Bones stopped him.

"Any fool can get the shares up to any price he likes, if they're all

held in one hand," he said.

"What?" said the outraged Mr. de Vinne. "Do you suggest I have rigged

the market? Besides, they're not all in one hand. They're pretty

evenly distributed."

"Who holds 'em?" asked Bones curiously.

"Well, I've got a parcel, and Pole Brothers have a parcel."

"Pole Brothers, eh?" said Bones, nodding. "Well, well!"

"Come, now, be reasonable. Don't be suspicious, Mr. Tibbetts," said

the other genially. "Your friend's interests are all right, and the

shareholders' interests are all right. You might do worse than get

control of the company yourself."

Bones nodded.

"I was thinking of that," he said.

"I assure you," said Mr. de Vinne with great earnestness, "that the

possibilities of the Mazeppa Trading Company are unlimited. We have

concessions from the Great River to the north of the French

territory----"

"Not worth the paper they're written on, dear old kidder," said Bones,

shaking his head. "Chiefs' concessions without endorsement from the

Colonial Office are no good, dear old thing."

"But the trading concessions are all right," insisted the other. "You

can't deny that. You understand the Coast customs better than I do.

Trading customs hold without endorsement from the Colonial Office."

Bones had to admit that that was a fact.

"I'll think it over," he said. "It appeals to me, old de Vinne. It

really does appeal to me. Who own the shares?"

"I can give you a list," said Mr. de Vinne, with admirable calm, "and

you'd be well advised to negotiate privately with these gentlemen.

You'd probably get the shares for eighteen shillings." He took a gold

pencil from his pocket and wrote rapidly a list of names, and Bones

took the paper from his hand and scrutinised them.

Hamilton, a silent and an amazed spectator of the proceedings, waited

until de Vinne had gone, and then fell upon his partner.

"You're not going to be such a perfect jackass----" he began, but

Bones's dignified gesture arrested his eloquence.

"Dear old Ham," he said, "senior partner, dear old thing! Let old

Bones have his joke."

"Do you realise," said Hamilton, "that you are contemplating the risk

of a quarter of a million? You're mad, Bones!"

Bones grinned.

"Go down to our broker and buy ten thousand shares in old Mazeppa,

Ham," he said. "You'll buy them on the market for nineteen shillings,

and I've an idea that they're worth about the nineteenth part of a

farthing."

"But----" stammered Hamilton.

"It is an order," said Bones, and he spoke in the Bomongo tongue.

"Phew!" said Hamilton. "That carries me a few thousand miles. I

wonder what those devils of the N'gombi are doing now?"




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