ated to earn money for
those who invest in them. Now this afternoon as I was dull, I got hold
of a book called the Directory of Directors, and looked up all your
names in it, except those of the gentlemen from Paris, and the companies
that you direct--I found out about those in another book. Well, I could
not make out that any of these companies have ever earned any money, a
dividend, don't you call it? Therefore how do you all grow so rich, and
why do people invest in them?"

Now Sir Robert frowned, Alan coloured, two or three of the company
laughed outright, and one of the French gentlemen who understood English
and had already drunk as much as was good for him, remarked loudly to
his neighbour, "Ah! she is charming. She do touch the spot, like that
ointment you give me to-day. How do we grow rich and why do the people
invest? _Mon Dieu!_ why do they invest? That is the great mystery. I
say that _cette belle demoiselle, votre niece, est ravissante. Elle a
d'esprit, mon ami Haswell._"

Apparently her uncle did not share these sentiments, for he turned as
red as any turkey-cock, and said across the great round table:

"My dear Barbara, I wish that you would leave matters which you do not
understand alone. We are here to dine, not to talk about finance."

"Certainly, Uncle," she answered sweetly. "I stand, or rather sit,
reproved. I suppose that I have put my foot into it as usual, and the
worst of it is," she added, turning to Sir Robert, "that I am just as
ignorant as I was before."

"If you want to master these matters, Miss Champers," said Aylward with
a rather forced laugh, "you must go into training and worship at the
shrine of"--he meant to say Mammon, then thinking that the word sounded
unpleasant, substituted--"the Yellow God as we do."

At these words Alan, who had been studying his plate, looked up quickly,
and her uncle's face turned from red to white. But the irrepressible
Barbara seized upon them.

"The Yellow God," she repeated. "Do you mean money or that fetish thing
of Major Vernon's with the terrible woman's face that I saw at the
office in the City. Well, to change the subject, tell us, Alan, what is
that yellow god of yours and where did it come from?"

"My uncle Austin, who was my mother's brother and a missionary, brought
it from West Africa a great many years ago. He was the first to visit
the tribe who worship it; in fact I do not think that anyone has ever
visited them since. But really