“Not a word,” Dredlinton answered.  “I expected it last night.  You haven’t forgotten that Wingate’s due here this morning—­that is, if he keeps his appointment?”

“Forgotten it?  Not likely!” Phipps replied.  “I was going to talk to you about that.  We must have those shares.  The fact of it is the Universal Line has played us false, the only shipping company which has.  They promised to advise us of all proposed wheat cargoes, and they haven’t kept their word.  If my information is correct, and I expect confirmation of it at any moment in the cable I arranged to have sent to you, they have eleven steamers being loaded this very week.  It’s a last effort on the part of the Liverpool ring to break us.”

“What’ll happen if Wingate won’t sell?” Dredlinton enquired.

“I never face disagreeable possibilities before the necessity arrives,” was the calm reply.  “Wingate is certain to sell.  He won’t have an idea why we want to buy, and I shall give him twenty thousand pounds profit.”

“You’ll find him a difficult customer,” Dredlinton declared.  “As you know, he hates us like poison.”

“He may do that,” Phipps acknowledged.  “I’ve given him cause to in my life, and hope to again.  But after all, he’s a shrewd fellow.  He’s made money on the Stock Exchange this last week, and he’s had the sense not to run up against us.  He’s not likely to refuse a clear twenty thousand pounds’ profit on some shares he’s not particularly interested in.”

Dredlinton knocked the ash from his cigar.  He leaned over towards his companion.

“Look here, Phipps,” he said, “you can never reckon exactly on what a fellow like Wingate will do or what he won’t do.  It is just possible I may be able to help in this matter.”

“Good man!” the other exclaimed.  “How?”

Dredlinton hesitated for a moment.  There was a particularly ugly smile upon his lips.

“Let us put it in this way,” he said.  “Supposing you fail altogether with Wingate?”

“Well?”

“Supposing you then pass him on to me and I succeed in getting him to sell the shares?  What about it?”

“It will be worth a thousand pounds to you,” Phipps declared.

“Two!”

Phipps shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t bargain,” he said, “but two let it be—­that is, of course, on condition that I have previously failed.”

Dredlinton’s dull eyes glittered.  The slight contraction of his lips did nothing to improve his appearance.

“I shall do my best,” he promised.

There was a knock at the door.  A clerk from outside presented himself.  As he held the door for a moment ajar, a wave of tangled sounds swept into the room,—­the metallic clash of a score of typewriters, the shouting and bargaining of eager customers, the tinkle of telephones in the long series of cubicles.

“Mr. Wingate is here to see you, sir,” the young man announced.