A Man of Means | Page 6

At least, not much. He might
easily come down all right. Besides, he wants to. What do you want to go interfering
for?"
Roland returned. The negotiations with the bird-man had lasted a little longer than one
would have expected. But then, of course, M. Feriaud was a foreigner, and Roland's
French was not fluent.
He took Muriel's hand.
"Good-by," he said.
He shook hands with the rest of the party, even with Albert Potter. It struck Frank that he
was making too much fuss over a trifle--and, worse, delaying the start of the proceedings.
"What's it all about?" he demanded. "You go on as if we were never going to see you
again."
"You never know."
"It's as safe as being in bed."
"But still, in case we never meet again----"

"Oh, well," said Brother Frank, and took the outstretched hand.
* * * * *
The little party stood and watched as the aeroplane moved swiftly along the ground, rose,
and soared into the air. Higher and higher it rose, till the features of the two occupants
were almost invisible.
"Now," said Brother Frank. "Now watch. Now he's going to loop the loop."
But the wheels of the aeroplane still pointed to the ground. It grew smaller and smaller. It
was a mere speck.
"What the dickens?"
Far away to the West something showed up against the blue of the sky--something that
might have been a bird, a toy kite, or an aeroplane traveling rapidly into the sunset.
Four pairs of eyes followed it in rapt silence.

THE EPISODE OF THE FINANCIAL NAPOLEON
Second of a Series of Six Stories [First published in Pictorial Review, June 1916]
Seated with his wife at breakfast on the veranda which overlooked the rolling lawns and
leafy woods of his charming Sussex home, Geoffrey Windlebird, the great financier, was
enjoying the morning sun to the full. His chubby features were relaxed in a smile of lazy
contentment; and his wife, who liked to act sometimes as his secretary, found it difficult
to get him to pay any attention to his morning's mail.
"There's a column in to-day's Financial Argus," she said, "of which you really must take
notice. It's most abusive. It's about the Wildcat Reef. They assert that there never was any
gold in the mine, and that you knew it when you floated the company."
"They will have their little joke."
"But you had the usual mining-expert's report."
"Of course we had. And a capital report it was. I remember thinking at the time what a
neat turn of phrase the fellow had. I admit he depended rather on his fine optimism than
on any examination of the mine. As a matter of fact, he never went near it. And why
should he? It's down in South America somewhere. Awful climate--snakes, mosquitoes,
revolutions, fever."
Mr. Windlebird spoke drowsily. His eyes closed.
"Well, the Argus people say that they have sent a man of their own out there to make

inquiries, a well-known expert, and the report will be in within the next fortnight. They
say they will publish it in their next number but one. What are you going to do about it?"
Mr. Windlebird yawned.
"Not to put too fine a point on it, dearest, the game is up. The Napoleon of Finance is
about to meet his Waterloo. And all for twenty thousand pounds. That is the really bitter
part of it. To-morrow we sail for the Argentine. I've got the tickets."
"You're joking, Geoffrey. You must be able to raise twenty thousand. It's a flea-bite."
"On paper--in the form of shares, script, bonds, promissory notes, it is a flea-bite. But
when it has to be produced in the raw, in flat, hard lumps of gold or in crackling
bank-notes, it's more like a bite from a hippopotamus. I can't raise it, and that's all about it.
So--St. Helena for Napoleon."
Altho Geoffrey Windlebird described himself as a Napoleon of Finance, a Cinquevalli or
Chung Ling Soo of Finance would have been a more accurate title. As a juggler with
other people's money he was at the head of his class. And yet, when one came to examine
it, his method was delightfully simple. Say, for instance, that the Home-grown Tobacco
Trust, founded by Geoffrey in a moment of ennui, failed to yield those profits which the
glowing prospectus had led the public to expect. Geoffrey would appease the excited
shareholders by giving them Preference Shares (interest guaranteed) in the Sea-gold
Extraction Company, hastily floated to meet the emergency. When the interest became
due, it would, as likely as not, be paid out of the capital just subscribed for the King
Solomon's Mines Exploitation Association, the little deficiency in the latter being
replaced in its turn, when absolutely necessary