Don't let there be any further misunderstandings! I apologize
for doing you the momentary injustice of suspecting that
you were going to play off the vendor's shares on me.
Of course you said it--but it was a joke."
"There seems to be a joke somewhere, sure enough,"
said Thorpe, in dryly metallic tones--"but it isn't me
who's the joker. I told you you should have 100,000
of my 400,000 shares, didn't I? I told you that in so
many words. Very well, what more do you want? Here
they are for you! I keep my promise to the letter.
But you--you seem to think you're entitled to make a row.
What do you mean by it?"
"Just a little word"--interposed Plowden, with strenuous
calmness of utterance--"what you say may be true
enough--yes, I admit it is true as far as it goes.
But was that what either of us had in our minds at the time?
You know it wasn't! You had just planned a coup on the Stock
Exchange which promised you immense rewards. I helped
you to pass a bogus allotment through our Board--without
which your coup wouldn't have been worth a farthing.
You were enthusiastically grateful to me then. In the
excitement of the moment you promised me a quarter of all
you should make. 'WE ARE BOTH RICH MEN!' I remember those
very words of yours. They have never been out of my mind.
We discussed the things that we would each do, when we came
into this wealth.
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