Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/273

 departed for London on the 4.20 train, he left behind him a host rather perturbed and dissatisfied in mind. Attempting to resume his dolce far niente attitude toward things in general, that host found his peace irretrievably shattered, for the time at least. His thoughts turned to banking; a subject of which he knew practically nothing. He had been a philanthropist to the considerable sum of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, yet he experienced none of that feeling of genial superiority which should be the reward of the generously disposed.

Despite the two munificent cheques he carried in his pocket, Mackeller went away as grumpy as he had arrived, showing no exaltation over success, nor even gratitude towards the beneficence that had saved his mission from failure, while Stranleigh himself grew more and more disturbed over the fact that he had placed financial dynamite in the hands of a ruthless man; dynamite that could be used for the destruction of his friends. He cut short his vacation, and went up to London, determined to consult Sir George Selwyn, not upon recent events, but upon banking in general.

He found the old man in his summer home on the Kentish coast, enjoying the fresh breezes from the Channel, sitting in a comfortable easy chair