heard now about the Jewish masters of international finance
were doubtless surprising and suggestive to a degree,
but somehow they failed to stimulate his imagination.
Lord Chaldon's statesmanlike discussion of the uses to
which they put this vast power of theirs; his conviction
that on the whole they were beneficent; his dread of
the consequences of any organized attempt to take this
power away from them, and put it into other and less
capable hands--no doubt it was all very clever and wise,
but Thorpe did not care for it.

At the end he nodded, and, with a lumbering movement,
altered his position in his chair. The fixed idea
of despoiling Rostocker, Aronson, Ganz, Rothfoere,
Lewis, and Mendel of their last sixpence had been
in no wise affected by this entertaining homily.
There appeared to be no need of pretending that it
had been. If he knew anything of men and their manners,
his titled friend would not object to a change of topic.

"Lord Chaldon," he said abruptly, "we've talked
enough about general matters. While you're here,
we might as well go into the subject of the Company.
Our annual meeting is pretty nearly due--but I think
it would be better to have it postponed. You see,
this extraordinary development of dealing in our shares
on the Stock Exchange has occupied my entire attention.
There has been no time for arranging the machinery of
operations on our property in Mexico. It's still there;
it's all right. But for the time being, the operations