“I vill not shut up. You are always interfering. You interfere with me and de vork-peoples. You interfere vith my tobacco merchants. And now you vant to interfere vith de dividends.” “Damn it, _you_ draw a salary of seven hundred a year; and I haven’t had a penny piece out of the concern yet.” Turkovitch became plaintive, even less intelligible than usual. “But vy not pay out de dividend? A leetle dividend. Drei per cent on de cabital.” “Because, there’s no money to do it with: because we’re trading on bank-credit: because. . . . Oh, you try and explain things to him, Reid,” said our Mr. Jameson hopelessly. Reid plunged into an exhaustive bath of facts and figures. There was big money to be made out of Nirvana. Reid knew it; Peter knew it; Bramson knew it. The hopeless period of an advertising business, the pay-pay-pay-and-not-a-jitney-of-it-back stage had been passed. Now, all they needed was work, a little more capital, and—supremely—confidence. But the Hungarian didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t see it. “Dis is not business, eet is gambling,” he kept on saying. “You spend and you spend. And dere are no deevidends. I vish I had my cabital out of de gompany. . . .” Reid glanced at Peter, who took the cue, screwed the butt of his cigar into the corner of his mouth, and said, very slowly: “Look here, Turkovitch. You’re being a frightful ass. I don’t like to see any man who has worked with me throwing away a fortune. . . .” “Fortune?” sniffed Turkovitch. “Vith no deevidends.” “_Do_ let me speak for a minute. As I was saying, you’re being very foolish. But if you really mean what you say, you shall have your capital out. _I’ll_ buy your shares off you. At a fair price.” “Vot price?” Peter, who had devoted the week-end (Poor Patricia!) to a careful study of the anticipated problem, drew a piece of paper from his pocket. “When I first consented to join you in this show,” he began, “you were worth, at an outside estimate, two thousand pounds. For six years, you’ve been drawing £700 a year.” “Dat,” said Turkovitch, slightly mollified already, “vos for my vork, for my experience.” “Quite right. I wasn’t asking you to give it me back, was I? Then there’s six years’ compound interest at, say, five per cent. Call it two thousand eight hundred. I’ll give you”—Peter hesitated for a moment, went up two hundred in his mind—“Three thousand pounds for your shares in Nirvana. The lot, of course.” * * * * * And so—after about a fortnight of negotiation—they got rid of the obstructionist. He went, in the end, quietly; delighted with his cheque; saying: “Now, I and my wife, ve take a little trip to Salonica. Perhaps, ven I come back, ve do some business in de leaf-tobacco, eh, Petere?” “Right you are,” said our Mr. Jameson, who had no patience with fools but never bore malice. PART THREE THE CREST OF THE WAVE § 1