A Man of Means

When a seed-merchant of cautious disposition and an eye to the main chance receives from an
eminent firm of jam-manufacturers an extremely large order for clover-seed, his emotions are
mixed. Joy may be said to predominate, but with the joy comes also uncertainty. Are these
people, he asks himself, proposing to set up as farmers of a large scale, or do they merely want
the seed to give verisimilitude to their otherwise bald and unconvincing raspberry jam? On the
solution of this problem depends the important matter of price, for, obviously, you can charge a
fraudulent jam disseminator in a manner which an honest farmer would resent. This was the
problem which was furrowing the brow of Mr. Julian Fineberg, of Bury St. Edwards, one sunny
morning when Roland Bleke knocked at his door; and such was its difficulty that only at the
nineteenth knock did Mr. Fineberg raise his head.