Bones stopped him.
"Any fool can get the shares up to any price he likes, if they're all
held in one hand," he said.
"What?" said the outraged Mr. de Vinne. "Do you suggest I have rigged
the market? Besides, they're not all in one hand. They're pretty
evenly distributed."
"Who holds 'em?" asked Bones curiously.
"Well, I've got a parcel, and Pole Brothers have a parcel."
"Pole Brothers, eh?" said Bones, nodding. "Well, well!"
"Come, now, be reasonable. Don't be suspicious, Mr. Tibbetts," said
the other genially. "Your friend's interests are all right, and the
shareholders' interests are all right. You might do worse than get
control of the company yourself."
Bones nodded.
"I was thinking of that," he said.
"I assure you," said Mr. de Vinne with great earnestness, "that the
possibilities of the Mazeppa Trading Company are unlimited. We have
concessions from the Great River to the north of the French
territory----"
"Not worth the paper they're written on, dear old kidder," said Bones,
shaking his head. "Chiefs' concessions without endorsement from the
Colonial Office are no good, dear old thing."
"But the trading concessions are all right," insisted the other. "You
can't deny that. You understand the Coast customs better than I do.
Trading customs hold without endorsement from the Colonial Office."
Bones had to admit that that was a fact.
"I'll think it over," he said. "It appeals to me, old de Vinne. It
really does appeal to me. Who own the shares?"
"I can give you a list," said Mr. de Vinne, with admirable calm, "and
you'd be well advised to negotiate privately with these gentlemen.
You'd probably get the shares for eighteen shillings." He took a gold
pencil from his pocket and wrote rapidly a list of names, and Bones
took the paper from his hand and scrutinised them.
Hamilton, a silent and an amazed spectator of the proceedings, waited
until de Vinne had gone, and then fell upon his partner.
"You're not going to be such a perfect jackass----" he began, but
Bones's dignified gesture arrested his eloquence.
"Dear old Ham," he said, "senior partner, dear old thing! Let old
Bones have his joke."
"Do you realise," said Hamilton, "that you are contemplating the risk
of a quarter of a million? You're mad, Bones!"
Bones grinned.
"Go down to our broker and buy ten thousand shares in old Mazeppa,
Ham," he said. "You'll buy them on the market for nineteen shillings,
and I've an idea that they're worth about the nineteenth part of a
farthing."
"But----" stammered Hamilton.
"It is an order," said Bones, and he spoke in the Bomongo tongue.
"Phew!" said Hamilton. "That carries me a few thousand miles. I
wonder what those devils of the N'gombi are doing now?"