treated as merely so much oil, with which to lubricate
the machinery of his great enterprise. She had heard,
at various times, the embittered details of the disappearance
of this money, little by little. Nearly a quarter of it,
all told, had been appropriated by a sleek old braggart
of a company-promoter, who had cozened Joel into the
belief that London could be best approached through him.
When at last this wretch was kicked downstairs, the effect
had been only to make room for a fresh lot of bloodsuckers.
There were so-called advertising agents, so-called journalists,
so-called "men of influence in the City,"--a swarm
of relentless and voracious harpies, who dragged from
him in blackmail nearly the half of what he had left,
before he summoned the courage and decision to shut them out.

Worse still, in some ways, were the men into whose hands
he stumbled next--a group of City men concerned in the
South African market, who impressed him very favourably
at the outset. He got to know them by accident, and at the
time when he began to comprehend the necessity of securing
influential support for his scheme. Everything that he
heard and could learn about them testified to the strength
of their position in the City. Because they displayed
a certain amiability of manner toward him and his project,
he allowed himself to make sure of their support.
It grew to be a certainty in his mind that they would see
him through. He spent a good deal of money in dinners and
suppers in their honour, after they had let him understand
that this form of propitiation was not unpleasant to them.
They chaffed him about some newspaper paragraphs,