Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence. THE EPISODE OF THE FINANCIAL NAPOLEON Second of a Series of Six Stories [First published in _Pictorial Review_, June 1916] Seated with his wife at breakfast on the veranda which overlooked the rolling lawns and leafy woods of his charming Sussex home, Geoffrey Windlebird, the great financier, was enjoying the morning sun to the full. His chubby features were relaxed in a smile of lazy contentment; and his wife, who liked to act sometimes as his secretary, found it difficult to get him to pay any attention to his morning's mail. “There's a column in to-day's _Financial Argus_,” she said, “of which you really must take notice. It's most abusive. It's about the Wildcat Reef. They assert that there never was any gold in the mine, and that you knew it when you floated the company.” “They will have their little joke.” “But you had the usual mining-expert's report.” “Of course we had. And a capital report it was. I remember thinking at the time what a neat turn of phrase the fellow had. I admit he depended rather on his fine optimism than on any examination of the mine. As a matter of fact, he never went near it. And why should he? It's down in South America somewhere. Awful climate--snakes, mosquitoes, revolutions, fever.” Mr. Windlebird spoke drowsily. His eyes closed. “Well, the Argus people say that they have sent a man of their own out there to make inquiries, a well-known expert, and the report will be in within the next fortnight. They say they will publish it in their next number but one. What are you going to do about it?” Mr. Windlebird yawned. “Not to put too fine a point on it, dearest, the game is up. The Napoleon of Finance is about to meet his Waterloo. And all for twenty thousand pounds. That is the really bitter part of it. To-morrow we sail for the Argentine. I've got the tickets.” “You're joking, Geoffrey. You must be able to raise twenty thousand. It's a flea-bite.” “On paper--in the form of shares, script, bonds, promissory notes, it is a flea-bite. But when it has to be produced in the raw, in flat, hard lumps of gold or in crackling bank-notes, it's more like a bite from a hippopotamus. I can't raise it, and that's all about it. So--St. Helena for Napoleon.”