“Before selling, would the syndicate score of stockbrokers communicate with each other, or with their principals?” “I don’t know. It would depend on their instructions.” “Suppose they refused to sell when a _bona fide_ offer was made?” “Then the stock would instantly rise, and your five thousand pounds would not be needed. I see what you mean, Lord Stranleigh. You are going to make what they call a bluff. But, you see, they’d instantly unload the stock on you. They wouldn’t refuse to sell.” “Ah, I was afraid they would. Very well, Mr. Mackeller, take this commission from me, the first I have ever given in the city. I am more accustomed to gambling in my club, or at Monte Carlo, so I must depend on you to look after the details. Quietly but quickly select your twenty men; give them _carte blanche_, but make it a sure proviso that they each attack the stockbroker you direct them to, at exactly the same moment. Let there be no intercommunication if possible, and tell your twenty to buy everything in sight so far as the Red Shallows are concerned.” “But, my lord, that may take a fortune, and the sellers will insist on immediate payment.” “They will get it, Mr. Mackeller. I am naturally a plunger, and this game fascinates me, because I don’t understand it.” “I think you understand it a great deal better than you pretend, my lord, but this may require half a million of money.” “Very well. Get whatever papers ready that are necessary to protect you. I’ll place the money at your disposal, and we ought to have all the stock that’s for sale by ten minutes after twelve. Your son and I have been doing business on a ten-minutes’ basis, but in this case we’ll allow half an hour, and see what happens.” The elder Mackeller looked sternly at this dapper young man of the bandbox, so beautiful, so neat, so debonair, so well-groomed, and the young man became so uncomfortable under the fierce scrutiny of those hawklike eyes, that his own drooped modestly like those of a girl, and with the thin, elegant glove which he held loosely in his right hand Stranleigh flicked an invisible particle of dust from his trouser leg.