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By Root 5946 0

to hold that against him. But a steady market is not much good to a broker: he wants prices to rise or fall (he does not mind which provided they do one or the other). And if the market declines to fluctuate of its own accord it must be encouraged to do so. A cold night in Brazil and frost has wiped out the coffee plantations. A high wind in Jamaica and it’s goodbye to bananas. Fair enough. Walter did not expect the commodity broker to emerge clad in different stripes simply because he was dealing in rubber. But for Monty to give Blackett and Webb’s support to such devious special pleading struck Walter as so foolish as almost to amount to the work of an imbecile. Perhaps he had made some money for himself from a judicious trading of rubber shares, yes, perhaps even a large amount, though, if so, he had evidently lost it again gambling. But that was not what he was there for. Fluctuating markets do not help producers because an artificial boom brings with it inevitably its dark shadow, a collapse. And a collapse in prices brings for more difficulties for the producer that the boom earlier brought advantages. But what really angered Walter was something different, something even less tangible. It was the damage which had been done to Blackett and Webb’s good name.

Walter got to his feet and stretched wearily. A murmur of voices from another part of the house told him that Monty’s guests had arrived. He hoped that the boy would behave in a suitably subdued manner, given the circumstances. Presently, he himself would have to put in a brief appearance. ‘Poor old Webb!’ he thought as he settled down at his desk and began to read through the bundle of cables which had been steadily collecting on it all afternoon in his absence. But as he sat there, deep below the surface of his working mind, a disturbing thought shifted imperceptibly once or twice. To whom would Mr Webb leave his share of the business?

After an hour he felt hungry and remembered that he had had nothing to eat since mid-day. The clink of cutlery and cheerful conversation came to him faintly from the breakfast-room. It was clear that not everyone was allowing Mr Webb’s approaching end to weigh on his spirits. Reluctant to join this cheerful gathering he made his way towards the dining-room, thinking that perhaps there might still be some food set out there.

Entering the dining-room he received a shock, for the servants, evidently uncertain as to the evening’s arrangements, had left the room exactly as it was. The long table was still set with eighty places in silver cutlery. Bowls of flowers and silver candlesticks alternated from one end to the other while at each place there stood a little family of wine glasses in which toasts would have been drunk to Mr Webb on his birthday, to himself, to the firm’s future prosperity. But what had given Walter such a shock were the four life-size heads fashioned of cake and icing-sugar, crude but recognizable, which had been set up on side tables, one in each corner of the room. Two of the heads he recognized immediately: one was of himself, benign, dew-lapped, cheeks unnaturally rouged with cochineal, the scalp tonsured with white icing-sugar. The other, more lifelike, represented old Mr Webb’s gaunt and dignified features. It seemed to Walter that a cold, almost cynical smile hovered about his former partner’s lips, and for a moment he found himself believing that real thoughts might be passing through the fruit-cake brain behind those piercing pale-blue eyes of sugar, that he was thinking: ‘So! You thought you had got rid of me at last!’

Recovering from his surprise Walter advanced smiling to read a sugar inscription which announced that these cakes had been presented on the occasion of Mr Webb’s birthday and the inauguration of the firm’s jubilee celebrations by Blackett and Webb’s Chinese employees who had collected subscriptions for the purpose, perhaps, Walter surmised, with the tactful encouragement of the publicity department but nevertheless … This was unexpected and gratifying, given the troubled labour situation