Reggie stared at it with gloomy apprehension. “I believe the beggars get murdered just to bother me,” he was reflecting, when a jovial tea-merchant (wholesale--that club is a most respectable club) clapped him on the shoulder, and asked what the news was. “They only do it to annoy because they know it teases,” said Reggie, and held up the tape. “Albert Lunt!” said the tea-merchant, and whistled. “Well, he won’t be missed!” “Don’t you believe it,” Reggie groaned, and went out. Upon his way home the passionate interest which the world, expressing its emotions on newspaper placards, took in Sir Albert Lunt was heaped upon him. When he let himself in, his factotum, Samuel Baker, was hovering in the hall. “Oh, don’t look so alert, Sam. It’s maddening,” Reggie complained. Samuel Baker grinned. “You’ll want all the papers, sir?” “I suppose so!” “I’m getting each edition as they come along, sir. Would you like a photograph of Sir Albert?” “Go away, Sam.” Reggie waved at him. “Go quite away, Sam. Do you know one reason why many fellows get murdered? It’s because other fellows can’t live up to them.” As he changed, Reggie looked through the papers. They were eloquent upon Sir Albert Lunt. His career, even when treated with the delicacy due to those who die rich, was a picturesque subject. Sir Albert Lunt, with his surviving brother Victor, had gone out to South Africa in the early days of diamonds. His first vocation was discreetly veiled. Some references to his life-long passion for sport reminded the knowing of the story that he and his brother had been in the front rank of the profession which works with three cards, the thimble, and the pea. Sir Albert, always in close alliance with Victor, had come out into daylight in the second stage of the diamond fields, when the business man was following in the steps of lucky adventurers. It had been Sir Albert’s habit through life to appear in the second stage of things. The polite newspaper biographies called this prudence and sound judgment. He had always been fortunate in reaping other people’s harvests. There were strange tales of his devices at Kimberley and Johannesburg, and just a hint of a clash with Cecil Rhodes, in which Rhodes had said what he thought of the Brothers Lunt with a certain gusto. So ways that were dark and tricks that were anything but vain in Kimberley and Johannesburg made Albert Lunt a millionaire. He was not satisfied. South Africa was too small for him. Or was it too hot for him? He had spread his “operations” round the world. He was “interested” in some Manchurian tin and the copper belt of the Belgian Congo. “One of our modern Empire builders,” as the evening papers sagely said.