The Yellow God | Page 5

British public, I am bothered if I don't
believe in you. At any rate from the day when Vernon brought you into
my office, my luck turned, and to judge from the smile on your sweet
countenance, I don't think it is done with yet. I wonder what those
stones are in your eyes. Opals, I suppose, from the way they change
colour. They shine uncommonly to-day, I never remember them so
bright. I----"
At this moment a knock came on the door. Sir Robert turned off the
lamp and walked back to the fireplace.
"Come in," he said, and as he spoke once more his pale face grew
impassive and expressionless.
The door opened and a clerk entered, an imposing-looking clerk with
iron-grey hair, who wore an irreproachable frock coat and patent
leather boots. Advancing to his master, he stood respectfully silent,
waiting to be addressed. For quite a long while Sir Robert looked over
his head as though he did not see him; it was a way of his. Then his
eyes rested on the man dreamily and he remarked in his cold, clear
voice:
"I don't think I rang, Jeffreys."
"No, Sir Robert," answered the clerk, bowing as though he spoke to
Royalty, "but there is a little matter about that article in /The Cynic/."
"Press business," said Sir Robert, lifting his eyebrows; "you should
know by this time that I do not attend to such details. See Mr.
Champers-Haswell, or Major Vernon."
"They are both out at the moment, Sir Robert."
"Go on, then, Jeffreys," replied the head of the firm with a resigned
sigh, "only be brief. I am thinking."

The clerk bowed again.
"The /Cynic/ people have just telephoned through about that article we
sent them. I think you saw it, sir, and you may remember it begins----"
and he read from a typewritten copy in his hand which was headed
"Sahara Limited":
"'We are now privileged to announce that this mighty scheme which
will turn a desert into a rolling sea bearing the commerce of nations and
cause the waste places of the earth to teem with population and to
blossom like the rose, has been completed in its necessary if dull
financial details and will within a few days be submitted to investors
among whom it has already caused so much excitement. These details
we will deal with fully in succeeding articles, and therefore now need
only pause to say that the basis of capitalization strikes us as
wonderfully advantageous to the fortunate public who are asked to
participate in its vast prospective prosperity. Our present object is to
speak of its national and imperial aspects----'"
Sir Robert lifted his eyes in remonstrance:
"How much more of that exceedingly dull and commonplace puff do
you propose to read, Jeffreys?" he asked.
"No more, Sir Robert. We are paying /The Cynic/ thirty guineas to
insert this article, and the point is that they say that if they have to put
in the 'national and imperial' business they must have twenty more."
"Indeed, Jeffreys? Why?"
"Because, Sir Robert--I will tell you, as you always like to hear the
truth--their advertisement-editor is of opinion that Sahara Limited is a
national and imperial swindle. He says that he won't drag the nation
and the empire into it in an editorial under fifty guineas."
A faint smile flickered on Sir Robert's face.
"Does he, indeed?" he asked. "I wonder at his moderation. Had I been

in his place I should have asked more, for really the style is a little
flamboyant. Well, we don't want to quarrel with them just now-- feed
the sharks. But surely, Jeffreys, you didn't come to disturb me about
such a trifle?"
"Not altogether, Sir Robert. There is something more important. /The
Daily Judge/ not only declines to put any article whatsoever, but
refuses our advertisement, and states that it means to criticize the
prospectus trenchantly."
"Ah!" said his master after a moment's thought, "that /is/ rather serious,
since people believe in the /Judge/ even when it is wrong. Offer them
the advertisement at treble rates."
"It has been done, sir, and they still refuse."
Sir Robert walked to the corner of the room where the yellow object
squatted on its pedestal, and contemplated it a while, as a man often
studies one thing when he is thinking of another. It seemed to give him
an idea, for he looked over his shoulder and said:
"That will do, Jeffreys. When Major Vernon comes in, give him my
compliments and say that I should be obliged by a word or two with
him."
The clerk bowed and went as noiselessly as he had entered.
"Let's see," added Sir Robert to himself. "Old Jackson, the editor of
/The Judge/, was a great friend of Vernon's father,