"I beg your pardon, sir," he replied, with
husky placidity, " but you forget Rogers's case.
I am bound to go through the papers to-night."

"Then you can take them home with you. I
have private business with this gentleman, and
wish to be alone—you understand? Alone."

A pale light flashed into Mr. Keckwitch's eyes
—flashed and vanished. But it did not impart
an agreeable expression to his countenance.

"And when you have put all straight, and
turned off the gas, please to let me know, that
I may lock the office door on the inside."

The head clerk retired without a word, followed
by the keen eye of his employer.

"If I were to become a rich man to-morrow,"
said he, with a bitter smile, " the first elegant
superfluity in which I should indulge, would be
the kicking of that fellow all the way along
Chancery-lane. It is a luxury that would be
cheap at any price the court might award."

"If you have so bad an opinion of him, why
do you keep him?" asked Saxon.

"For the reason that one often keeps an
aching tooth. He is a useful grinder, and helps
me to polish off the bones that I was telling
you about just now."

Mr. Trefalden then saw his head clerk off the
premises, locked the outer door, made up the
fire, put the shade on the lamp (he always liked,
he said, to spare his eyes), and drew his chair to
the table.

"THE BANK OF PATAGONIA"
(LIMITED).

SOMETHING had to be done. As secretary of
the GRAND FINANCIAL AND CREDIT BANK,* I
had brought my wits to a very bad market, and
the latter days of that celebrated establishment
had given me considerable distaste for anything
in the shape of what is called "a position" in a
joint-stock company. To work for five or six
months in the hopes of bringing put a new concern,
and then, if it succeeds, obtaining as reward
a mere clerkship with the more sounding name of
secretary, did not suit me at all. Moreover,
having seen how large were the profits of those
who " promoted," or started in life new companies,
I determined to have my finger in a pie
of that kind. Why should I not be a promoter?
* See "How we Floated the Bank," page 493,
vol. xii.; and "How the Bank came to Grief,"
page 102 of the present volume.

To promote a company successfully, three
things are absolutely necessary: The promoter
must have a solicitor for a friend and confederate;
he must be able to start a new idea; and
be competent to write a " taking" prospectus.
All these three elements of ultimate prosperity
in the business I was possessed of. Among
the several thousand gentlemen who are enrolled
as attorneys-at-law, there was one whom I
counted amongst my intimates. It is true that
his general character would not, perhaps, bear
the strictest investigation. He had been twice
insolvent and once bankrupt, and had long
laboured under a slight suspicion of having
appropriated to his own use certain sums
entrusted to his care by an old lady client. All
this, however, only made him a fitter instrument
for the work which I required, and from which
a practitioner with some character to lose, would
have shrank in disgust. Mr. Scott had no
scruples, and was, therefore, the very man I
required. As for writing a " taking" prospectus,
I knew myself to be up to that work,
and therefore the only difficulty that remained
was to find a new idea, which would tell in procuring
subscribers to shares which I might
throw upon the market.

My previous experience with starting the
Grand Financial scheme, led me to believe that
if there be one financial fable more likely than
another to be believed in by the British public,
it is that of a bank. Every man with any claim
to monetary respectability employs a banker,
and therefore thinks himself thoroughly conversant
with banking in all its various branches.
And, as it was to the respectable (in money
matters) part of the community that I wished to
address myself, I determined that my scheme
should be connected with a bank, and with no
other undertaking.

The " Grand Financial and Credit Bank" had
been practically much too exclusively a home
affair. It is true that we had intended to extend
our operations all over the known world; but the
child that we expected would have grown into
so very large a man, had died in his infancy. My
present plan was to fix upon some country, or
town, or nation, or state, or empire that was not
yet blessed with a banking institution, and give
its name to the company I was going to start.
The only difficulty was to find any part of the
known world which had not as yet stood godfather
to some one or other of the many banking concerns
set on foot in London during the past three
or four years. To take any European name was
out of the question. The Stock Exchange had
showed me at a glance how every nation and
city, from Paris to Constantinople, had already
been pressed into the service of giving a name
to some banking scheme, whose head-quarters was
in London. Asia, too, was not to be thought of.
There were " Indian," and " Hindostan," and
"Bombay," and " Calcutta," and " Scinde," and
"Delhi," and "Simla," and " North-West,"
and " South-East, " and, for aught I knew,
"West-and-by-South," banks by the score; to
say nothing of " Chinese," " Japanese," " Hong-Kong,"
"Yokahama," "Borneo," and "Yellow
Sea," Banking Corporations. Nor was there
more to select from upon looking over the map
of Africa. In and about Cape of Good Hope
Colony, the name of every town or district of
any note had been appropriated. To name a
bank after the Kingdom of Dahomey would
hardly do, nor did the Cape Coast establishment
promise to be regarded favourably as a
centre of financial operations. In the United