CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr.Gordon Jones rose to his feet.

It had been an interesting, in some respects a momentous interview.

He glanced around the plain but handsomely furnished office, a room which betrayed so few evidences of the world-flung power of its owner.
"After all, Sir Alfred," he remarked, smiling, "I am not sure that it is Downing Street which rules.

We can touch our buttons and move armies and battleships across the face of the earth.

You pull down your ledger, sign your name, and you can strike a blow as deadly as any we can conceive." The banker smiled.
"Let us be thankful, then," he said, "that the powers we wield are linked together in the great cause." Mr.Gordon Jones hesitated.
"Such things, I know, are little to you, Sir Alfred," he continued, "but at the same time I want you to believe that his Majesty's Government will not be unmindful of your help at this juncture.