increase, during the next twenty-five years, as
they have done in the last quarter of a century,
more than half the buying, selling, and agencies
of the most important trade in England will be
in their hands.  As it is, all throughout the
ports of the Levant —at Smyrna, Salonica,
Alessandria, Beyrout, and Constantinople —the
Greek importers of English goods make large
fortunes where the local English merchants can
barely make a living.

My duties as junior partner in the firm of
Velardi, Watson, and Co., were not very severe.
By eleven o'clock every morning —seldom earlier
— I was at the office.  If I happened to be the
first to arrive, I opened and read all such letters
as were not in Greek: a language which I do not
understand.  This done, I proceeded to look over
the bill-book, and see what drafts fell due on the
next few days following, and whether there were
funds sufficient at our banker's to meet them.  I
then had half an hour's consultation with Mr.
Velardi, who by this time had read all the news
and notices of exchange throughout Europe, and
was well posted up on the subject.  We then
determined what bills were to be drawn and sent
abroad, for sale, and what were to be disposed
of in London.  The next two or three hours were
always spent at "the Baltic," which is the stock
exchange of all the Levant trade in London.
Here we not only saw our friends, but also
transacted a great deal of our business, selling
bills, freighting ships we had chartered, effecting
insurances on goods, and what not.  At three
or four o'clock we returned to the office, where
I wrote the English and French, and Mr. Velardi
Greek, letters: the latter always the most
numerous.  By six o'clock in the afternoon we
were generally free and on our way home, though
occasionally I have been kept until nine, ten, and
eleven o'clock at night.  For with Mr. Velardi
nothing was ever allowed to stand in the way of
business when business had to be done.

Our business establishment was not an expensive
one.  Besides my partner and myself
there was only one clerk, a young English lad,
who copied letters, ran messages, went to the
post, and had the office to himself all the afternoon
when we were at "the Baltic."  This
youth had no more idea than the dead what our
firm was worth, or what was the amount of
our liabilities or assets.  The Greeks never
allow many people to see below the surface of
their affairs, and that is one reason why they
succeed so well in general with their business.
In our firm, no one except my partner and
myself knew what was really going on either
with our home or our foreign houses.  Not,
indeed, that I knew much myself what was doing
in exchanges, for the subject was to me so
hopelessly intricate that I never attempted to master
it.  Of course I was aware what bills we had to
meet, and what amounts we had to receive; but
as to being able to work out the complicated
questions of bills being bought in one place,
sent to another, there sold, and the proceeds
sent to a third place, that was out of the question,
and therefore I never attempted it.

After our partnership had lasted some six
months, we went over the books together, and
arrived at the conclusion that our net profits
for the half year amounted to nearly a thousand
pounds; of which, according to agreement, I was
to have one-third.  From this, of course, there had
to be deducted the twenty pounds a month which
I had drawn "on account" of my profits.  Still
there remained a very nice little sum for me to
pocket, and I had every reason to be satisfied
with the results of the business.

But not so my partner, Mr. Velardi.  This
gentleman did not seem to think that with a
paid-up capital of three hundred pounds, a
profit of more than nine hundred and eighty
pounds in six months —being at the rate of six
hundred per cent per annum —was sufficient.  A
few days after our balance had been struck, he
told me that we must put more energy into the
business, and that he must require me to go
abroad and reside at Smyrna for some months,
as he was by no means satisfied with what our
firm was doing in that place.  As the fruit
season was soon coming on, there would be
an opening, which must not be overlooked, to
extend our business in many ways.

In a fortnight's time I found myself en route
for Smyrna.  From London by Dover, Calais,
and Paris to Marseilles, and thence by the
French steamer, via Messina, to the Piræus and
Syra, I found myself dining at the Hôtel des
deux Augustes, at Smyrna, on the tenth day
after I had dined in. Cheapside.  I was well
furnished with letters of introduction to all
the leading people in the place, besides having
written instructions from Mr. Velardi as to
what I was to do in the way of business,
and how I was to do it; or rather to what
extent I could proceed in business upon my
own responsibility.  Should I have any doubts
as to what was to be done on any emergency,
I was at once to refer to my partner in England.
This was easy enough, there being telegraphic
communication between Smyrna and London.

To my great surprise I found, upon going to
see various persons in Smyrna, that an idea
had got abroad in the place that Mr. Velardi's
English partner, my humble self, was a
very wealthy man, and that I had come to
the place with money to do business on a
large scale.  How, or by whom this idea had
been promulgated, I never exactly found out,
although I always believed —and do so still—
that the real author of the story was my partner
himself.  Be that as it may, my being thought
a rich man tended of course to facilitate my
dealings in the place, and would consequently
increase our profits very much if I was only
judicious and careful in the way I went to
work.

The fruit season is the time when the figs
are brought into Smyrna by hundreds of camel-
loads, and after being dried and packed, are
shipped to England.  Into this trade I entered
largely, but did still more in the way of drawing
and selling bills upon our London house, and
remitting the proceeds to Mr. Velardi, who took