Aren't you lunching?"
"No--I'll have the boy bring in some sandwiches,"
Thorpe decided. "I want my next meal west of Temple Bar
when I get round to it. I've soured on the City for keeps."
"I wouldn't say that it had been so bad to you, either,"
Semple smilingly suggested, as he turned to the door.
Thorpe grinned in satisfied comment. "Hurry back as soon
as you've finally settled with Rostocker and the other fellow,"
he called after him, and began pacing the floor again.
It was nearly four o'clock when these two men, again together
in the Board Room, and having finished the inspection
of some papers on the desk, sat upright and looked at each
other in tacit recognition that final words were to be spoken.
"Well, Semple," Thorpe began, after that significant
little pause, "I want to say that I'm damned glad
you've done so well for yourself in this affair.
You've been as straight as a die to me,--I owe it
as much to you as I do to myself,--and if you don't
think you've got enough even now, I want you to say so."
He had spoken in tones of sincere liking, and the
other answered him in kind. "I have more than I ever
dreamed of making in a lifetime when I came to London,"
he declared. "If my father were alive, and heard me
tell him that in one year, out of a single transaction,
I had cleared over sixty-five thousand pounds,
he'd be fit to doubt the existence of a Supreme Being.
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