A month later he held the special meeting of the Native Industries shareholders in the hollow of his hand, and in a speech which the press reported verbatim lashed the administration of the Chartered Company of Puto-Congo Consolidated with a tongue like the whip of an inspired slave-driver. Powerless in the face of numbers the opposition fell away in panic; the conscience of the Free Churches asserted itself, all the Directors resigned, and Mr. Trimblerigg and nine others, with clean records like his own, were elected to their place. Two members of the new Board proposed Mr. Trimblerigg to be chairman; and he was elected without a dissentient voice. Native Industries Limited was to be run henceforth on Christian lines, and set an example to the world by earning for itself on those lines larger profits than ever before. Mr. Trimblerigg was a consistently sanguine soul; believing the shareholding system to be a device well-pleasing to God, he believed it could be done. And so that night he went home to his house justified, in beams of glory all of his own making, very tired, but more satisfied with himself than he could ever remember to have been before. CHAPTER SIXTEEN _Reward of Virtue_ While Mr. Trimblerigg still went in clouds of glory, high and uplifted on popular applause, Davidina, back from one of her adventurous expeditions and already preparing for the next, came to see him. She viewed him up and down admiringly. ‘You don’t look much the worse for it,’ she said. ‘I don’t know that I am,’ he replied genially, even while his dodging mind was at guess as to what exactly she meant by worse. ‘But it’s taken me off my work a good deal; and I was wanting holiday.’ ‘Take it,’ said Davidina, ‘I’ll pay.’ ‘Oh, it isn’t a question of paying,’ he returned. ‘Besides, if it were, I’m the better off of the two of us, now.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘You see, I made lucky investments.’ Davidina almost loved him; that hit at himself was so good-humoured and playful and apposite. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but it was a narrow squeeze.’ ‘It was,’ he replied, ‘but I like being squeezed. It suits me. Then I always do my best.’ ‘Jonathan,’ said his sister, ‘I’m beginning to admire you. If I didn’t know you so well, you’d take me in too--almost.’ ‘My dear Davidina, that is the last thing I have ever wished to do,’ he said. ‘Hopeless adventures do not appeal to me.’ She laughed, and let the argument drop to say: ‘By the way, what are you now? What do you call yourself?’ ‘I still call myself Jonathan Trimblerigg,’ was his reply. ‘I don’t propose taking a title, even if it were offered me.’ ‘It’s fifteen years since Uncle Phineas died,’ said Davidina, ‘and I’ve a reason for asking.’