Clearly, Allan Stewart had rubbed his hair up the wrong way, and hurt the promoter grievously in the process. Arthur sat silent for a moment, surprised—wondering what he had best say next, and, while he meditated, Mr. Black opened his mouth again: “And, on the top of all this, you come,” he proceeded; “you come dissatisfied with what I have done for you—indignant that I have failed to do more. You are angry because I could not force the Company to buy that cursed place of yours in Lincoln’s Inn, which, I wish to Heaven, had never been for sale, just as though Stewart did not serve me the same trick about that shop in the Poultry. I bought it on spec, pulled the old buildings down, ran up a splendid new shop as far as the first floor, and then offered it to the board. Do you think they would have it? ‘Pooh, pooh!’ says Mr. Stewart; ‘what do we want with establishments in the Poultry? Less expensive situations will do for us;’ and the confounded thing was thrown upon my hands. Had it not been for the ‘London and Home Counties Bank,’ which had on its board a man I knew, I should have been swamped—I tell you fairly that I should, Dudley. As it was, I sold my interest to the Company at a switching profit, which enabled me to give my friend ten per cent. on the purchase-money, and that pulled me through; and there the bank is now as prosperous a concern as any in London. Shares up to eight premium.” It might all be true. With a terrible shock it occurred to Squire Dudley that there were other people besides himself in the world—other people looking for their halves, and percentages, and paid up shares also. In a moment he seemed to understand that he had taken a hand at a game of chances, in which no one, not even those best experienced in the cards, could ensure success. It was a lottery in which he had embarked; and, although he might blame those who had led him up to the wheel, still he felt he could not complain when the man who had been most sanguine of success drew a blank also. He was a gentleman. Even in his blackest hour of need, Arthur, with all his faults, weaknesses, and sins, never was untrue to his training and his ancestry. He had been born—weak fool though he was—a gentleman, bred one, remained one, and he could not bandy words with this clever, plausible swindler, who, seeing his companion’s hesitation, continued: