Sunday, October 28, 2012

Nike Shox Torch 2 There was silence

There was silence.
"Who named 'em _Fairy Mary_ and _Fairy Tilda_?" asked Joe curiously.
"Don't let's speak ill of the dead," begged Fred; "the man who had 'em built is no longer with us, Joe. They say that joy doesn't kill, but that's a lie, Joe. He died two days after we took 'em over, and left all his money--all our money--to a nephew."
"I didn't know that," said Joe, sitting up.
"I didn't know it myself till the other day, when I took the deed of sale down to Cole to see if there wasn't a flaw in it somewhere. I've wired him."
"Who--Cole?"
"No, the young nephew. If we could only----"
He did not complete his sentence, but there was a common emotion and understanding in the two pairs of eyes that met.
"Who is he--anybody?" asked Joe vaguely.
Fred broke off the ash of his cigar and nodded.
"Anybody worth half a million is somebody, Joe," he said seriously. "This young fellow was in the Army. He's out of it now, running a business in the City--'Schemes, Ltd.,' he calls it. Lots of people know him--shipping people on the Coast. He's got a horrible nickname."
"What's that, Fred?"
"Bones," said Fred, in tones sufficiently sepulchral to be appropriate, "and, Joe, he's one of those bones I want to pick."
There was another office in that great and sorrowful City. It was perhaps less of an office than a boudoir, for it had been furnished on the higher plan by a celebrated firm of furnishers and decorators, whose advertisements in the more exclusive publications consisted of a set of royal arms, a photograph of a Queen Anne chair, and the bold surname of the firm. It was furnished with such exquisite taste that you could neither blame nor praise the disposition of a couch or the set of a purple curtain.
The oxydized silver grate, the Persian carpets, the rosewood desk, with its Venetian glass flower vase, were all in harmony with the panelled walls, the gentlemanly clock which ticked sedately on the Adam mantelpiece, the Sheraton chairs, the silver--or apparently so--wall sconces, the delicate electrolier with its ballet skirts of purple silk.
All these things were evidence of the careful upbringing and artistic yearnings of the young man who "blended" for the eminent firm of Messrs. Worrows, By Appointment to the King of Smyrna, His Majesty the Emperor ---- (the blank stands for an exalted name which had been painted out by the patriotic management of Worrows), and divers other royalties.
The young man who sat in the exquisite chair, with his boots elevated to and resting upon the olive-green leather of the rosewood writing-table, had long since grown familiar with the magnificence in which he moved and had his being. He sat chewing an expensive paper-knife of ivory, not because he was hungry, but because he was bored. He had entered into his kingdom brimful of confidence and with unimagined thousands of pounds to his credit in the coffers of the Midland and Somerset Bank.
He had brought with him a bright blue book, stoutly covered and brassily locked, on which was inscribed the word "Schemes."
That book was filled with writing of a most private kind and of a frenzied calculation which sprawled diagonally over pages, as for example:

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