"So you find a black-and-tan terrier
improves a dress-coat by lying on it?"
Tiny had coiled himself up on that garment, which Measom had laid ready
on the chair, and was lying apparently asleep, but with his large eyes
fixed on his beloved master.
"Oh, he's a peculiar little beast, and is always getting where he
shouldn't be. Hi! young man, get off my coat!"
He picked the terrier up and threw him softly on the bed, but Tiny got
down at once and curled himself up on the fur mat by Stafford's feet.
"Seems to be fond of you: strange dog!" said Howard. "Yes, I think Sir
Stephen's 'little scheme'--as if any scheme of his could be
'little'!--has worked out successfully, and I shouldn't be surprised if
the financiers had a meeting to-night and the floating of the company
was announced."
"Oh," said Stafford, as he got into his coat. "Yes, I daresay it's all
right. The governor seems always to pull it off."
Howard smiled.
"You talk as if an affair of thousands of thousands, perhaps millions,
were quite a bagatelle," he said. "My dear boy, don't you understand,
realise, the importance of this business? It's nothing less than a
railway from--"
Stafford nodded.
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