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Would you believe it, when I had that confidential interview with Brookfield the other day, about the new issue of Golcondas, the man was under the easy-chair, though I searched the room beforehand to make sure he wasn't there; and he came to me afterwards with full notes of the conversation, to assure me he thought Brookfield whom I've known for ten years was too tall by half an inch to be one of Colonel Clay's impersonations."
And if a struggling man staggers a bit over the line in his youth, in the lower parts of the law which are pretty dingy, anyhow, there's always some old vampire to hang on to him all his life for it." "Guatemalan Golcondas, wasn't it?" said Fisher, sympathetically. Harker suddenly shuddered. Then he said, "I believe you must know everything, like God Almighty."
I could see at once from his mollified tone that the news from the Transvaal was favourable to his operations in Cloetedorp Golcondas. He was therefore in a friendly and affable temper. His whole manner changed at once. He grew polite in return to the polite stranger.
His brokers, Finglemores, had only one answer to all inquiries: "Sir Charles has every confidence in the stability of Golcondas, and doesn't wish to sell or to increase the panic." All the world said he was splendid, splendid! There he stationed himself on 'Change like some granite stack against which the waves roll and break themselves in vain.
Before the crash comes I will sell out to-morrow the few shares I hold, through Charles's kindness, in the Cloetedorp Golcondas." With his marvellous business instinct, Charles seemed to divine my thought, for he turned round to me sharply. "Look here, Sey," he remarked, in an acidulous tone, "recollect, you're my brother-in-law. You are also my secretary.
He was awaked by a footstep, and, starting, saw rocking along the forest path one Farmer Pollock, wearing now fez and tassel, and he saw his clothes all clay, and, with a smile of fondness, saw how, even beneath its grime, the meteor dodged and jeered, with frolic leers, in the beams of a bright morning that seemed to him the primal morning, a fresh wedding-morning, swarming with elves and shell-tinted visions, imps and pixy princes, profligate Golcondas.
Every costermonger in Whitechapel will wear genuine Koh-i-noors for buttons on his coat; every girl in Bermondsey will sport a rivière like Lady Vandrift's to her favourite music-hall. There's a slump in Golcondas. Sly, sly, I can see; but we know all about it!" Charles moved on, disgusted. The man's manners were atrocious. Near the Bank we ran up against a most respectable jobber.
But as Chairman of the Golcondas, I am bound to see that the interests of widows and orphans whose All is invested with me should not suffer at this crisis." His voice seemed to falter.
'Pon my soul, I admire him. I sometimes wish " He broke off and hesitated. "Yes, Charles?" I answered. "I sometimes wish ... we had got him on the Board of the Cloetedorp Golcondas. Mag nificent combinations he would make in the City!" I rose from my seat and stared solemnly at my misguided brother-in-law. "Charles," I said, "you are beside yourself.
He disappeared at last into the precincts of an office, waving me back, not to follow. After a long consultation he came out and rejoined me. All day long the City rang with Golcondas, Golcondas. Everybody murmured, "Slump, slump in Golcondas." The brokers had more business to do than they could manage; though, to be sure, almost every one was a seller and no one a buyer.
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