DlRECTORS.
G. F. Dant, Esq., Oriental Club (late of Messrs.
MacLean, Dant, and Co., Hong- Kong and
London).
Major-General Fance, The Grove, Buxton (late
Military Secretary Madras Government).
Charks Westinan, Esq., 108, Westbourne-square
(late Madras Civil Service).
William Everett, Esq. (Director Liverpool Eastern
Insurance Company).
C. T. Francatello. Esq. (Messrs. Francatello and
Co., Minch-lane).
H. B. May, Esq., 75, Great Tooting-street.
Edward Spencer, Esq. (Director of the Mutual
Trading Company, and of the Overland to
Siberia Company).
Colonel T. Frost, 212, East Grove-terrace,
Belgravia.

Mr. Everett lived two hundred and more miles
from London, and although a man of business
himself, never intended to sit at the board, for
the reason that in all probability he would never
be in the metropolis more than once in six
months, and then only for a few hours at a
time; Mr. Francatello was a Levantine
commission agent, without fifty pounds of capital
that he could call his own; Mr. H. B. May
was a lad of nineteen (a brother of Mr. May,
who was the promoter and solicitor of the
company), and was put on the board partly to
keep a little more of a "good thing" in the
family, partly to vote as his brother directed;
Mr. Spencer was a gentleman, whose only trade
or calling was to become a director of
anything that was offered him, for the sake of the
two guineas a week it yielded him in fees;
and lastly, Colonel Frost was an individual
whose antecedents were best known to the
officials of the Bankruptcy Court, and whose only
property was a yearly increasing crop of debts.
If the public at large had known all this,
perhaps it might not have applied for many
shares in our concern. But it was not for us
to tell of our short-comings. We had gone
through no small amount of trouble to do as
well as we had—let others look to the inquiries
that had to be made—each man for himself.

But now, on the very verge of success, there
arose a difficulty which at first seemed
insurmountable: nothing less than that old old story
the want of money. Our directors—such as
they were—were all in their places. A respectable
bank had—goodness and the promoter knew
how—consented to take our account; the names
of Mr. May, as solicitor, of myself as secretary,
of an accountant as auditor, were all in their
places; in short, the curtain had but to be
pulled up for the play to begin, when it was
discovered that there were no funds forthcoming
for the advertising expenses. Before the public
can pay for shares, they must apply for them;
before they can apply for them, they must know
that the company has started; and the only
recognised means of informing them is by
advertising. But advertising is expensive. To make
the British public fully aware that The Grand
Financial and Credit was ready to take their
money in exchange for share certificates, it was
necessary to insert a very long advertisement in
the Times, and other papers. To advertise a
prospectus of ordinary length for ten days or a
fortnight, a sum of not less than from eight
hundred to a thousand pounds is requisite, and
this sum was not forthcoming. The directors
individually did not see why one of their number
any more than another should put his hand in,
his pocket. The bank might not float after all.
And be it remembered that, up to this time,
nothing but promises and undertakings had
passed from one to another; money or cheques
had not been as much as seen.

In this dilemma a meeting of the directors
was called, at the temporary offices which Mr.
May had borrowed gratis from a friend for a
few weeks, giving the said friend an undertaking
that, if the bank floated, he should be
paid his rent fourfold.

The meeting of the board was a full one,
but no one seemed inclined to put down any
money. Even the promoter and future solicitor,
Mr. May, "could not see" his way clearly
to drawing a cheque, on the chance of being
repaid if the shares of the company were
allotted. He said he was quite certain that the
scheme would take with the public, and he tried
to persuade the directors collectively to give
some advertising agent a guarantee that the
expenses of advertising would be repaid, but
they—one and all—did not seem to see it in the
light in which this gentleman saw it. "If he was
so certain that the scheme would pay, why did
he not advance the money himself? Or, if he
were short of funds, he might give the
advertising agent the guarantee required." The
meeting broke up without coming to any
determination whatever, and I felt that my future
secretaryship was by no means secure.

But Mr. May was not a man to be daunted
by trifles. In the course of twenty-four hours
he had overcome the difficulty. By means
known only to himself, he procured
somewhere in the City, an advertising agent, with
whom he made the following bargain. This
agent was to take upon himself the whole risk
of advertising The Grand Financial and Credit
Bank, and was to expend such sums as the
promoter directed for that purpose, up to eight
hundred pounds. For this, if the company did not
proceed to allotment, he was to receive nothing;
but if it succeeded—if the applications for
shares were sufficient to warrant an allotment
taking place—he was to be the first person paid
out of the deposits, and for every hundred
pounds risked he was to receive three
hundred. The bargain, in short, was a speculation,
in which the advertising agent might lose all
the money he had laid out, or might, in less than
a month, make a profit of three hundred per
cent. All parties appeared well pleased with
the bargain. The directors were so, because
whatever happened they would not lose
anything. Mr. May was pleased for the same
reason. The advertising agent was glad to
risk the money on the chance of being repaid
threefold.