for next day, when I went with him to one of
the discounters for whom I picked up business.
To my surprise, no sooner had the money-lender
examined the bill, than he agreed to "do" it,
though at an exceedingly high figure—
something like three hundred per cent per annum.
However, it was not for me to question the act
of my principal: the less so, as it brought in grist
to my mill. I received a cheque for my commission
next day, and happening to express an
opinion to the effect that the bill had been very
quickly discounted, the money-lender winked at
me, and said, "That bill is certain to be paid, for
it is accepted by the wrong man" In other words,
the document was—so far as the acceptor's
name was concerned—a forgery, and, therefore,
the gentleman who had uttered the bill—or he
failing, his friends—would, to save penal
consequences, be sure to pay it when due. I had
the curiosity to inquire afterwards if the bill
had been paid at maturity, and found that
it had.

Forged bills are by no means uncommon
among the West-end discounters, but the
boldest attempt to take in a member of this
fraternity happened about three years ago, just
after the Prince of Wales returned from his trip
to Palestine and the East. A gentlemanly
looking man, who spoke English with rather a
foreign accent, called one day upon a certain
West-end discounter, and said he had in his
possession a bill for five thousand pounds,
drawn by his Royal Highness the Prince, and
accepted by a well-known general officer
attached to the royal household. The bill, he
said, was payable four months after date, at the
period the prince would come of age, and was
to be kept a profound secret, as it had been
drawn and discounted for a private reason
known only to H.R.H. and his immediate
friends. Although greedy enough for gain, the
money-lender knew better than to believe this
story. The bill was offered to him for fifteen
hundred pounds cash, and he told the person to
call the next day at noon, when the money would
be ready—intending to have a detective officer
ready, and to hand over the impostor to the
care of the police. It is to be presumed that
the foreign gentleman saw something or other
in the discounter's manner which frightened
him, for although he promised to come at the
appointed time, he was never again seen or
heard of.

And this reminds me that whereas in Paris
most of the largest swindles in bills of exchange
and similar transactions have been perpetrated
by Englishmen, so in London the most successful
frauds have been the handiwork of foreigners.
I imagine that as no man can be a prophet, so no
one can commit a bold fraud with impunity, in his
native land. We may account for many robberies
which foreigners have committed in England by
the hypothesis that we are more inclined to give
credit to them than to our own countrymen. In
London particularly, where one of the latter
might starve, a Frenchman or German would be
able to live—upon credit—on the best of the
land. I was once partly the innocent cause
of one of these foreign swindlers walking off
with a large sum of money which he obtained
by fraud from a West-end discounter. A young
lord, with whom I had a casual acquaintance,
came up to me in the Park one afternoon, and
introduced me to a foreign-looking gentleman who
was leaning on his arm. This stranger, he said,
was a Brazilian nobleman who had lately landed
in England, and wanted some information about
monetary matters. He could not—or professed
that he could not—speak English, but as I
am a proficient in French, we got on well
enough together. He showed me a letter of
credit from an English firm at Rio Janeiro,
upon a house in Bristol, for one hundred and
fifty pounds, and asked me whether I could
negotiate the draft. I said that nothing
could be more easy, but that it would first be
necessary to communicate with the house on
which the letter of credit was given, so as to
know whether it was all right. He begged me
to do this, and upon writing to the firm I
obtained an answer in twenty-four hours that
the document was quite correct, and that
when presented it would be paid. I at once
obtained cash for the draft, and duly received
the thanks of my noble Brazilian acquaintance.
A month or so later another letter of
credit for a like amount arrived, and was also
honoured by the same firm. Some few weeks
after this my foreign friend came early one
morning to my lodgings, and told me that
he had lost a considerable sum at whist and in
betting at Goodwood, and wanted to draw a bill
upon his agents at Rio for two hundred pounds;
would I get the draft cashed for him? I took
him to a West-end discounter, who not only
cashed his bill on my representation, but asked
him to spend a week with him at his "little
place in the country," where he gave him some
excellent shooting, and made quite a lion of
"the foreign nobleman." The bill was duly
despatched to Brazil, and in the course of time
was advised as having been accepted and paid.
A couple of months later, the Brazilian count
drew another bill for a thousand pounds, and
took it to the same man, who cashed it. The
"foreign nobleman" slipped over to France
a few days before the return mail from South
America was due, bringing news of his bill
having been dishonoured.

The West-end money-lenders and discounters
may almost be looked upon as a race apart from
the rest of the world. As a rule, their outward
and visible profession is either that of wine-
merchant or attorney, but in neither one nor
other of these callings do they do more than a
merely nominal business. Although I have
known renewals go on for two and three years,
the victim paying ten, fifteen, or twenty percent
every three months, yet I have known them
do generous acts. To men like myself, who do
their dirty work for them, they are punctual, and
even liberal, paymasters. No discounter—
beyond, perhaps, putting in an occasional advertisement
—ever looks out for business; he leaves