question—was that they had "so many first-class
men, sir, offering to join them, that their
great difficulty was in making the proper selection."
Below the word "DIRECTORS" came
"MANAGER," followed by " SECRETARY,"
"SOLICITOR," "AUDITORS," "BANKERS," and
"BROKERS;" but to none of these was there
any name affixed. It was very like a playbill in
which the names of the pieces and the characters
were put down, but to which the names of the
actors had not yet been added. The piece was
not yet cast. As a matter of course, the
prospectus set forth that the future business of
the proposed bank would be exceedingly large
and highly profitable. That it was intended to
have branches and agencies in Paris, New York,
Madrid, Berlin, Melbourne, and Bombay. That
already arrangements had been made to
purchase the business of Messrs. Saloman and
Company, of such a street; and that some thousands
of the shares had already been applied for by the
public. The latter assertion I knew, by a kind of
instinct, was not true. However, my business
was to get a good director or two for the
company, and by this means to secure a berth for
myself; and therefore, armed with half a dozen
copies of the prospectus, I rushed out of Mr.
May's office, called the first Hansom I saw,
and was quickly bowling away towards the
West-end, where my uncle resided.

He was an old gentleman who had amassed
a fair competency in China. All his sons were
provided for and well started in the world, his
daughters were married, and he, a widower,
found that with between seven hundred and
eight hundred a year, he could live very
comfortably in lodgings, enjoying the conversation
of his old friends at the Oriental Club, and
his rubber of whist in the evening. He said
he had had enough of business, that he had no
faith in these new banks or finance companies,
and that the small sum he should get every week
for his attendance at the board-room, would be
no inducement to him to undertake the trouble,
worry, annoyance, and responsibility of being a
director.

At last, upon my pressing him very much,
and showing him what an excellent chance it
would be for me to obtain a permanent situation,
he not only consented to his name being
put down, but promised to do his utmost to
bring with him, as another director, an old
friend—a retired Indian officer—with whom he
was engaged to dine that evening at the Club of
Anglo-Asiatics in Hanover-square.

Of course, this was excellent news for me,
and our dinner at the Oriental was a double
success. Not only did my uncle's friend
consent to join the board of the new concern, but
he, too, brought a friend with him. The
following morning I therefore arrived at Lincoln's
Inn-fields, and presented Mr. May with the
written consent of three gentlemen who agreed
to become directors, and thus a respectable
nucleus of the board was formed.

But although three directors—more particularly
when bearing respectable names—are something,
they are not enough to form a direction.
My part of the work was, however,
done. Mr. May, who was the promoter—and
was to be the solicitor—of the company, at
once gave me an undertaking by which the
secretaryship of the bank was secured to me,
provided the company proceeded to allot the
shares. In promoter's slang, if the company
floated, I was to have the berth I desired.

My three friends served admirably to draw
other directors. Armed with them, our promoter
was soon on his way to visit other parties in the
City: persons whom he either hoped would
join, or who could induce others to join, the
direction.

At one of these interviews I happened to be
present, and it was amusing, nay—for a future
secretary not a little instructive—to observe how
—promoter like—our future solicitor managed,
without exactly telling a decided untruth, to
suppress the truth most effectually. "Is your
board really formed?" asked the gentleman.
"Oh dear yes," the promoter replied; "we
have got Mr. Dant, formerly of the house of
Maclean, Dant, and Company, in Hong-Kong;
also General Fance, late of the Madras Army;
also Mr. Westman, who was in the Indian Civil
Service; besides several others;" the "several
others" being purely imaginary. I knew quite
well that Mr. May had secured no other directors,
and he knew that I knew he was stating
what was not true; nevertheless, he repeated it
again and again to different persons, until he
really seemed to believe his own falsehood.

At last, after about a month's hard work, and
rushing about in Hansom cabs, we got together
the names of eight gentlemen who consented to
become directors of The Grand Financial and
Credit Bank of Europe, Asia, Africa, America,
and Australia (Limited). How we managed
this, it would take many pages of this periodical
to tell in detail. Some of them joined
us because the prospect of two, or perhaps three,
guineas on every board-day—the board sits once
a week in all Joint-Stock Banks—was an object
of some moment to them. Others—like my own
respected uncle—joined us on the understanding
that they were to have this or that situation in
the bank for some relative, connexion, or friend.
Many were—indirectly—paid for joining us;
that is to say, the promoter, Mr. May, would
say to some acquaintance, "I will give you two
hundred pounds if you procure me Mr. So-and-So
as a director." Perhaps the acquaintance
had never seen Mr. So-and-So in his life, but he
had an acquaintance who could manage to get
introduced to another person who knew the gentleman.
He managed, by paying the individual he
knew, a ten pound note, to get introduced to the
"other person," and, by giving him three or four
"fivers," to obtain the desired introduction,
which, when once accomplished, he offered,
perhaps, a hundred pounds to the gentleman,
provided he would join the direction of the new bank.
None of these were ready-money transactions
—such bargains never are. All payment of
promotion money—all money paid, or to be paid,