Thorpe stood waiting near the door, and held out his hand
with a dramatically significant gesture when the little
Scotchman entered. "Put her there!" he exclaimed heartily,
with an exuberant reversion to the slang of remote
transatlantic bonhomie.
"Yeh've done it, then!" said Semple, his sharp face
softening with pleasure at the news. "Yeh've pulled
it off at twenty-three!"
The other's big countenance yielded itself to a boyish grin.
"Twenty-FIVE!" he said, and laughed aloud. "After you
left this morning, it kind o' occurred to me that I'd
raise it a couple of pounds. I found I was madder about
those pieces in the newspapers than I thought I was,
and so I took an extra seventeen thousand pounds on
that account."
"God above!" Semple ejaculated, with a satisfaction
through which signs of an earlier fright were visible.
"It was touch-and-go if you didn't lose it all by doing
that! You risked everything, man!"
Thorpe ponderously shrugged his shoulders.
"Well--I did it, anyhow, and it came off," was his comment.
Then, straightening himself, he drew a long, long breath,
and beamed down at the little man. "Think of it! God! It's
actually all over! And NOW perhaps we won't have a drink!
Hell! Let's send out for some champagne!" His finger was
hovering over the bell, when the Broker's dissuading voice
arrested it.
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