"Why do you think so?" he asked bluntly. "According to accounts, the harvests all over the world are disastrous. There is less wheat being shipped here than ever before in the world's history. I can conceive that we may have reached the top, and that the price may decline a few points from now onwards, but even that would make very little difference. I can't see the slightest chance of any material fall in wheat." "I can," Wingate replied. "Don't worry, Ken. No need to dash into the business like a Chicago booster. Just go at it quietly but unwaveringly. I suppose a good many of the B. & I. commissions are still open, and there's bound to be a little buying elsewhere, but I'm a seller of wheat, too, wherever there's any business doing. Wheat's coming down; so are the B. & I. shares. I'm not giving you verbal orders. Here's your warrant." He drew a sheet of note paper towards him and wrote a few lines upon it. Kendrick blotted and laid a paper weight upon it. "That's one of the biggest things I've ever taken on for a client, Wingate," he said. "You won't mind if I venture upon one last word?" "Not I," was the cheerful reply. "Go right ahead." "You're sure that Phipps hasn't drawn you into this? He's a perfect devil for cunning, that man, and he's simply been waiting for your coming. I think it was the disappointment of his life when you first came down to the City and left him alone. You've shown wonderful restraint, old chap. You're sure you haven't been goaded into this?" Wingate smiled. "Don't you worry about me, Ken," he begged. "Of course, in a manner of speaking, this is a duel between Phipps and myself, and if you were to ask my advice which to back, I don't know that I should care to take the responsibility of giving it. At the same time, I'm out to break Phipps and I rather think this time I'm going to do it.--Come along to the Milan, later on, and lunch. Lady Amesbury and Sarah Baldwin and a few others are coming." "Lady Dredlinton, by any chance?" Kendrick asked. "Lady Dredlinton, certainly." "I'll turn up soon after one. And, Wingate." "Well?" "Don't think I'm a croaker, but I know Peter Phipps. There isn't a man on this earth I'd fear more as an enemy. He's unscrupulous, untrustworthy, and an unflinching hater. You and he are hard up against one another, I know, and I suppose you realise that your growing friendship with Josephine Dredlinton is simply hell for him." "I imagine you know that his attentions to her have been entirely unwelcome," Wingate said calmly.