Jessop Reed took off his glossy, fashionable hat, laid a gold-headed malacca cane across it as he placed it upon the table, and then shot his cuffs out of the sleeves of his City garments, cut in the newest style, and apparently fresh that day. Tie, collar, sleeve-links, pin, chain, tightly-cut trousers, spats, and patent shoes betokened the dandy of the Stock Exchange, and the cigar-case he took out was evidently the last new thing of its kind. "Cigar?" he said, opening and offering it to the dark, sallow, youngish man seated at an office table, for he had not risen when his visitor to the office in New Inn entered. "Eh? Well, I don't mind. Yours are always so good." He selected one, declined a patent cutter, preferring to use a very keen penknife which lay on the table, but he accepted the match which his visitor extracted from the interior of a little Japanese owl, and deftly lit by rubbing it along his leg. The next minute the two men sat smoking and gazing in each other's eyes. "Well, my brilliant, my jasper and sardine stone, what brings you through grimy Wych Street to these shades?" "You're pretty chippy this morning, Wrigley. Been doing somebody?" "No, my boy; hadn't a chance. Have you come to be done?" "Yes; gently. Short bill on moderate terms." "What! You don't mean to say that you, my hero on 'Change, who are turning over money, as it were, with a pitchfork, are coming to me?" "I am, though, so no humbug." "'Pon my word! A fellow with a dad like a Rothschild and a brother that--here, why don't you ask the noble Clive?" "Hang Clive!" snapped out Jessop. "Certainly, my dear fellow, if you wish it," said John Wrigley. "Hang Clive! Will that do?" "I don't care about worrying the old man, and there's a little thing on in Argentines this morning. I want a hundred at once." "In paper?" "Look here, Wrigley, if you won't let me have the stuff, say so, and I'll go to some one else." "And pay twice as much as I shall charge, my dear boy. Don't be so peppery. Most happy to oblige you, and without consulting my friend in the City, who will have to sell out at a loss, eh? A hundred, eh?" "Yes, neat." "All right!" A slip of blue stamped paper was taken out of a drawer, filled up, passed over for signature, and as Jessop now took up a pen he uttered a loud growl. "Hundred and twenty in four months! Sixty per cent. Bah! what a blood-sucker you are!" "Yes, aren't I?" said the other cheerily. "Don't take my interest first, though, and give you a cheque for eighty, eh?" He took the bill, glanced at it, and thrust it in a plain morocco case, which he replaced in a drawer, took out a cheque-book, quickly wrote a cheque, signed it, and looked up. "Cross it?" he said. "Yes. I shall pay it in. Thanks!" "There you see the value of a good reputation, my dear Reed; but you oughtn't to be paying for money through the nose like that."