"It is not for me," said Mr. Parkinson Chenney, toying with the stem of
his champagne glass and closing his eyes modestly, "I say it is not for
me--thank you, Perkins, I will have just as much as will come up to the
brim; thank you, that will do very nicely--to speak boastfully or to
enlarge unduly upon what I regard as a patriotic effort, and one which
every citizen of these islands would in the circumstances have made,
but I certainly plume myself upon the acumen and knowledge of the
situation which I showed."
"Hear, hear!" said Bones in the pause that followed, and Mr. Parkinson
Chenney beamed.
When the dinner was over, and the guests retired to the smoking-room,
Bones buttonholed the minister.
"Dear old right honourable," said Bones, "may I just have a few words
in re Chinese coal?"
The right honourable gentleman listened, or appeared to listen. Then
Mr. Parkinson Chenney smiled a recognition to another great man, and
moved off, leaving Bones talking.
Bones that night was the guest of a Mr. Harold Pyeburt, a City
acquaintance--almost, it seemed, a disinterested City acquaintance.
When Bones joined his host, Mr. Pyeburt patted him on the back.
"My dear Tibbetts," he said in admiration, "you've made a hit with
Chenney. What the dickens did you talk about?"
"Oh, coal," said Bones vaguely.
He wasn't quite certain what he had talked about, only he knew that in
his mind at dinner there had dawned a great idea. Was Mr. Pyeburt a
thought-reader? Possibly he was. Or possibly some chance word of his
had planted the seed which was now germinating so favourably.
"Chenney is a man to know," he said. "He's one of the most powerful
fellows in the Cabinet. Get right with him, and you can have a
knighthood for the asking."
Bones blushed.
"A knighthood, dear old broker's man?" he said, with an elaborate
shrug. "No use to me, my rare old athlete. Lord Bones--Lord Tibbetts
I mean--may sound beastly good, but what good is it, eh? Answer me
that."
"Oh, I don't know," said Mr. Pyeburt. "It may be nothing to you, but
your wife----"
"Haven't a wife, haven't a wife," said Bones rapidly, "haven't a wife!"
"Oh, well, then," said Mr. Pyeburt, "it isn't an attractive proposition
to you, and, after all, you needn't take a knighthood--which, by the
way, doesn't carry the title of lordship--unless you want to.
"I've often thought," he said, screwing up his forehead, as though in
the process of profound cogitation, "that one of these days some lucky
fellow will take the Lynhaven Railway off Chenney's hands and earn his
everlasting gratitude."
"Lynhaven? Where's that?" asked Bones. "Is there a railway?"
Mr. Pyeburt nodded.
"Come out on to the balcony, and I'll tell you about it," said Pyeburt;
and Bones, who always wanted telling about things, and could no more
resist information than a dipsomaniac could refuse drink, followed
obediently.