'll see this in the next edition, Mr. Tibbetts."
When the young man had gone, Hamilton staggered across to him.
"Bones," he said, in a hollow voice, "you've never bought this stuff for a million?"
"A million's a bit of an exaggeration, dear old sportsman," said Bones. "As a matter of fact, it's about half that sum, and it needn't be paid for a month. Here is the contract." He smacked his lips and smacked the contract, which was on the table, at the same time. "Don't get alarmed, don't get peevish, don't get panicky, don't be a wicked old flutterer, Ham, my boy!" he said. "I've reckoned it all out, and I shall make a cool fifty thousand by this time next week."
"What will you pay for it?" asked Hamilton, in a shaky voice. "I mean, how much a ton?"
Bones mentioned a figure, and Hamilton jotted down a note.
He had a friend, as it happened, in the jute trade—the owner of a big mill in Dundee—and to him he dispatched an urgent telegram. After that he examined the contract at leisure. On the fourth page of that interesting document was a paragraph, the seventh, to this effect:
"Either parties to this contract may, for any reason whatsoever, by giving notice either to the Ministry of Supplies, Department 9, or to the purchaser at his registered office, within twenty-four hours of the signing of this contract, cancel the same."
He read this over to Bones.
"That's rum," he said. "What is the idea?"
"My jolly old captain," said Bones in his lordly way, "how should I know? I suppose it's in case the old Government get a better offer. Anyway, dear old timidity, it's a contract that I'm not going to terminate, believe me!"
The next afternoon Bones and Hamilton returned from a frugal lunch at a near-by tavern, and reached the imposing entrance of the building in which New Schemes Limited was housed simultaneously—or perhaps it would be more truthful to say a little later—than a magnificent limousine. It was so far ahead of them that the chauffeur had time to descend from his seat, open the highly-polished door, and assist to the honoured sidewalk a beautiful lady in a large beaver coat, who carried under her arm a small portfolio.
There was a certain swing to her shoulder as she walked, a certain undulatory movement of hip, which spoke of a large satisfaction with the world as she found it.
Bones, something of a connoisseur and painfully worldly, pursed his lips and broke off the conversation in which he was engaged, and which had to do with the prospective profits on his jute deal, and remarked tersely:
"Ham, dear old thing, that is a chinchilla coat worth twelve hundred pounds."
Hamilton, to whom the mysteries of feminine attire were honest mysteries, accepted the sensational report without demur.
"The way you pick up these particular bits of information, Bones, is really marvellous to me. It isn't as though you go out a lot into society. It isn't as though women are fond of you or make a fuss of you."
Bones coughed.
"Dicky Orum. Remember, dear old Richard," he murmured. "My private life, dear old fellow, if you will forgive me snubbing you, is a matter on which nobody is an authority except A. Tibbetts, Esq. There's a lot you don't know, dear old Ham. I was thinking of writing a book about it, but it would take too long."
By this time they reached the elevator, which descended in time to receive the beautiful lady in the brown coat. Bones removed his hat, smoothed his glossy hair, and with a muttered "After you, dear old friend. Age before honesty," bundled Hamilton into the lift and followed him.
The elevator stopped at the third floor, and the lady got out. Bones, his curiosity overcoming his respect for age or his appreciation of probity, followed her, and was thrilled to discover that she made straight for his office. She hesitated for a moment before that which bore the word "Private," and passed on to the outer and general office.
Bones slipped into his own room so quickly that by the time Hamilton entered he was sitting at his desk in a thoughtful and studious attitude.
It cannot be said that the inner office was any longer entitled to the description of sanctum sanctorum. Rather was the holy of holies the larger and less ornate apartment wherein sat A Being whose capable little fingers danced over complicated banks of keys.
The communicating door opened and the Being appeared. Hamilton, mindful of a certain agreement with his partner, pretended not to see her.
"There's a lady who wishes a private interview with you, Mr. Tibbetts," said the girl.
Bones turned with an exaggerated start.
"A lady?" he said in a tone of incredulity. "Gracious Heavens! This is news to me, dear old miss. Show her in, please, show her in. A private interview, eh?" He looked meaningly at Hamilton. Hamilton did not raise his eyes—in accordance with his contract. "A private interview, eh?" said Bones louder. "Does she want to see me by myself?"
"Perhaps you would like to see her in my room," said the girl. "I could stay here with Mr. Hamilton."
Bones glared at the unconscious Hamilton.
"That is not necessary, dear old typewriter," he said stiffly. "Show the young woman in, please."
The "young woman," came in. Rather, she tripped and undulated and swayed from the outer office to the chair facing Bones, and Bones rose solemnly to greet her.
Miss Marguerite Whitland, the beautiful Being, who had surveyed the tripping and swaying and undulating with the same frank curiosity that Cleopatra might have devoted to a performing seal, went into her office and closed the door gently behind her.
"Sit down, sit down," said Bones. "And what can I do for you, young miss?"
The girl smiled. It was one of those flashing smiles which make susceptible men blink. Bones was susceptible. Never had he been gazed upon with such kindness by a pair of such large, soft, brown eyes. Never had cheeks dimpled so prettily and so pleasurably, and seldom had Bones experienced such a sensation of warm embarrassment—not unpleasant—as he did now.
"I am sure I am being an awful nuisance to you, Mr. Tibbetts," said the lady. "You don't know my name, do you? Here is my card." She had it ready in her hand, and put it in front of him. Bones waited a minute or two while he adjusted his monocle, and read:
As a matter of fact, he read it long before he had adjusted his monocle, but the official acknowledgment was subsequent to that performance.
"Yes, yes," said Bones, who on such occasions as these, or on such occasions as remotely resembled these, was accustomed to take on the air and style of the strong, silent man. "What can we do for you, my jolly old—Miss Stegg?"
"It's a charity," blurted the girl, and sat back to watch the effect of her words. "Oh, I know what you business men are! You simply hate people bothering you for subscriptions! And really, Mr. Tibbetts, if I had to come to ask you for money, I would never have come at all. I think it's so unfair for girls to pester busy men in their offices, at the busiest time of the day, with requests for subscriptions."
Bones coughed. In truth, he had never been pestered, and was enjoying the experience.
"No, this is something much more pleasant, from my point of view," said the girl. "We are having a bazaar in West Kensington on behalf of the Little Tots' Recreation Fund."
"A most excellent plan," said Bones firmly.
Hamilton, an interested audience, had occasion to marvel anew at the amazing self-possession of his partner.
"It is one of the best institutions that I know," Bones went on thoughtfully. "Of course, it's many years since I was a little tot, but I can still sympathise with the jolly old totters, dear young miss."
She had taken her portfolio from under her arm and laid it on his desk. It was a pretty portfolio, bound in powder blue and silver, and was fastened by a powder blue tape with silver tassels. Bones eyed it with pardonable curiosity.
"I'm not asking you for money, Mr. Tibbetts," Miss Stegg went on in her soft, sweet voice. "I think we can raise all the money we want at the bazaar. But we must have things to sell."
"I see, dear old miss," said Bones eagerly. "You want a few old clothes? I've got a couple of suits at home, rather baggy at the knees, dear old thing, but you know what we boys are; we wear 'em until they fall off!"
The horrified Hamilton returned to the scrutiny of his notes.
"I don't suppose under-garments, if you will permit the indelicacy, my dear old philanthropist——" Bones was going on, when the girl stopped him with a gentle shake of her head.
"No, Mr. Tibbetts, it is awfully kind of you, but we do not want anything like that. The way we expect to raise a lot of money is by selling the photographs of celebrities," she said.
"The photographs of celebrities?" repeated Bones. "But, my dear young miss, I haven't had my photograph taken for years."
Hamilton gasped. He might have gasped again at what followed, but for the fact that he had got a little beyond the gasping stage.
The girl was untying her portfolio, and now she produced something and laid it on the desk before Bones.
"How clever of you to guess!" she murmured. "Yes, it is a portrait of you we want to sell."
Bones stared dumbfounded at a picture of himself—evidently a snapshot taken with a press camera—leaving the building. And, moreover, it was a flattering picture, for there was a stern frown of resolution on Bones's pictured face, which, for some esoteric reason, pleased him. The picture was mounted rather in than on cardboard, for it was in a sunken mount, and beneath the portrait was a little oblong slip of pale blue paper.
Bones gazed and glowed. Neatly printed above the picture were the words: "Our Captains of Industry. III.—Augustus Tibbetts, Esq. (Schemes Limited)."
Bones read this with immense satisfaction. He wondered who were the two men who could be placed before him, but in his generous mood was prepared to admit that he might come third in the list of London's merchant princes.
"Deuced flattering, dear old thing," he murmured. "Hamilton, old boy, come and look at this."
Hamilton crossed to the desk, saw, and wondered.
"Not so bad," said Bones, dropping his head to one side and regarding the picture critically. "Not at all bad, dear old thing. You've seen me in that mood, I think, old Ham."
"What is the mood?" said Hamilton innocently. "Indigestion?"
The girl laughed.
"Let's have a little light on the subject," said Bones. "Switch on the expensive old electricity, Ham."
"Oh, no," said the girl quickly. "I don't think so. If you saw the picture under the light, you'd probably think it wasn't good enough, and then I should have made my journey in vain. Spare me that, Mr. Tibbetts!"
Mr. Tibbetts giggled. At that moment the Being re-appeared.Marguerite Whitland, chief and only stenographer to the firm of SchemesLimited, and Bones beckoned her.
"Just cast your eye over this, young miss," he said. "What do you think of it?"
The girl came round the group, looked at the picture, and nodded.
"Very nice," she said, and then she looked at the girl.
"Selling it for a charity," said Bones carelessly. "Some silly old josser will put it up in his drawing-room, I suppose. You know, Ham, dear old thing, I never can understand this hero-worship business. And now, my young and philanthropic collector, what do you want me to do? Give you permission? It is given."
"I want you to give me your autograph. Sign down there,"—she pointed to a little space beneath the picture—"and just let me sell it for what I can get."
"With all the pleasure in life," said Bones.
He picked up his long plumed pen and splashed his characteristic signature in the space indicated.
And then Miss Marguerite Whitland did a serious thing, an amazingly audacious thing, a thing which filled Bones's heart with horror and dismay.
Before Bones could lift the blotting pad, her forefinger had dropped upon the signature and had been drawn across, leaving nothing more than an indecipherable smudge.
"My dear old typewriter!" gasped Bones. "My dear old miss! Confound it all! Hang it all, I say! Dear old thing!"
"You can leave this picture, madam——"
"Miss," murmured Bones from force of habit. Even in his agitation he could not resist the temptation to interrupt.
"You can leave this picture, Miss Stegg," said the girl coolly. "Mr.Tibbetts wants to add it to his collection."
Miss Stegg said nothing.
She had risen to her feet, her eyes fixed on the girl's face, and, with no word of protest or explanation, she turned and walked swiftly from the office. Hamilton opened the door, noting the temporary suspension of the undulatory motion.
When she had gone, they looked at one another, or, rather, they looked at the girl, who, for her part, was examining the photograph. She took a little knife from the desk before Bones and inserted it into the thick cardboard mount, and ripped off one of the layers of cardboard. And so Bones's photograph was exposed, shorn of all mounting. But, what was more important, beneath his photograph was a cheque on the Third National Bank, which was a blank cheque and bearing Bones's undeniable signature in the bottom right-hand corner—the signature was decipherable through the smudge.
Bones stared.
"Most curious thing I've ever seen in my life, dear old typewriter," he said. "Why, that's the very banking establishment I patronise."
"I thought it might be," said the girl.
And then it dawned upon Bones, and he gasped.
"Great Moses!" he howled—there is no prettier word for it. "That naughty, naughty, Miss Thing-a-me-jig was making me sign a blank cheque! My autograph! My sacred aunt! Autograph on a cheque…"
Bones babbled on as the real villainy of the attempt upon his finances gradually unfolded before his excited vision.
Explanations were to follow. The girl had seen a paragraph warning people against giving their autographs, and the police had even circulated a rough description of two "well-dressed women" who, on one pretext or another, were securing from the wealthy, but the unwise, specimens of their signatures.
"My young and artful typewriter," said Bones, speaking with emotion, "you have probably saved me from utter ruin, dear old thing. Goodness only knows what might have happened, or where I might have been sleeping to-night, my jolly old Salvationist, if your beady little eye hadn't penetrated like a corkscrew through the back of that naughty old lady's neck and read her evil intentions."
"I don't think it was a matter of my beady eye," said the girl, without any great enthusiasm for the description, "as my memory."
"I can't understand it," said Bones, puzzled. "She came in a beautiful car——"
"Hired for two hours for twenty-five shillings," said the girl.
"But she was so beautifully dressed. She had a chinchilla coat——"
"Imitation beaver," said Miss Marguerite Whitland, who had few illusions. "You can get them for fifteen pounds at any of the West End shops."
It was a very angry Miss Bertha Stegg who made her way in some haste to Pimlico. She shared a first-floor suite with a sister, and she burst unceremoniously into her relative's presence, and the elder Miss Stegg looked round with some evidence of alarm.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
She was a tall, bony woman, with a hard, tired face, and lacked most of her sister's facial charm.
"Turned down," said Bertha briefly. "I had the thing signed, and then a——" (one omits the description she gave of Miss Marguerite Whitland, which was uncharitable) "smudged the thing with her fingers."
"She tumbled to it, eh?" said Clara. "Has she put the splits on you?"
"I shouldn't think so," said Bertha, throwing off her coat and her hat, and patting her hair. "I got away too quickly, and I came on by the car."
"Will he report it to the police?"
"He's not that kind. Doesn't it make you mad, Clara, to think that that fool has a million to spend? Do you know what he's done? Made perhaps a hundred thousand pounds in a couple of days! Wouldn't that rile you?"
They discussed Bones in terms equally unflattering. They likened Bones to all representatives of the animal world whose characteristics are extreme foolishness, but at last they came into a saner, calmer frame of mind.
Miss Clara Stegg seated herself on the frowsy sofa—indispensable to a Pimlico furnished flat—and, with her elbow on one palm and her chin on another, reviewed the situation. She was the brains of a little combination which had done so much to distress and annoy susceptible financiers in the City of London. (The record of the Stegg sisters may be read by the curious, or, at any rate, by as many of the curious as have theentréeto the Record Department of Scotland Yard.)
The Steggs specialised in finance, and operated exclusively in high financial circles. There was not a fluctuation of the market which Miss Clara Stegg did not note; and when Rubber soared sky-high, or Steel Preferred sagged listlessly, she knew just who was going to be affected, and just how approachable they were.
During the War the Stegg sisters had opened a new department, so to speak, dealing with Government contracts, and the things which they knew about the incomes of Government contractors the average surveyor of taxes would have given money to learn.
"It was my mistake, Bertha," she said at last, "though in a sense it wasn't. I tried him simply, because he's simple. If you work something complicated on a fellow like that, you're pretty certain to get him guessing."
She went out of the room, and presently returned with four ordinary exercise-books, one of which she opened at a place where a page was covered with fine writing, and that facing was concealed by a sheet of letter-paper which had been pasted on to it. The letter-paper bore the embossed heading of Schemes Limited, the epistle had reference to a request for an autograph which Bones had most graciously granted.
The elder woman looked at the signature, biting her nether lip.
"It is almost too late now. What is the time?" she asked.
"Half-past three," replied her sister.
Miss Stegg shook her head.
"The banks are closed, and, anyway——"
She carried the book to a table, took a sheet of paper and a pen, and, after a close study of Bones's signature, she wrote it, at first awkwardly, then, after about a dozen attempts, she produced a copy which it was difficult to tell apart from the original.
"Really, Clara, you're a wonder," said her sister admiringly.
Clara made no reply. She sat biting the end of the pen.
"I hate the idea of getting out of London and leaving him with all that money, Bertha," she said. "I wonder——" She turned to her sister. "Go out and get all the evening newspapers," she said. "There's bound to be something about him, and I might get an idea."
There was much about Bones in the papers the younger girl brought, and in one of these journals there was quite an important interview, which gave a sketch of Bones's life, his character, and his general appearance. Clara read this interview very carefully.
"It says he's spent a million, but I know that's a lie," she said. "I've been watching that jute deal for a long time, and it's nearer half the sum." She frowned. "I wonder——" she said.
"Wonder what?" asked the younger girl impatiently. "What's the good of wondering? The only thing we can do is to clear out."
Again Clara went from the room and came back with an armful of documents. These she laid on the table, and the girl, looking down, saw that they were for the main part blank contracts. Clara turned them over and over until at last she came to one headed "Ministry of Supplies."
"This'd be the form," she said. "It is the same that Stevenhowe had."
She was mentioning the name of a middle-aged man, who, quite unwittingly and most unwillingly, had contributed to her very handsome bank balance. She scanned the clauses through, and then flung down the contract in disgust.
"There's nothing mentioned about a deposit," she said, "and, anyway, I doubt very much whether I could get it back, even on his signature."
A quarter of an hour later Miss Clara Stegg took up the contract again and read the closely-printed clauses very carefully. When she had finished she said:
"I just hate the idea of that fellow making money."
"You've said that before," said her sister tartly.
At six o'clock that evening Bones went home. At nine o'clock he was sitting in his sitting-room in Clarges Street—a wonderful place, though small, of Eastern hangings and subdued lights—when Hamilton burst in upon him; and Bones hastily concealed the poem he was writing and thrust it under his blotting-pad. It was a good poem and going well.
It began:
How very sweetIs Marguerite!
And Bones was, not unreasonably, annoyed at this interruption to his muse.
As to Hamilton, he was looking ill.
"Bones," said Hamilton quietly, "I've had a telegram from my pal inDundee. Shall I read it?"
"Dear old thing," said Bones, with an irritated "tut-tut," "really, dear old creature, at this time of night—your friends in Dundee—really, my dear old boy——"
"Shall I read it?" said Hamilton, with sinister calm.
"By all means, by all means," said Bones, waving an airy hand and sitting back with resignation written on every line of his countenance.
"Here it is," said Hamilton. "It begins 'Urgent.'"
"That means he's in a devil of a hurry, old thing," said Bones, nodding.
"And it goes on to say," said Hamilton, ignoring the interruption. "'Your purchase at the present price of jute is disastrous. Jute will never again touch the figure at which your friend tendered, Ministry have been trying to find a mug for years to buy their jute, half of which is spoilt by bad warehousing, as I could have told you, and I reckon you have made a loss of exactly half the amount you have paid.'"
Bones had opened his eyes and was sitting up.
"Dear old Job's comforter," he said huskily.
"Wait a bit," said Hamilton, "I haven't finished yet," and went on: "'Strongly advise you cancel your sale in terms of Clause 7 Ministry contract.' That's all," said Hamilton.
"Oh, yes," said Bones feebly, as he ran his finger inside his collar, "that's all!"
"What do you think, Bones?" said Hamilton gently.
"Well, dear old cloud on the horizon," said Bones, clasping his bonyknee, "it looks remarkably like serious trouble for B. Ones, Esquire.It does indeed. Of course," he said, "you're not in this, old Ham.This was a private speculation——"
"Rot!" said Hamilton contemptuously. "You're never going to try a dirty trick like that on me? Of course I'm in it. If you're in it, I'm in it."
Bones opened his mouth to protest, but subsided feebly. He looked at the clock, sighed, and lowered his eyes again.
"I suppose it's too late to cancel the contract now?"
Bones nodded.
"Twenty-four hours, poor old victim," he said miserably, "expired at five p.m."
"So that's that," said Hamilton.
Walking across, he tapped his partner on the shoulder.
"Well, Bones, it can't be helped, and probably our pal in Dundee has taken an extravagant view."
"Not he," said Bones, "not he, dear old cheerer. Well, we shall have to cut down expenses, move into a little office, and start again, dear old Hamilton."
"It won't be so bad as that."
"Not quite so bad as that," admitted Bones. "But one thing," he said with sudden energy, "one thing, dear old thing, I'll never part with. Whatever happens, dear old boy, rain or shine, sun or moon, stars or any old thing like that"—he was growing incoherent—"I will never leave my typewriter, dear old thing. I will never desert her—never, never, never, never, never!