Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/316

 Stranleigh hung up the receiver.

"Now, what vagary," said the young man to himself, "has struck the beautiful Mrs. Mackeller, that she should wish to go into the wilds of Transylvania, practically alongside Roumania? Ah, I see; Vienna is the attraction. She will take up residence there while Peter investigates the mining property."

When Peter arrived at Stranleigh House, and learned that for "gold mine" he had understood "coal mine," and for "Transylvania" "Pennsylvania," he gave an excellent rendition of a man in a rage, storming up and down the room, alternating maledictions upon that useful modern invention, the telephone, with denunciations of Stranleigh's defective articulation. His lordship smiled appreciatively at the outbreak, but at last calmed Peter, and wrung from him a reluctant consent.

To Transylvania, therefore, Peter Mackeller went, and reported that the estate was the most promising gold property he had ever examined. Stranleigh put the forming of the company into the hands of his City business men, with a result that his lordship's name on the prospectus caused the capital to be subscribed about ten times over. There was paid to the Baroness one hundred thousand pounds in cash, after she had signed the necessary