in which he was described as the "Rubber King," with an
affable assumption of amusement, under which he believed
that he detected a genuine respect for his abilities.

Finally, when he had danced attendance upon them for
the better part of two months, he laid before them,
at the coffee-and-cigars stage of a dinner in a private
room of the Savoy, the details of his proposition.
They were to form a Syndicate to take over his property,
and place it upon the market; in consideration of their
finding the ready money for this exploitation, they were to
have for themselves two-fifths of the shares in the Company
ultimately to be floated. They listened to these details,
and to his enthusiastic remarks about the project itself,
with rather perfunctory patience, but committed themselves
that evening to nothing definite. It took him nearly
a week thereafter to get an answer from any of them.
Then he learned that, if they took the matter up at all,
it would be upon the basis of the Syndicate receiving
nine-tenths of the shares.

He conceived the idea, after he had mastered his
original amazement, that they named these preposterous
terms merely because they expected to be beaten down,
and he summoned all his good nature and tact for the task
of haggling with them. He misunderstood their first
show of impatience at this, and persevered in the face
of their tacit rebuffs. Then, one day, a couple of them
treated him with overt rudeness, and he, astonished out of
his caution, replied to them in kind. Suddenly, he could