g after a minute or two,
he remarked, "Go ahead till we're stopped," and seated himself on the
corner of the desk with the light inconsequence of a bird on a twig.
Thorpe unbuttoned his overcoat, laid aside his hat, and seated himself.

"I've worked out the whole scheme," he began, as if introducing the
product of many sleepless nights' cogitations. "I'm going to leave
England almost immediately--go on the Continent and loaf about--I've
never seen the Continent."

Semple regarded him in silence. "Well?" he observed at last.

"You see the idea, don't you?" Thorpe demanded.

The broker twitched his shoulders slightly. "Go on," he said.

"But the idea is everything," protested the other. "We've been thinking
of beginning the campaign straight away--but the true game now is to lie
low--silent as the grave. I go away now, d'ye see? Nothing particular
is said about it, of course, but in a month or two somebody notices that
I'm not about, and he happens to mention it to somebody else--and so
there gets to be the impression that things haven't gone well with me,
d'ye see? On the same plan, I let all the clerks at my office go. The
Secretary'll come round every once in a while to get letters, of
course, and perhaps he'll keep a boy in the front office for show,
but practically the place'll be shut up. That'll help out the general
impression that I've gone to pieces. Now d'ye see?"

"It's the Special Settlement you're thinking of," commented Semple.

"Of course. The fellows that we're going to squeeze would move heaven
and hell to prevent our getting that Settlement, if they got wind
of what was going on. The only weak point in our game is just there.
Absolutely everything hangs on the Settlement being granted. Naturally,
then, our play is to concentrate everything on getting it granted. We
don't want to raise the remotest shadow of a suspicion of what we're
up to, till after we're safe past that rock. So we go on in the way
to attract the least possible attention. You or your jobber makes the
ordinary application for a Special Settlement, with your six signatures
and so on; and I go abroad quietly, and the office is as good as shut
up, and nobody makes a peep about Rubber Consols--and the thing works
itself. You do see it, don't you?"

"I see well enough the things that are to be seen," replied Semple, with
a certain brevity of manner. "There was a sermon of my father's that I
remember, and it had for its text, 'We look