A buzz of ejaculations and comments arose from the crowd.  “Isn’t there any more about it?” they cried.

“Here’s a later paper, boss,” said the little Kaffir, who had been diligently looking over the dates.

O’Flaherty opened it, and gave a whistle of astonishment.  “Here’s enough to satisfy you,” he said.  “It’s in big toipe and takes up noigh the whole of the first page.  I can only read ye the headings, for we must get to work and have out a special edition.  You’ll git details there, an’ it’ll be out in a few hours.  Look here at the fuss they’ve made about it.”  The editor turned the paper as he spoke, and exhibited a series of large black headings in this style:—­

RUSSIAN DIAMOND FIELDS.

EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY BY AN ENGLISHMAN. 
THREATENED EXTINCTION OF THE CAPE INDUSTRY. 
GREAT FALL IN PRICES. 
OPINIONS OF THE LONDON PRESS. 
FULL DETAILS.

“What d’ye think of that?” cried O’Flaherty, triumphantly, as if he had had some hand in the matter.  “Now I must git off to me work, and you’ll have it all before long in your hands.  Ye should bliss your stars that ye have some one among ye to offer ye the convanience of the latest news.  Good noight to ye all,” and he trotted back into his office with his hat and its silver contents in his hand.

The crowd broke up into a score of gesticulating chattering groups, and wandered up or down the street.  Ezra Girdlestone waited until they had cleared away, and then stepped into the office of the Advertiser.

“What’s the matter now?” asked O’Flaherty, angrily.  He was a man who lived in a state of chronic irritation.

“Have you a duplicate of that paper?”

“Suppose I have?”

“What will you sell it for?”

“What will you give?”

“Half a sovereign.”

“A sovereign.”

“Done!” and so Ezra Girdlestone walked out of the office with full details in his hand, and departed to his hotel, where he read the account through very slowly and deliberately.  It appeared to be satisfactory, for he chuckled to himself a good deal as he perused it.  Having finished it, he folded the paper up, placed it in his breast pocket, and, having ordered his horse, set off to the neighbouring township of Dutoitspan with the intention of carrying the news with him.

Ezra had two motives in galloping across the veldt that October night.  One was to judge with his own ears and eyes what effect the news would have upon practical men.  The other was a desire to gratify that sinister pleasure which an ill-natured man has in being the bearer of evil tidings.  They had probably heard the report by this time, but it was unlikely that any details had reached them.  No one knew better than young Girdlestone that this message from Europe would bring utter ruin and extinction to many a small capitalist, that it would mean the shattering of a thousand hopes, and the advent of poverty and misery to the men with whom he had been associating.  In spite of this knowledge, his heart beat high, as his father’s had done in London, and as he spurred his horse onwards through the darkness, he was hardly able to refrain from shouting and whooping in his exultation.