s and it's yours."

Before Bones could speak, he stopped him with a gesture.

"Let me tell you this: if you like to sit on that property for a month,
you'll make a sheer profit of twenty thousand pounds. You can afford
to do it--I can't. I tell you there isn't a vacant wharfage between
Greenwich and Gravesend, and here you have a warehouse with thirty
thousand feet of floor-space, derricks--derrick, named after the
hangman of that name: I'll bet you didn't know that?--cranes,
everything in---- Well, it's not in apple-pie order," he admitted,
"but it won't take much to make it so. What do you say?"

Bones started violently.

"Excuse me, old speaker, I was thinking of something else. Do you mind
saying that all over again?"

Honest John Staines swallowed something and repeated his proposition.

Bones shook his head violently.

"Nothing doing!" he said. "Wharves and ships--_no!_"

But Honest John was not the kind that accepts refusal without protest.

"What I'll do," said he confidentially, "is this: I'll leave the matter
for twenty-four hours in your hands."

"No, go, my reliable old wharf-seller," said Bones. "I never go up the
river under any possible circumstances---- By Jove, I've got an idea!"

He brought his knuckly fist down upon the unoffending desk, and Honest
John watched hopefully.

"Now, if--yes, it's an idea!"

Bones seized paper, and his long-feathered quill squeaked violently.

"That's it--a thousand members at ten pounds a year, four hundred
bedrooms at, say, ten shillings a night---- How many is four hundred
times ten shillings multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five? Well,
let's say twenty thousand pounds. That's it! A club!"

"A club?" said Honest John blankly.

"A river club. You said Greenhithe--that's somewhere near Henley,
isn't it?"

Honest John sighed.

"No, sir," he said gently, "it's in the other direction--toward the
sea."

Bones dropped his pen and pinched his lip in an effort of memory.

"Is it? Now, where was I thinking about? I know--Maidenhead! Is it
near Maidenhead?"

"It's in the opposite direction from London," said the perspiring Mr.
Staines.

"Oh!"

Bones's interest evaporated.

"No good to me, my old speculator. Wharves! Bah!"

He shook his head violently, and Mr. Staines aroused himself.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Tibbetts," he said simply; "I'll leave
the plans with you. I'm going down into the country for a night.
Thi