"'This, by the way, does not seem to be as impossible as it sounds for, according to my father, when the company came out, Marple bought and sold "Olotutu" in the most mysterious manner, rigging the market, watering the shares, cornering the bears, and doing other extraordinary things, each and all at a profit. He was not satisfied with his share of the price paid for "Olotutu" by the syndicate, nor with his share of the enormously higher price paid to the syndicate by the public, but went in for Stock Exchange manoeuvres six-deep, coming out an easy winner on settling day. One of my father's most treasured collections is the complete set of proofs of the prospectus. It went through thirteen editions before it reached the public; no author could revise his book more lovingly than Marple revised that prospectus. What tales printers could tell to be sure! The most noticeable variations in the text of my father's collection are the omission or addition of cyphers. Some of the editions have £120,000 for the share capital of the Company, where others have £1,200,000 and others £12,000. Sometimes the directors appear to have extenuated "nought," sometimes to have set down "nought" in malice. As for the number of debenture shares, the amounts to be paid up on allotment, the contracts with divers obscure individuals, the number of shares to be taken up by the directors and the number to be accepted by the vendors in part payment, these vary indefinitely; but in no edition, not even in those still void of the names of the directors, do the profits guaranteed by the directors fall below twenty-five per cent. Sometimes the complex and brain-baffling calculations that fill page three result in a bigger profit, sometimes in a smaller, but they are always cheering to contemplate.