All this was said in the most genial and good-humoured tone imaginable. The speaker was a spare, straight, neatly dressed individual of middle age. His face was of a dark bronze hue, lit up by a pair of keen black eyes, and his beard was prematurely gray, almost white. The expression of keenness on a deal was not characteristic of him alone. Everyone wore it in those days. "That was a great old shot you did on me, Rainsford, with those Verneuk Draais," cut in the other man, in a jolly, hail-the-maintop sort of voice. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, whose condition looked as hard as nails. "_Ja_, it just was." "Well, I'll buy them back if you like, Wheeler." "How much?" "Sixteen and a half." A roar of good-humoured derision went up from the other. "Sixteen and a half? And I took them over from you at twenty-eight. Sixteen and a half?" "Well, are you taking?" said Rainsford. "Dead off," returned the other. "What do you say, you fellows?" cut in the first who had spoken. "A little 'smile' of something before lunch won't do us any harm. Eh? what do you say?" "_Ja_, that's so. Come along," sung out the tall man, spinning round upon one heel and heading for the Exchange bar. "There's nothing like an Angostura to give one an appetite," said the dark man to Laurence as they walked along. "It gives tone to the system. Angostura--with a little drop of gin in it." "With a little drop of gin in it?" repeated Wheeler, with a derisive roar. "That's where the tone to the system comes in--eh, Rankin?" "Only just out from home, are you?" said the latter to Laurence as, having named their respective "poisons," the original four, with two or three others who had joined them _en route_, stood absorbing the same. "Heavens! did you ever hear such a row in your life?" he went on, as through the open door connecting with the Exchange came the frantic bawling of brokers, competing wildly for Blazesfonteins, and Verneuk Laagtes, and Hellpoorts, and Vulture's Vleis, and Madeiras, and Marshes, and up and down the whole gamut. And there in the crowd lining the bar, and in the crowd outside the Exchange, and in the crowd upon Market Square, where the auctioneers stood, well-nigh elbow to elbow, bellowing from their tubs, and where you might bid for anything from a building stand or a pair of horses to a concertina or a pair of stays--everywhere the talk was the same, and it was of scrip. King Scrip ruled the roost.