298 THE COMPLETE SPORTSMAN 



five hundred shares of Telephone Deferred Stock, 

 which then stood at about 150. 



Eight months passed by, at tlie end of which 

 the stock had fallen to 96, and the purchaser 

 (who had, unfortunately, failed to persuade his 

 aged mother to take it off his hands) was faced 

 with a loss of nearly £300. At the same moment 

 a violent article, entitled " The Unjust Steward," 

 appeared in the Patriotic Review, and the 

 British public learnt with dismay that a Crown 

 official, a Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, 

 had so far forgotten the traditions of his 

 office as to be capable of putting his money 

 into anything more speculative than a 

 stocking. 



The wave of indignation that swept over the 

 City — where, as is well known, the standard of 

 honour is almost indecently high — will long be 

 remembered. It was in vain that Sir Theodore 

 insisted upon appearing before the Telephone 

 Commission, and, in an impassioned and moving 

 speech, offered to place his wife's passbook, 

 his mother's passbook, and the passbooks of all 

 his aunts on public exhibition at the Albert Hall. 

 His popularity with the proletariat was shaken; 

 those friends who had borrowed money from 

 him for years avoided him in [a marked jmanner, 

 and many of the leading London ] hostesses 

 ceased to invite him to Tango Teas. 



