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326 "Oh, certainly not, Montague. I'll give you ample time, of course. Let's see; it's now just ten minutes to midnight. You were exaggerating a while ago when you said I'd rung you up after midnight."

"But I apologised for that, Lord Stranleigh."

"So you did. Well, it's not midnight yet, and we can talk about to-morrow. I wish to be in possession of that stock by four o'clock to-morrow afternoon. That will give you time enough, won't it?"

"Good lord!" came in a gasp over the telephone wires.

"Can't you do it in that time?"

"Do it? Why, Lord Stranleigh, if you attempt to pull such a sum out of the banks between ten and four to-morrow, some of them will close their doors. You'll precipitate such a crisis in financial circles that it will make the American panic cyclone seem like a summer breeze."

"Why, hang it all, Montague, what are you growling about? Here you've been saying there's nothing doing, and when a man comes along and wants to do something you throw every sort of obstacle in his way. I don't intend to trouble the banks at all. I'm the last man in London to add a straw to their difficulties. Some of these men, Alexander Corbett, for instance, are friends of