He gave a great breath of satisfaction. “Now d’ye see? It’ll go to forty shillings right off, it ought to go to forty-five, it may go to sixty!... And then,” he said briskly, suddenly changing his tone, “then, my hearties, you blasted well sell out: you unload ... you dump ’em. Plenty more fools where your lot came from. I won’t advise,--sell out just when you see fit. Every man for himself, and every woman too,” he said, bowing politely to the two old ladies in the second row,--“and the devil take the hindmost. But you’ll all have something, you’ll none of you lose it all as it looked like last week. Most of you’ll lose on your first price: late comers least: a few o’ ye’ll make if you bought under two pounds. Anyhow _I_ shall.... There! if that isn’t finance I don’t know what is!” And with a large happy, final, satisfactory and conclusive smile, the Builder of Empire, to the astonishment of every one, looked at his watch, called upon his Creator as a witness to the lateness of the hour, and suddenly went out. It would be delicious to describe what happened in the vast body of that hall when the Chief had left it: how the shareholders made a noise like angry bees swarming; how a curate who had done no man any harm was squashed against a wall and broke two ribs; how five or six excited and almost tearful men surrounded the reporters and fought for their notebooks; how Bingham continued to reiterate that Charles Repton knew what he was at; and how a certain quiet little man with a bronzed face and very humorous eyes, slunk out and got rid of his block of shares within the hour, to a young hearty Colonial gentleman who was wealthy and had come to London to learn the business ways of our City.[2] But I must follow Sir Charles in his rapid drive to the House of Commons. I must mention his unconventional remark to the policeman to the effect that he hoped that old fool Pottle hadn’t come in yet; and his taking his place on the front bench just after prayers with a look so merry and free that it illumined the faces opposite like a sun. The questions to which he had to reply came somewhat late on the paper, and he caused not a little scandal by suggesting in a low tone such answers to his colleagues for _their_ questions as seemed to him at once humorous and apposite. The aged Home Secretary especially afforded him fine sport, and when a question was asked with regard to the new Admiralty docks at Bosham, he went to the length of chucking a cocked-hat note to the principal contractor who sat solemnly upon the benches behind him, nodding cheerfully over his shoulder and whispering loudly: “It’s all up!” All this boded ill for what might happen when his own turn came; and indeed the scene that followed was of a kind entirely novel in the long history of the House of Commons.