lained to Fred Pole, if he had searched the
Stock Exchange Year Book from cover to cover.

Once upon a time the Mazeppa Trading Company had been a profitable
concern. Its trading stores had dotted the African hinterland thickly.
It had exported vast quantities of Manchester goods and Birmingham
junk, and had received in exchange unlimited quantities of rubber and
ivory. But those were in the bad old days, before authority came and
taught the aboriginal natives the exact value of a sixpenny
looking-glass.

No longer was it possible to barter twenty pounds' worth of ivory for
threepennyworth of beads, and the flourishing Mazeppa Trading Company
languished and died. Its managers had grown immensely wealthy from
their peculations and private trading, and had come home and were
occupying opulent villas at Wimbledon, whilst the new men who had been
sent to take their places had been so inexperienced that profits fell
to nothing. That, in brief, was the history of the Mazeppa Trading
Company, which still maintained a few dilapidated stores, managed by
half-castes and poor whites.

"I got most of the shares for a song," confessed Mr. de Vinne. "In
fact, I happen to be one of the debenture-holders, and stepped in when
things were going groggy. We've been on the point of winding it up--it
is grossly over-capitalised--but I kept it going in the hope that
something would turn up."

"What is the general idea?" asked Mr. Fred Pole, interested.

"We'll get a managing director," said Mr. de Vinne solemnly. "A man
who is used to the handling of natives, a man acquainted with the West
Coast of Africa, a man who can organise."

"Bones?" suggested Mr. Fred.

"Bones be--jiggered!" replied de Vinne scornfully. "Do you think he'd
fall for that sort of thing? Not on your life! We're not going to
mention it to Bones. But he has a pal--Sanders; you've heard of him.
He's a commissioner or something on the West Coast, and retired. Now,
my experience of a chap of that kind who retires is that he gets sick
to death of doing nothing. If we could only get at him and persuade
him to accept the managing directorship, with six months a year on the
Coast, at a salary of, say, two thousand a year, conditional on taking
up six or seven thousand pounds' worth of shares, what do you think
would happen?"

Mr. Fred's imagination baulked at the problem, and he shook his head.

"I'll tell you what would happen," said Mr. de Vinne. "It hap