“I see well enough the things that are to be seen,” replied Semple, with a certain brevity of manner. “There was a sermon of my father's that I remember, and it had for its text, 'We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.'”
Thorpe, pondering this for a moment, nodded his head. “Semple,” he said, bringing his chair forward to the desk, “that's what I've come for. I want to spread my cards on the table for you. I know the sum you've laid out already, in working this thing. We'll say that that is to be paid back to you, as a separate transaction, and we'll put that to one side. Now then, leaving that out of consideration, what do you think you ought to have out of the winnings, when we pull the thing off? Mind, I'm not thinking of your 2,000 vendor's shares----”
“No--I'm not thinking much of them, either,” interposed Semple, with a kind of dry significance.
“Oh, they'll be all right,” Thorpe affirmed. He laughed unconsciously as he did so. “No, what I want to get at is your idea of what should come to you, as a bonus, when I scoop the board.”
“Twenty thousand pounds,” said Semple, readily.
Thorpe's slow glance brightened a trifle. “I had thought thirty would be a fairer figure,” he remarked, with an effort at simplicity.
The broker put out his under-lip. “You will find people rather disposed to distrust a man who promises more than he's asked,” he remarked coldly.
“Yes--I know what you mean,” Thorpe hurried to say, flushing awkwardly, even though the remark was so undeserved; “but it's in my nature. I'm full of the notion of doing things for people that have done things for me. That's the way I'm built. Why”--he halted to consider the advisability of disclosing what he had promised to do for Lord Plowden, and decided against it--“why, without you, what would the whole thing have been worth to me? Take one thing alone--the money for the applications--I could have no more got at it than I could at the Crown Jewels in the Tower. I've wondered since, more than once--if you don't mind the question--how did you happen to have so much ready money lying about.”
“There are some Glasgow and Aberdeen folk who trust me to invest for them,” the broker explained. “If they get five per cent. for the four months, they'll be very pleased. And so I shall be very pleased to take thirty thousand instead of twenty--if it presents itself to your mind in that way. You will give me a letter to that effect, of course.”