THE PROFITEERS

BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

1921






CHAPTER I


The Marchioness of Amesbury was giving a garden party in the spacious but
somewhat urban grounds of her mansion in Kensington. Perhaps because it
was the first affair of its sort of the season, and perhaps, also,
because Cecilia Amesbury had the knack of making friends in every walk of
life, it was remarkably well attended. Two stockbrokers, Roger Kendrick
and his friend Maurice White, who had escaped from the City a little
earlier than usual, and had shared a taxicab up west, congratulated
themselves upon having found a quiet and shady seat where iced drinks
were procurable and the crush was not so great.

"Anything doing in your market to-day?" Kendrick asked his younger
associate.

White made a little grimace.

"B. & I., B. & I., all the time," he grumbled. "I'm sick of the name of