"
The Broker was thinking of something else. "What is to be
the precise position of the Company, in the immediate future?"
he asked.
"Company? What Company?"
Semple smiled grimly. "Have you already forgotten
that there is such a thing?" he queried, with irony.
"Why, man, this Company that paid for this verra fine
Board-table," he explained, with his knuckles on its red
baize centre.
Thorpe laughed amusedly. "I paid for that out of my
own pocket," he said. "For that matter everything
about the Company has come out of my pocket----"
"Or gone into it," suggested the other, and they
chuckled together.
"But no--you're right," Thorpe declared. "Some thing
ought to be settled about the Company, I suppose.
Of course I wash my hands of it--but would anybody else
want to go on with it? You see its annual working expenses,
merely for the office and the Board, foot up nearly
3,000 pounds. I've paid these for this year, but naturally
I won't do it again. And would it be worth anybody else's
while to do it? Yours, for example?"
"Have you had any explanations with the other Directors?"
the Broker asked, thoughtfully.
"Explanations--no," Thorpe told him. "But that's all right.
The Marquis has been taken care of, and so has Plowden.
They're game to agree to anything. And let's see--Kervick
is entirely my man.
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