“No--I'll have the boy bring in some sandwiches,” Thorpe decided. “I want my next meal west of Temple Bar when I get round to it. I've soured on the City for keeps.”
“I wouldn't say that it had been so bad to you, either,” Semple smilingly suggested, as he turned to the door.
Thorpe grinned in satisfied comment. “Hurry back as soon as you've finally settled with Rostocker and the other fellow,” he called after him, and began pacing the floor again.
It was nearly four o'clock when these two men, again together in the Board Room, and having finished the inspection of some papers on the desk, sat upright and looked at each other in tacit recognition that final words were to be spoken.
“Well, Semple,” Thorpe began, after that significant little pause, “I want to say that I'm damned glad you've done so well for yourself in this affair. You've been as straight as a die to me,--I owe it as much to you as I do to myself,--and if you don't think you've got enough even now, I want you to say so.”
He had spoken in tones of sincere liking, and the other answered him in kind. “I have more than I ever dreamed of making in a lifetime when I came to London,” he declared. “If my father were alive, and heard me tell him that in one year, out of a single transaction, I had cleared over sixty-five thousand pounds, he'd be fit to doubt the existence of a Supreme Being. I'm obliged to you for your good words, Thorpe. It's not only been profitable to work with you, but it has been a great education and a great pleasure as well.”
Thorpe nodded his appreciation. “I'm going to ask a favour of you,” he said. “I want to leave the general run of my investments and interests here in your hands, to keep track of I don't want to speculate at all, in the ordinary meaning of the word. Even after I bury a pot of money in non-productive real estate, I shall have an income of 50,000 pounds at the very least, and perhaps twice as much. There's no fun in gambling when you've got such a bank as that behind you. But if there are good, wise changes to be made in investments, or if things turn up in the way of chances that I ought to know about, I want to feel that you're on the spot watching things and doing things in my interest. And as it won't be regular broker's work, I shall want to pay you a stated sum--whatever you think is right.”