"Shall I consult Mr.Gerard ?" he repeated.

"I should like to if you have no objection." Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond Selwyn's left shoulder.
"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest--" "Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk, opened the first letter his hand encountered.

Now that his head was turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute, then went out silently.
* * * * * That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before him exactly as Neergard had put it.
"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an ass about business methods.
What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable, either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value, then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process.

That, in outline, is what I understand.

But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him up--I don't like.