556 ANGEL PAVEMENT

already bought heavily on the old prices."

"Have we? Golspie did the buying, and I can't find
any acknowledgment from them."

"Well, can't we cancel the last orders then, Mr,
Dersingham? I never heard of such a thing. It's not
reasonable. Here their prices have been up for weeks
and weeks, and we've been thinking we were buying at
the old rates. They can't force us to take the stuff at
these prices, surely."

"I don't know. That side of it doesn't matter, anyhow.
The point is, Smeeth—don't you see?—whether we've
bought the stuff or not, we've sold it."

Mr. Smeeth did see; he saw with fatal clearness; and
his dismay must have been written on his face.

"Yes," Mr. Dersingham continued, "we've sold it,
stacks and stacks of it, thousands of square feet, big
orders, Smeeth, big orders, all those orders we paid
Golspie that commission on. You might well look like
that. I've been feeling like that all day, even though I
still hoped there might be a mistake—before that
telegram came."

"But, Mr* Dersingham—it's—it's ruination, sheer
ruination."

"And it's damnably, damnably unfair, Smeeth. We've
simply been swindled. Listen, d'you think there's any
chance of us getting all those orders cancelled here?"

Mr. Smeeth thought for a minute, then slowly shook
his head. "We've undertaken to deliver the stuff, Mr.
Dersingham, and there's no getting out of that. I mean
to say, if our customers say 'We want it,' then they'll
have to have it, and they can compel us to let them have
it at the price we sold it, or compel us to go out of busi-
ness. No argument about that at all, sir."