re wouldn't think I would be so rude. Of
course, I know the charge was all wrong."

"That's where you're mistaken," interrupted the colonel calmly; "it was
all right."

"Eh?"

The man stared.

"The charge was perfectly sound," said the colonel, playing with his
fruit knife; "for twenty years I have been making money by buying
businesses at about a twentieth of their value and selling them again."

"But how----" began the other.

"Wait, I'll tell you. I've got men working for me all over the country,
agents and sub-agents, who are constantly on the look-out for scandal.
Housekeepers, servants, valets--you know the sort of people who get hold
of information."

Mr. Crotin was speechless.

"Sooner or later I find a very incriminating fact which concerns a
gentleman of property. I prefer those scandals which verge on the
criminal," the colonel went on.

The outraged Mr. Crotin was rolling his serviette.

"Where are you going? What are you going to do? The night's young," said
the colonel innocently.

"I'm going," said Mr. Crotin, very red of face. "A joke's a joke, and
when friend Crewe introduced me to you, I hadn't any idea that you were
that kind of man. You don't suppose that I'm going to sit here in your
society--me with my high connections--after what you've said?"

"Why not?" asked the colonel; "after all, business is business, and as
I'm making an offer to you for the Riverborne Mill----"

"The Riverborne Mill?" roared the spinner. "Ah! that's a joke of yours!
You'll buy no Riverborne Mill of me, sitha!"

"On the contrary, I shall buy the Riverborne Mill from you. In fact, I
have all the papers and transfers ready for you to sign."

"Oh, you have, have you?" said the man grimly. "And what might you be
offering me for the Riverborne?"

"I'm offering you thirty thousand pounds cash," said the colonel, and
his bearer was stricken speechless.

"Thirty thousand pounds cash!" he said after awhile. "Why, man, that
property is worth two hundred thousand pounds."

"I thought it was worth a little more," said the colonel carelessly.

"You're a fool or a madman," said the angry Yorkshireman. "It isn't my
mill, it is a limited company."

"But you hold the majority of the shares--ninety-five per cent., I
think," said the colonel. "Those are the shares which you will transfer
to me at the price I suggest."

"I'll see you damned first," roared Crotin, bringing his hand down smash
on the table.

"Sit do