"There's old Dreadnought Phipps," White continued. "Peter Phipps, to
give him his right name. Well, has ever a man who aspires to be
considered a financial giant had such a career? He was broken on the New
York Stock Exchange, went to Montreal and made a million or so, back to
New York, where he got in with the copper lot and no doubt made real
money. Then he went for that wheat corner in Chicago. He got out of that
with another fortune, though they say he sold his fellow directors. Now
he turns up here, chairman of the B. & I., who must have bought fifty
million pounds' worth of wheat already this year. Well, unless he's
considerably out of his depth, he must have some one else's money to
play with besides his own."

"Let me see, who are the other directors?" Kendrick enquired.

"Well, there's young Stanley Rees, Phipps' nephew, who came in for three
hundred thousand pounds a few years ago," Maurice White answered; "old
skinflint Martin, who may be worth half a million but certainly not more;
and Dredlinton. Dredlinton's rabbit, of course. He hasn't got a bob.
There's money enough amongst the rest for any ordinary business
undertaking, if only one could understand what the mischief they were up
to. They can't corner wheat in this country."

"I wonder," Kendrick murmured. "The harvests last year were bad all over
the world, you know, and this year, except in the States and Canada, they
will be worse. With another fifty million it might be done."

"But they're taking deliveries," White pointed out. "They have granaries
all over the kingdom, subsidiary companies to do the dirty work of
refusing to sell. Already they say that three quarters of the wheat of
the country is in their hands, and mind you, they sell nothing. The price
goes up and up, just the same as the price of their shares has risen.
They buy but they never sell. Some of the big banks must be helping, of
course, but I know one or two--one in particular---who decline to handle
any business from them at all."

"I should say their greatest risk was Government interference," Kendrick
observed. "Gambling in foodstuffs ought to be forbidden."

"It would take our Government a year to make up their minds what to do,"
White scoffed, "and by that time these fellows would have sold out and be
on to something else."

"Well, it's too hot for shop," Kendrick yawned. "I think I shall cut work
on Friday and have a long week-end at Sandwich."

"I have a good mind to