If you will forgive the quotation, "ex unitate vires". Hear, hear,

hear, hear. Duff lit his cigar. As I was saying we have examined your

proposition and we accept it readily and happily, with the exception of

a few minor details which we have listed. Sean picked up the thick pile

of paper. Perhaps you would care to glance through it and then we can

proceed to the drawingup of a formal agreement. Max accepted the sheaf

gingerly. If you want privacy, Mr Charleywood's office which adjoins

this room is at your disposal. Hradsky took his band next door and an

hour later when he led them back again they looked like a party of

pallbearers. Max was on the verge of tears, he cleared the lump from

his throat. I think we should examine each item separately, he said

sadly, and three days later they shook hands on the deal.

Duff poured the drinks and gave each man a glass. To the new company,

Central Rand Consolidated. It has been a long confinement, gentlemen,

but I think we have given birth to a child of which we can be proud.

Hradsky had control, but it had cost him dearly.

Central Rand Consolidated had its christening party on the main floor of

the Johannesburg Stock Exchange; ten percent of the shares were put out

for sale to the public.

Before the day's dealings began the crowd had overflowed the Stock

Exchange building and jammed in the street for a block in each

direction. The President of the Exchange read the prospectus of Central

Rand Consolidated; in the cathedral hush his every word carried clearly

to the members lounge.

The bell rang and still the hush persisted.

Hradsky's authorized clerk broke the silence timidly.

sell C. R. C. s. It was nearly a massacre; two hundred men were

trying to buy shares from him simultaneously. First his jacket and then

his shirt disintegrated beneath the clutching hands; he lost his

spectacles, crushed to powdered glass beneath the trampling feet. Ten

minutes later he managed to fight his way out of the crowd and report to

his masters, I was able to sell them, gentlemen. Sean and Duff laughed.

They had reason to laugh, for in those ten minutes their thirty percent

holding in C. R. C. had appreciate in by half a million pounds.

That year Christmas dinner at Candy's Hotel was considerably better than

It had been five years previously.

Seventy-five people sat down to it at one table and by three o'clock,

when it ended, only half of them were able to stand up. Sean used the

banisters to get up the stairs and at the top he told Candy and Duff

solemnly, I love you, I love you both desperately, but now I must sleep.

He left them and set off down the corridor bouncing against the walls

like a trick billiard shot until he ricocheted through the door into his

suite. You'd better make sure he's all right, Dufford. A case of the

blind drunk leading the blind drunk, said Duff indistinctly, and also

employing the wall to wall route followed Sean down the corridor. Sean

was sitting on the edge of his bed wrestling with one of his boots.

What you trying to do, laddie, break your ankle? Sean looked up and

smiled beatifically. Come in, come in, all four of you. Have a drink!

Thanks, I brought my own. Duff closed the door behind him like a

conspirator and produced a bottle from under his coat, She didn't see me

- she didn't know her little Dufford had a big beautiful bottle in his