"There was only one car ever made," interrupted Hamilton.
"I should have said car," said the unperturbed Bones. "The very
appearance of it shows you that the thing is a swindle from beginning
to end. Oh, why did you go against my advice, dear old Ham? Why did
you?"
"You humbug!" said the wrathful Hamilton. "You were just this minute
apologising for giving me advice."
"That," said Bones cheerfully, "was before I'd heard your story. Yes,
Ham, you've been swindled." He thought a moment. "Four thousand
pounds!"
And his jaw dropped.
Bones had been dealing in large sums of late, and had forgotten just
the significance of four thousand pounds to a young officer. He was
too much of a little gentleman to put his thoughts into words, but it
came upon him like a flash that the money which Hamilton had invested
in the Plover Light Car Company was every penny he possessed in the
world, a little legacy he had received just before Bones had left the
Coast, plus all his savings for years.
"Ham," he said hollowly, "I am a jolly old rotter! Here I've been
bluffing and swanking to you when I ought to have been thinking out a
way of getting things right."
Hamilton laughed.
"I'm afraid you're not going to get things right, Bones," he said.
"The only thing I did think was that you might possibly know something
about this firm."
At any other moment Bones would have claimed an extensive acquaintance
with the firm and its working, but now he shook his head, and Hamilton
sighed.
"Sanders told me to come up and see you," he said. "Sanders has great
faith in you, Bones."
Bones went very red, coughed, picked up his long-plumed pen and put it
down again.
"At any rate," said Hamilton, "you know enough about the City to tell
me this--is there any chance of my getting this money back?"
Bones rose jerkily.
"Ham," he said, and Hamilton sensed a tremendous sincerity in his
voice, "that money's going to come back to you, or the name of Augustus
Tibbetts goes down in the jolly old records as a failure."
A minute later Captain Hamilton found himself hand-shook from the room.
Here for Bones was a great occasion. With both elbows on the desk, and
two hands searching his hair, he sat worrying out what he afterwards
admitted was the most difficult problem that ever confronted him.
After half an hour's hair-pulling he went slowly across his beautiful
room and knocked discreetly on the door of the outer office.
Miss Marguerite Whitland had long since grown weary of begging him to
drop this practice. She found it a simple matter to say "Come in!" and
Bones entered, closing the door behind him, and stood in a deferential
attitude two paces from the closed door.