CHAPTERV
Deepin the heart of Surrey, on the edge of Walton Heath, and at the gate of that wild loneliness which is the joy of the millions who defile it, stands a house of no great age. It is called “Marengo.” Round about it lie grounds, some twenty acres in extent (of which two at least are gardens and shrubberies) wherein the speckled laurel luxuriantly grows, and from the depths of which the copper beech and other ornamental trees not infrequently protrude. To the doors of “Marengo” (which is set back some yards from the road, but not so far as to shut off the cheerful prospect of modern traffic and the enlivening sound of horns) sweeps an avenue or approach of gravel large enough to admit two motor-cars abreast; and there are two gates, but no lodges. The house itself, to be perfectly honest, is of red-brick tile-healed on the upper story; the roof, however, has been tamed and verges upon brown. Moreover, that roof has dormer windows—but the woodwork is of Norwegian pine.
Now this mansion was (and is) the residence of John Charlbury, Esquire, J.P., the partner of the Honorable Charles Terrard in the firm of Blake and Blake, Brokers, on the London Stock Exchange. He was unmarried, just on fifty years of age, and bald. He was short, he was square, he was stout; he was decided, and somewhat lethargic. He was not ill-natured; he had cunning little pig’s eyes, which would have warned off the most innocent of men at fifty yards, but which were evidence of a very useful talent when they could work behind the screen of correspondence, so that the victim could be caught unawares.
It is related by travelers that the great tawny lion of the Atlas, though the vainest and therefore the stupidest of beasts, has at least the sense to associate with creatures very different from himself. The jackal discovers his prey, and a small bird hunts the parasites on those parts of his integument which he cannot easily reach with his muzzle or paws; the sword-fish is accompanied by a very different friend, small and bearing a lamp wherewith to guide him through the dark depths of the sea; and the very rich, themselves innocent of letters, will furnish their households with poets, dramatists and even philosophers of whatever caliber they can retain in bondage.
Now so it is with the best of businesses, with the most successful houses of affairs.
The partnersThe Partners.
The Partners.
He does not advance the farthest who attempts to advance alone. Rather do they go farthest who associate with some other, utterly different from themselves, so that each may bring into play activities of which the other is incapable. Of such a sort was the alliance between John Charlbury, Justice of the Peace, and the Hon. Charles Terrard, nothing—not even B.A. The latter might be compared to the delicate rod line and fly; the former to the gaff and net. Terrard could go where Charlbury could never go; Charlbury could discover in the market opportunities which Terrard would not have dreamed of. The supplemental character of their faces and their friends was paralleled in their souls. For just as Charlbury was short, bald, fat, square, elderly, and pig-eyed, while Terrard was tall, lithe, young, and marrying such innocent blue eyes to such an innocent mass of happy curls; so Charlbury knew most approaches to the soul by avarice or fear, while Terrard was familiar only with those attached to vanity, debauchery, and the customs of the rich. Charlbury conducted from the base in the City, while Terrard skirmished in the West—and between them they were doing very well: were the firm of Blake and Blake, known to the gods as Charlie Terrard but to men as Old Charlbury.
Deep in the heart of London on the edge of that Square Mile of the Very Rich who are the delight of the millions they defile, stands a wild patch of loneliness known as “The Paddenham Site.” It is some acres of abandoned ground worth—it should be—sums untold: but none will buy.
A Hospital had stood there once. It had gone to the country. Its former site should have been snapped up. It was not. For a year, and another year, and another its weeds grew, and grasses covered its uneven hollows.
It had been bought at last, to re-sell; mortgaged; foreclosed on; sold at a loss to resell; sold again at a loss. Thus twenty years had passed and now the last mortgage holders in their Broad Street Office were grown desperate. Who would hold the Baby? There was a fine commission for whomever should introduce a purchaser; and Charlbury had bethought him of John K. Petre.
It was not long after settling day, upon an evening late, when Charlbury sat in the drawing-room of “Marengo,” surrounded by all things consonant to himself, and awaited his partner. He heard the coming of the car, he welcomed Terrard and furnished him with a drink. He asked him whether anything more had been done about getting John K. on to the Paddenham Site purchase: and he reminded his blue-eyed partner of the healthy little commission; of the eager anxiety of Williams on the edge of disaster after such extreme delay, of the people in Broad Street panting to accept the bare necessity.
Now, here, to hand, in John K. Petre, was the chance; the heaven-sent eccentric chance.
“You’ve spoken of it to John K.?” asked Charlbury.
“Not yet,” said Terrard. “I thought I’d wait until I’d seen you.”
“Have you seenhimsince?” said Charlbury.
“No,” answered Terrard. “I thought it best to let it stew a little—eh?” He looked sideways at his partner, a little nervously. That partner was staring at the fire. “You see,” added Terrard, “he’s one of that funny kind. Quite empty to look at.... Nothing behind his eyes.... Might be grandpapa.” Charlbury nodded slowly at the description—he had met that kind before, and he knew how their vast wealth had been garnered.
“I was right not to rush him?” Terrard concluded anxiously. Charlbury continued to nod slowly at the fire. Then he gave a guffaw, roaring out:
“So you don’t call that ‘rushing,’ eh?” and he chuckled hugely, putting a familiar hand on Terrard’s knee to emphasize his enjoyment. “Two days after ’e landed, rushed him for Touaregs,” and he chuckled again, “and it’s ’ardly a week yet!”
“Well, but ...” went on Terrard, still more nervously, “I told you I hadn’t seen him again. I thought I’d see.... But you know I’m for acting all the same.... I don’t think he minds. It is certainly ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with him, and we have all heard what he is, though we haven’t seen him.”
“You’ve seen ’im,” sighed Charlbury—he was faintly jealous of his young partner’s opportunities; for in his heart he nourished secret ambition, and he saw, far off, a day—distant but bound to come before he died—when he should himself emerge, laden with gold, into the great world.
“Yes,” answered Terrard snappishly, “I’ve not seen him till just now, and then only once. We’ve allheardof him and his lunacies. He’s capable of vanishing at a moment’s notice, without telling any one.”
Charlbury nodded again, and said more softly and musingly:
“You’ve told ’em in Broad Street that you’ve some one in your eye?”
“Yes ... but I gave no name, 600,000 is what’ll fetch ’em.”
Once more Charlbury nodded. He had heard that figure.
“Make it eight,” he said briefly.
Then there was a slight pause.
Charlbury spoke again: “What’s the way to tackle him—about the Paddenham Site, I mean?”
“I should put it straight out,” said Charlie. “When we’ve got it clear, between ourselves, I should ring him up—this very evening—and make an appointment for to-morrow.”
“There’s nothing to get clear,” said Charlbury. “It’s a straightforward proposition. He will bite, or he won’t bite.”
“No,” said Terrard slowly. “But what I was thinking of was, how it ought to be put.”
Charlbury was all decision.
“I tell you it’s straightforward. Put it that it’s a lock-up: that it’s a lock-up for one that can afford it, but precious few can. Tell him it’s not a lock-up for a lot of them together, because it’s got to be kept close and tight, and that one man’s got to bide his time and take his opportunity. Don’t ’ide anything from ’im. Tell him it’s been empty the best part o’ twenty years—right in the ’eart o’ London—and tell ’im plain it may be five more—that there’s Gawd knows ’ow much in it—at least, that’s my judgment, honest. I’d do it myself if I could ...” and he sighed. “I did try to persuade old Vere,” he shook his head sadly. “But he died—the old fool died.”
“Shall we say we’re in it?” asked Terrard.
“Better not. No good telling lies. Besides which, commission’s enough. And we can’t wait years, and ye can never bequitesure. If any one’s got to bear the racket, let ’im. ’E’ll be quit of us long before then; though, honest, mind you, I don’t believe there’ll be a racket to bear, any’ow.”
“Very well,” said Terrard simply. He looked at his watch. It was only a quarter past ten. “I’ll ring up now,” he said.
“Is that sife?” said Charlbury, showing anxiety for the first time that evening.
“Quite, I think,” said Terrard, who was on his own ground. “If he’s not out anywhere alone—for he’s keeping to himself, I’m told. He would think it ordinary to be rung up at this hour,” and he picked up the telephone and called up 8309 Embankment.
There was nothing heard but the slight sound of the good fire in the room, and in that silence both men had but one thought, or rather had before their mental eyes but one picture. Each of them saw a figure. It was the figure of a commission. And it was a sound one.
At last came the tiny squeaking of the instrument upon Mr. Charlbury’s ears, and he looked round and watched Terrard. That young gentleman was saying in an easy, happy voice:
“Oh, Mr. Petre, I’m sorry to ring you up at such an hour, but I want you to have the news as soon as I could possibly get it to you. I am sure you won’t mind when you hear.”... “No, not at all.”... “Thank you very much. It would be easier to put it by word of mouth. It’s a thing called the Paddenham Site. I have just heard of the chance. I could tell you all the details if you like. Can I see you to-morrow?...” “Yes, certainly. That will do perfectly. Can you lunch?”... “Very well, then, just before one, and I can tell you all about it before we go down. It won’t take long. Then after lunch I could show it to you. Not that that means much, but later we might go round to their lawyers and see the papers.”... “Thanks. All right. 12.45. Go-o-o-o-o-d night.” Charlie Terrard said the last words in the exact inflection given to them by the more refined of the wealthy women, and hung up the receiver. And Charlbury thought in his heart how useful a thing it was to have a partner with such an air of the great world—and yet how bitter.
There was one thing more to be done: to write a note to Broad Street telling them that they might expect a client introduced to them by Blake and Blake. It wasn’t sure: but they might.
Terrard would ring them up, if it matured, at short notice, and he would let them know when to expect him.
The note was written. Charlie took it up to town that night and got it into the post just on the stroke of twelve.
At about twelve o’clock in the morning of the next day Mr. Petre was walking slowly along the Embankment, looking at the tide that rushed past and communing with his own soul. It was a breezy, sunny, spring day. The water was alive, and London had half forgotten its native misery.
It was an air in which new thoughts and clear ones should naturally come to a man; but none came to Mr. Petre. He was pondering upon that interview which he had to face, and went round it in his thoughts, coming no nearer to a center, but still remaining as he had been since the blow fell upon him, attendant upon Fate. It was to be about some horrid business called the Paddenham Site. It might be—he dared to hope!—that some words would be used which he should understand. It might be that those inimitable talents of his, which all seemed to accept, would return to him—but at the bottom of his heart he doubted it. It was in no very happy mood that he returned to his rooms and awaited his guest.
But men in those moods are compelled to abrupt decisions. It is the only escape from their torture, and to such a second decision was Mr. Petre led upon this enormous occasion.
Charlie Terrard came in all breeze and happiness, with a dancing light in his honest blue eyes—I had almost added, in his honest curling hair. He seemed ready to talk of anything but business, and he came to business only as a little tedious frill, necessary, and soon to be dismissed. But when he got it out he was clear enough, and he explained the matter with a fair concentration, leaning forward to Mr. Petre across the table and making his points distinctly with just that touch and gesture which helps such a catalogue.
“It’s about a bit of land called ‘The Paddenham Site.’”
Mr. Petre sat beside him, leaning back a little in his chair, and wearing that look which he himself felt to be a betrayal of complete incapacity, and which all who met him and knew his name (but none more than Charlie Terrard) revered as the mask of financial genius. Indeed, a sudden terror seized the young broker at the thought of his own audacity, but he conquered it and went ahead.
“The Paddenham Site: yes, the Paddenham Site. That’s the official name for it; or rather, the official name for it is Turner’s Estates and Paggles’ Addition, subject to the order of the Court—but I won’t trouble you with all that,” he said, as Mr. Petre, hearing these terms, very slightly moved his head as one experienced in all such things. “You won’t hear it called that,” went on Charlie rapidly. “What peoplecallit, you know, is ‘That waste space where the Hospital used to be.’ Quite young people nowadays mostly just call it ‘that funny big waste space in Paddenham Street,’ because they can’t remember the Hospital. I can’t remember it myself. At least, I was a child when they pulled it down. And look here,” he said, putting a greater intensity into his voice, “I have got first of all to tell you the drawback.”
What drawback, or why, or what it was all about Mr. Petre could not have told you under threat of torture. Therefore he looked still more solemn, and slightly emphasized the movement of his head, as one who was taking it all in and glancing with eagle eye over every opportunity and every disadvantage.
“You know it’s been standing like that for more than twenty years?” Here, as in a special effort of heroic falsehood, Mr. Petre quite distinctly nodded, and Terrard was relieved.
“I’m glad you know that,” he said, “because it’s the very first thing to get hold of.Whya site like that should stand empty in the heart of London all the time it would take a very long time to explain to you. It began with a quarrel between the two estates, or rather between the Trustees of the Paddenham Estate and a claimant who had bought up an option on the addition; or rather, we won’t say a quarrel, but what each called obstinacy. And then there was the bankruptcy, you know: old Elmer’s bankruptcy—the Elmers are Paddenhams. A lot of small people were rather badly hit, because there was a syndicate.”
Mr. Petre was in up to his middle, and as the meaningless words flowed on he began to nod more vigorously than ever.
“Exactly,” he said. “Exactly. I quite understand.”
Exactly“Exactly. I quite understand.”
“Exactly. I quite understand.”
“Then, when the second syndicate took it over, they got the option of a price which seemed nothing at the time—but that was just before the London Traffic Bill. The fight over that held it up, of course, and then after the compromise....”
“Yes,” said Mr. Petre, “of course,” as though that explained it all. (What compromise? his dear heart asked of him—and an inward voice replied, “God knows!”)
“If the Government hadn’t been nibbling at it,” went on Mr. Terrard rapidly, “they wouldn’t have hung on, perhaps. But they did, and there was the second bankruptcy. Then Williams came in. You know whatthatmeans?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Petre, with a knowing smile.
“Williams thought he had got it for nothing. But still it was all he could do to meet it, and he certainly covered it; but he could not meet it alone.”
“No,” said Mr. Petre in judicial tones. “No! Naturally!” and Terrard marveled at the man’s familiarity with the details of a distant land.
“In a sense Williams has got it still, but he can’t hold. It’s cracking—you can hear it cracking.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” laughed Mr. Petre joyously—it was astonishing how quickly these things were coming to him now when once he warmed to them. “I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Now, the question is this. When people are desperate like that, and have to let things go, they’re watched, aren’t they?”
Mr. Petre said nothing. He smiled another knowing smile.
“Well,” continued Terrard, “they’ve watched a little too long. Andifsome one came innow—I don’t think it would be less than £800,000—it might be a little more ... but if some one comes innow, while Williams’ tongue is hanging out....” Mr. Petre saw that tongue and oddly visualized the unknown Williams in the shape of a large dog panting and athirst—“he gets it!” concluded Terrard triumphantly, striking the table gently but sufficiently with his open palm. “He gets it. And then it’s whatever you like. Doubling it might be too much, but it can’t be less than a fair margin of 60 per cent, when it does go.”
“I see,” said Mr. Petre, getting up and pacing slowly down the little hotel sitting-room and back again. “I see.” For, like the blind man in the story, he didn’t see at all.
“That’s the trouble,” said his guest, leaning back in his chair as though he were relieved by the conclusion of the tale. “It must be one man, and one big man, for they’re all shy of it, are the little ones. And it must be one man because it will have to be handled briskly at both ends.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Petre rapidly, “at both ends.”
“Buying and selling,” said Terrard.
“Obviously,” said Mr. Petre.
There, at least, he was on firm ground. So much was clear. If somebody bought a thing some one else must sell it. It was a relief to understand one thing, anyhow, in the rigmarole. He halted with his back to the light.
“Besides which,” said Terrard, “you don’t want to be bothered with other people. I know you’ll take it or leave it, and I wanted to put it before you now and at once. I don’t know if you’re following our London site-values, Mr. Petre? No doubt you’ve handled such things in your time?”
“It is very good of you,” said Mr. Petre. He was miserable within; he felt himself being led on, but what he dreaded most was an agony of doubt and delay; for he saw himself arguing and re-approached and his other ventures quoted. If once he allowed the series to accumulate upon him one pressure and question after another, suggestion following suggestion, in the end he would be corralled and find himself right up against that fatal day when his awful riddle should be published to others before he had solved it himself. A man’s judgment in such suffering is that of a thing hunted, unbased, perhaps instinctive, at any rate precipitate; and Charlie was astonished to hear the words solemnly and simply pronounced by the standing figure at the window, who looked at him with a sort of forensic severity.
“Well, Mr. Terrard, you have convinced me.”
“Mr. Petre, Mr. Petre,” said Charlie Terrard in the agony of his relief and the whirlwind of such expectations suddenly realized. “I am undertaking a great responsibility! Do not be rushed on account of what I have just said! I do not pretend for a moment that there is an immediate market. I do not believe there is.”
“No,” said Mr. Petre, sitting down again. “No. Quite so,” as if it were the smallest matter in the world.
“But the mere fact that your name—if you will allow it to be known,afterthe transaction.... Well, you see, it would mean a great deal. They would take it for granted that you were going to build, or at any rate they would know that you hadn’t done it without knowing what you were at.”
“Nor should I,” said Mr. Petre coolly.
“Of course not,” and Terrard laughed nervously. “No. Naturally. Well, your name, you see....” He looked at his watch. “Shall we go and see the place now, or after lunch?”
“Come down and lunch with me,” said Mr. Petre—he felt it was the least he could do under circumstances so grand. “And we could go and look at it afterwards.”
Terrard excused himself a moment, to buy a paper he said. And so he did buy a paper; but he also telephoned to Broad Street. Then he returned to his millionaire in the Louis Quinze grill room of the Splendide.
They lunched. They proceeded. And Mr. Petre gazed for a good ten minutes on sodden grasses waving in the wind, tall and dirty stalks and broken palings; the poor abandoned acres of bare land lying there doing nothing, with the enormous wealth of London all around. It was like seeing a hole in the middle of the sea, and wondering why the water did not pour in and flood it; wondering why the huge appetite of London did not snap up such a morsel, why the jostle of London didn’t crowd that vacancy with London once again.
It was an odd ritual, this looking at the nothingness of the Paddenham Site. It might just as well have been foregone. But Terrard was not wrong in his psychology. Looking at a purchase discussed is the beginning of possession, and as they walked away and Terrard explained, amid the dodging of the traffic and the crowds, the importance of a rapid decision, Mr. Petre was prepared for the next step. They picked up a rotor taxi and were crawling towards the City.
As they went Charlie explained their goal. In the office they were bound for they would meet the man who could treat for Williams—for the Vendor: and he had full powers.
Charlie knew what they would take. He repeated to Mr. Petre frankly that less than 700,000 was no use, but that 800,000 would fetch them. They wouldn’t dare stand out for more. All that was needed was plain speech and no haggling: take it or leave it.
In a large, very dirty room that looked out through dirty windows upon a court off Broad Street Mr. Petre was solemnly introduced to maps, to abstracts, to memoranda, to as many papers as would have taxed in so brief a time the brain of the most practiced at conveyance. But he took the onset solidly, and Terrard, standing at his elbow, a little hard spectacled man who was doing the honors of the treat, and a busy clerk who came in and out with new papers as they were needed, and withdrew those done with—all secretly agreed, each in his own heart, that they were dealing here with such a brain as they had never met before.
Mr. Petre had such a way of spreading a parchment and holding it down firmly with both hands while he mastered its contents, of peering at the smaller details of a plan, of smiling sardonically at illegible pencilings in the corners, of copying into a pocket book chance details such as “not 5½—8½” and “This must be corrected by comparison with No. 10”; he had such a rapid fashion of putting aside what he chose to regard as insignificant (though they might have thought it essential) and of delaying upon little things which they had disregarded, but which he for some deep reason of his own would closely examine, that they were impressed as they had never yet been impressed; and the hard little man in spectacles, silent upon nearly every other experience in his career of purchase and option and foreclosure, would recount in his later years over and over again to whomever would hear, the strange happenings of these two hours. For two hours only were taken up in the great decision.
A line of memorandum was written, initialed, and signed; and Mr. Petre went out into the fresh air hooked, securely hooked, on to the Paddenham Site, and liable, morally liable, for rather more than £800,000 and frills. The man Williams, all witless of his happy fate, was saved.
Terrard took leave at his office door, and Mr. Petre, crawling back westward again in a taxi to his hotel, suffered what is known as the reaction.
He sat for the best part of an hour in his room, turning over in his mind the madness, the enormity of the thing he had just done. It rushed in upon him suddenly, like a fierce animal springing from the brake upon a traveler, that he had not realized—it had been too sudden—the affair of the £73,729 16s. 3d. He was living in a whirl of dreams. The reality of that solid sum now loomed upon him. It was jeopardized. It might go like smoke. Then with infinitely greater force, with a thud like a battering ram, came the consideration that he was by way of meeting a sum the like of which was fantastic beyond the powers of any but one man in millions. Under the deadening blow of that fairly obvious discovery he reeled back into the consolation which he had already found on that day, not so long past, when he had ordered with perfect simplicity in the corner of Berkeley Square the purchase of fifty-thousand barbarous things called Touaregs of which he knew not anything at all. He remembered the fate of that blind action of a moment. He trusted to the same good fortune. And there returned to him that odd consolation which he had felt on that first day. What if the whole thing crashed? He was only where he was before. Would a man standing as he was be held responsible? His conscience told him yes, but the Law?—He knew nothing of the law in the matter.
And then ... if he were really all they thought he was (and they seemed to know) he might be able to raise even so vast a sum.... But how without discovery of his dreadful secret?
It meant the revelation which he dreaded, at the worst; but that at the worst would come anyhow. At the best (and, after all, it was one chance in two), his fate would be postponed.
His disturbed and blinded heart was the lighter for this confusion of thought so ending, and he exercised what power he had over his own thoughts to drive from them all anxiety. He knew one way in which it could be done. He had tried it already. He left an abrupt message, as he had left one those few days before; he noted the date when he was pledged to return to the city, and he departed by the very next train he could catch for his retreat in Hampshire.
The playful Dæmon attached to Mr. Petre’s fortunes grinned to himself and acted. He it was that thrust a spear into the heart of a certain minor official of the Education Department.
He was a poet in the truest sense of the word; a creator, was that minor official. They only paid him £750 a year—from which income tax was brutally deducted ere ever he touched the checks—he lived a bachelor and alone in Clapham. But the Spirit bloweth where it listeth, it does, and it had inspired this isolated man.
Long ago this minor official of the Education Department had been inspired to save England.
It was a vision; a revelation; it had struck him in one blinding flash that what Elementary Education lacked in all our great towns and especially in London was a Central Physical and Civic Training Ground and Development Premises; what was soon briefly known under his energetic propaganda as a C.P.C.T.G.D.P.
That was three years ago; all that time the great idea had grown. Lady Gwryth had taken it up with all her might and so had her sister. What an ideal to realize! Miniature ranges, swimming baths, large airy gymnasiums, acoustic theaters, Greek plays and, above all, Dromes!
A new life open (in relays) to the children of the poor, and that in the very core of London!
Only the Treasury blocked the way. It did not definitely oppose, but it looked askance at the proposed expenditure. For the County Council could not add more than 2d.
The Dæmon suddenly stirred that minor official with the sharp decisive conviction that his moment had come. And, indeed, it was Primrose Day.
Therefore, much at the same time that Mr. Petre was sitting there in his room, wrestling with gloom and consolation, before his flight to the isolation and refreshment of Southern England, that minor official had jogged the memory of a superior; that superior had determined to approach the Permanent Secretary once more with his mighty scheme; and the Permanent Secretary, before the office closed for the evening, had determined in his turn that the thing must be done now or never, and had gone himself (for all his glory) to the House of Commons, and had bearded the Secretary of State in his room.
Therefore it was that when, the next day, Mr. Petre was relaxing in the happy vacuity of his beloved Hampshire a brief note came by hand to the hard little man in spectacles in the dirty court off Broad Street, and that individual found himself summoned to the big palace in Whitehall; the Education Department had at last made up its mind to buy.
It had been told (as perhaps three hundred other possible purchasers had been told) that the site could be got for a song, the song being perhaps 2d., perhaps 2½., upon the insignificant rates; or, if the worst came to the worst, a mere pimple upon the Budget. And after all, they had delayed too long. They had heard it, as all those other possible gulls had heard it, in every form of approach—at dinner, in the street, by letter, by write-ups in the Press, even through the personal eloquence of Mr. Williams himself. No one can say as a rule what it is that moves a public department at last to act, or what power fixes the moment; but in this case we know the agent: it was the Playful Dæmon.
The hard little man in spectacles heard with impassible face the demand and the project of his Sovereign—for, as we all know, Ministers are but advisers to the Crown. And as the scheme unrolled before him, his accurate, well-trained mind, immeasurably experienced in such things, was running up figures and attaching to the sum upon which at last it settled, that happy margin which would fall to the office in Broad Street when all the rest of the pack had torn off their share.
Provisionally, very provisionally, protesting that he had no powers to act; protesting that he could not speak for his principals; protesting that it must be put before others; he stated—oh, so provisionally—a bedrock sum (in round figures, of course, only round figures); and the Department, which had been well salted, was astonished to hear that what it hardly expected much under three millions was obtainable—provisionally of course, it was a mere estimate, there was no authority—for not so very much more than two.