The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Profiteers , by E. Phillips Oppenheim

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Title: The Profiteers

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim

Release Date: January 2, 2004 [eBook #10575]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THE PROFITEERS

BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

1921

CHAPTER I

The Marchioness of Amesbury was giving a garden party in the spacious but
somewhat urban grounds of her mansion in Kensington. Perhaps because it
was the first affair of its sort of the season, and perhaps, also,
because Cecilia Amesbury had the knack of making friends in every walk of
life, it was remarkably well attended. Two stockbrokers, Roger Kendrick
and his friend Maurice White, who had escaped from the City a little
earlier than usual, and had shared a taxicab up west, congratulated
themselves upon having found a quiet and shady seat where iced drinks
were procurable and the crush was not so great.

"Anything doing in your market to-day?" Kendrick asked his younger
associate.

White made a little grimace.

"B. & I., B. & I., all the time," he grumbled. "I'm sick of the name of
the damned things. And to tell you the truth, Ken, when a client asks for
my advice about them, I don't know what to say."

Kendrick contemplated the tips of his patent boots. He was a
well-looking, well-turned-out and well-to-do representative of the
occupation which he, his father and grandfather had followed,--ten years
older, perhaps, than his companion, but remarkably well-preserved. He had
made money and kept it.

"They say that Rockefeller's at the back of them," he remarked.

"They may say what they like but who's to prove it?" his young companion
argued. "They must have enormous backing, of course, but until they
declare it, I'm not pushing the business. Look at the Board on their
merits, Ken."

Roger Kendrick nodded. Every one on the Stock Exchange was interested in
B. & I.'s, and he settled himself down comfortably to hear what his
companion had to say on the matter.