This possibility had not occurred to Bones, and it is likely it had
more effect than any other argument which Hamilton could use. That day
he began to take an interest in life, stepped gaily into the office and
as blithely into his secretary's room. He even made jokes, and dared
invite her to tea--an invitation which was declined so curtly that
Bones decided that tea was an unnecessary meal, and cut it out
forthwith.
All this time the business of Schemes Limited was going forward, if not
by leaps and bounds, yet by steady progression. Perhaps it was the
restraining influence that Hamilton exercised which prevented the leaps
being too pronounced and kept the bounds within bounds, so to speak.
It was Schemes Limited which bought the theatrical property of the late
Mr. Liggeinstein and re-sold those theatres in forty-eight hours at a
handsome profit. It was Bones who did the buying, and it was Hamilton
who did the selling--in this case, to the intense annoyance of Bones,
who had sat up the greater part of one night writing a four-act play in
blank verse, and arriving at the office late, had discovered that his
chance of acting as his own producer had passed for ever.
"And I'd written a most wonderful part for you, dear old mademoiselle,"
he said sadly to his secretary. "The part where you die in the third
act--well, really, it brought tears to my jolly old eyes."
"I think Captain Hamilton was very wise to accept the offer of the
Colydrome Syndicate," said the girl coldly.
In his leisure moments Bones had other relaxations than the writing of
poetry--now never mentioned--or four-act tragedies. What Hamilton had
said of him was true. He had an extraordinary nose for a bargain, and
found his profits in unexpected places.
People got to know him--quite important people, men who handled
millions carelessly, like Julius Bohea, and Important Persons whose
faces are familiar to the people of Britain, such as the Right Hon.
George Parkinson Chenney. Bones met that most influential member of
the Cabinet at a very superior dinner-party, where everybody ate
plovers' eggs as though it were a usual everyday occurrence.
And Mr. Parkinson Chenney talked on his favourite subject with great
ease and charm, and his favourite subject was the question of the
Chinese Concession. Apparently everybody had got concessions in China
except the British, until one of our cleverest diplomatists stepped in
and procured for us the most amazingly rich coalfield of Wei-hai-tai.
The genius and foresight of this diplomatist--who had actually gone to
China in the Long Vacation, and of his own initiative and out of his
own head had evolved these concessions, which were soon to be ratified
by a special commission which was coming from China--was a theme on
which Mr. Parkinson Chenney spoke with the greatest eloquence. And
everybody listened respectfully, because he was a great man.