England Made Me by Graham Greene Page B

morning till night. You weren’t even at the opera yesterday, were you?’
    â€˜No,’ Krogh said, ‘I had meant to go, but something intervened.’
    â€˜You know,’ the Minister said, ‘the other day I took some of your last issue.’
    â€˜You could do worse,’ Krogh said.
    â€˜Of course, I never really expected to be able to get any. I am so slow about these things. I was quite astonished, my dear fellow, to find that the lists were still open. After twelve hours.’
    â€˜Money is more close than it was.’
    â€˜Of course, I don’t speculate. Really it’s because I regard Krogh stock as gilt-edged . . .’ He flitted, a grey worried phantom, from door to window, from window to bookcase. There was something on his mind.
    â€˜Not gilt-edged at ten per cent, Sir Ronald.’
    â€˜I know, I know, my dear fellow, but one trusts you. As a matter of fact, I’ve done – will you have a whisky? – something which a few years ago I might have thought rash, Krogh. I’ve put a lot of money, a damned lot of money for me, into this last flotation. It’s sound, isn’t it?’
    â€˜As sound as the parent company.’
    â€˜Yes, of course. It must seem odd my asking you like this, but I’ve never put so many eggs into one basket before. Damn it, Krogh, a man at my age should not have to worry about money. My father never had to worry. Consols were good enough for him. But today one can’t even trust Government stocks. Labour governments, moratoriums, everything is so uncertain. Do you know, Krogh, in the last year two friends of mine have been ruined. Really ruined, I mean. Not a question of selling the car or the hunters, but left high and dry with about twenty pounds a week. It makes one think, Krogh, it makes one think.’
    â€˜You have a few Metallic Industries, haven’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, a couple of thousand. They’ve been doing very well. Not Krogh stock, of course, my dear fellow, but still very fair.’
    â€˜If you will let me advise you,’ Krogh said, ‘I should get in touch with your broker first thing in the morning. I think they will pass a hundred and twenty-five shillings tomorrow, they may even reach a hundred and thirty, but tell him to sell as soon as they reach a hundred and twenty-five shillings. They’ll drop to eighty shillings before the end of the week.’
    â€˜That’s very good of you, very good of you indeed. Now if only your list hadn’t closed, I really believe that a few more eggs in that basket –’
    â€˜Ring up my secretary, Miss Farrant, tomorrow. I think I might be able to spare you a thousand or so at par. For friendship’s sake,’ he said with an icy attempt at geniality. The Minister pattered up and down the room in excitement, swinging his monocle, talking of rubber, of Rio Improvements, recurring again and again to Metallic Industries; there was something fawn-like in his greed; it was robbed of half its grossness by his manner, childlike and inexpert. Krogh watched and listened with faint irritation; he stood stiffly against the bookcase which contained a few of Sir Ronald’s own works: Silverpoint and Once at the Mermaid and A Pilgrim in Thessaly . Part of his stiffness was pride, part the dislike he could not disguise for the amateur in finance, and part was simply the gawkiness of the poor past: the wooden cottage and the nights on the lake, the wild geese and the Chicago bridge.
    â€˜When did you last see the Prince?’ Sir Ronald said.
    â€˜The Prince, the Prince,’ Krogh said, ‘oh, it was last week, I think.’ A little chiming clock told out the hour. ‘I must be off,’ he said, ‘the Wall Street prices will be through.’ But after twenty years of prosperity he was still uneasy, still afraid of a slip in manner which would betray his peasant birth. He watched the other man with a