A Man of Means | Page 7

and not a moment before, by the transfer
of some portion of the capital just raised for yet another company. And so on, ad
infinitum. There were moments when it seemed to Mr. Windlebird that he had solved the
problem of Perpetual Promotion.
The only thing that can stop a triumphal progress like Mr. Windlebird's is when some
coarse person refuses to play to the rules, and demands ready money instead of shares in
the next venture. This had happened now, and it had flattened Mr. Windlebird like an
avalanche.
He was a philosopher, but he could not help feeling a little galled that the demand which
had destroyed him had been so trivial. He had handled millions--on paper, it was true, but
still millions--and here he was knocked out of time by a paltry twenty thousand pounds.
"Are you absolutely sure that nothing can be done?" persisted Mrs. Windlebird. "Have
you tried every one?"
"Every one, dear moon-of-my-delight--the probables, the possibles, the highly unlikelies,
and the impossibles. Never an echo to the minstrel's wooing song. No, my dear, we have
got to take to the boats this time. Unless, of course, some one possessed at one and the
same time of twenty thousand pounds and a very confiding nature happens to drop from
the clouds."

As he spoke, an aeroplane came sailing over the tops of the trees beyond the tennis-lawn.
Gracefully as a bird it settled on the smooth turf, not twenty yards from where he was
seated.
* * * * *
Roland Bleke stepped stiffly out onto the tennis-lawn. His progress rather resembled that
of a landsman getting out of an open boat in which he has spent a long and perilous night
at sea. He was feeling more wretched than he had ever felt in his life. He had a severe
cold. He had a splitting headache. His hands and feet were frozen. His eyes smarted. He
was hungry. He was thirsty. He hated cheerful M. Feriaud, who had hopped out and was
now busy tinkering the engine, a gay Provencal air upon his lips, as he had rarely hated
any one, even Muriel Coppin's brother Frank.
So absorbed was he in his troubles that he was not aware of Mr. Windlebird's approach
until that pleasant, portly man's shadow fell on the turf before him.
"Not had an accident, I hope, Mr. Bleke?"
Roland was too far gone in misery to speculate as to how this genial stranger came to
know his name. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Windlebird, keen student of the illustrated press,
had recognized Roland by his photograph in the Daily Mirror. In the course of the twenty
yards' walk from house to tennis-lawn she had put her husband into possession of the
more salient points in Roland's history. It was when Mr. Windlebird heard that Roland
had forty thousand pounds in the bank that he sat up and took notice.
"Lead me to him," he said simply.
Roland sneezed.
"Doe accident, thag you," he replied miserably. "Somethig's gone wrong with the worgs,
but it's nothing serious, worse luck."
M. Feriaud, having by this time adjusted the defect in his engine, rose to his feet, and
bowed.
"Excuse if we come down on your lawn. But not long do we trespass. See, mon ami," he
said radiantly to Roland, "all now O. K. We go on."
"No," said Roland decidedly.
"No? What you mean--no?"
A shade of alarm fell on M. Feriaud's weather-beaten features. The eminent bird-man did
not wish to part from Roland. Toward Roland he felt like a brother, for Roland had
notions about payment for little aeroplane rides which bordered upon the princely.
"But you say--take me to France with you----"

"I know. But it's all off. I'm not feeling well."
"But it's all wrong." M. Feriaud gesticulated to drive home his point. "You give me one
hundred pounds to take you away from Lexingham. Good. It is here." He slapped his
breast pocket. "But the other two hundred pounds which also you promise me to pay me
when I place you safe in France, where is that, my friend?"
"I will give you two hundred and fifty," said Roland earnestly, "to leave me here, and go
right away, and never let me see your beastly machine again."
A smile of brotherly forgiveness lit up M. Feriaud's face. The generous Gallic nature
asserted itself. He held out his arms affectionately to Roland.
"Ah, now you talk. Now you say something," he cried in his impetuous way. "Embrace
me. You are all right."
Roland heaved a sigh of relief when, five minutes later, the aeroplane disappeared over
the brow of the hill. Then he began to sneeze again.
"You're not well, you know," said Mr. Windlebird.
"I've caught cold. We've been