For the Allinson Honor by Harold Bindloss — Read

It was with a strange sense of detachment that Andrew attended the first meeting of the shareholders in the Rain Bluff mine. He had thought of the event with great anxiety, made numerous plans and abandoned them, and now he had come, in a sense, unprepared, determined to submit two general propositions and let the shareholders decide for themselves. Ignorant of the usual mode of procedure at such meetings, he had consulted nobody better informed, and realized that he might be ruled out of order or shouted down; but he was sensible of a coolness that somewhat surprised him.

The room hired for the occasion was large and handsome, with a floor of inlaid hardwood, frescoed walls and lofty roof. It had something of the look of a chapel. At one end a group of well-groomed frock-coated directors were seated at a fine oak table, with the Company's secretary behind an array of books and papers. All that the eye rested on suggested stable prosperity, for Leonard knew the effect that imposing surroundings had on the small provincial investor. It would be difficult for inexperienced and unorganized malcontents to disregard the air of severe formality which he meant to cast over the proceedings.