He bowed and raised his cap.  Charles looked at him and cowered.  Yes, genius as he is, he positively cowered.  “And do you mean to say,” he burst out, “you intend to go on so bleeding me?”

The Colonel smiled a bland smile.  “Sir Charles Vandrift,” he answered, “I called you just now the goose that lays the golden eggs.  You may have thought the metaphor a rude one.  But you are a goose, you know, in certain relations.  Smartest man on the Stock Exchange, I readily admit; easiest fool to bamboozle in the open country that ever I met with.  You fail in one thing—­the perspicacity of simplicity.  For that reason, among others, I have chosen to fasten upon you.  Regard me, my dear sir, as a microbe of millionaires, a parasite upon capitalists.  You know the old rhyme: 

  Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
  And these again have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum!

Well, that’s just how I view myself. You are a capitalist and a millionaire.  In your large way you prey upon society.  YOU deal in Corners, Options, Concessions, Syndicates.  You drain the world dry of its blood and its money.  You possess, like the mosquito, a beautiful instrument of suction—­Founders’ Shares—­with which you absorb the surplus wealth of the community.  In my smaller way, again, I relieve you in turn of a portion of the plunder.  I am a Robin Hood of my age; and, looking upon you as an exceptionally bad form of millionaire—­as well as an exceptionally easy form of pigeon for a man of my type and talents to pluck—­I have, so to speak, taken up my abode upon you.”

Charles looked at him and groaned.

The young man continued, in a tone of gentle badinage.  “I love the plot-interest of the game,” he said, “and so does dear Jessie here.  We both of us adore it.  As long as I find such good pickings upon you, I certainly am not going to turn away from so valuable a carcass, in order to batten myself, at considerable trouble, upon minor capitalists, out of whom it is difficult to extract a few hundreds.  It may have puzzled you to guess why I fix upon you so persistently.  Now you know, and understand.  When a fluke finds a sheep that suits him, that fluke lives upon him.  You are my host:  I am your parasite.  This coup has failed.  But don’t flatter yourself for a moment it will be the last one.”

“Why do you insult me by telling me all this?” Sir Charles cried, writhing.

The Colonel waved his hand.  It was small and white.  “Because I love the game,” he answered, with a relish; “and also, because the more prepared you are beforehand, the greater credit and amusement is there in besting you.  Well, now, ta-ta once more!  I am wasting valuable time.  I might be cheating somebody.  I must be off at once....  Take care of yourself, Wentworth.  But I know you will.  You always do.  Ten per cent is more usual!”