AND TRADING COMPANY (LIMITED);" and "THE
DIRECT TELEGRAPH TO BARBADOES COMPANY
(LIMITED)."

All these served to give me a name in the City
with a certain class, and before I had been twelve
months at the work, my business as a director
had increased so much that I was obliged to take
an office and hire a clerk.  Still—although taken
collectively the number of boards at which I had
a seat gave me a certain amount of
respectability with the director-seeking, joint-stock
company-getting-up, share-allotting, world—not
one of the concerns with which I was mixed up
could be called even a second-class affair.  As
I got richer I became more and more ambitious
of having my name connected with something
that would give me a better commercial standing
as well as more material wealth. I no longer
asked myself whether I could possibly live upon
a hundred and fifty pounds a year, for I knew
I could spend five times that amount, and still
put something by.  My respectability as to
money was undoubted. I left off frequenting
the Rag, as being too "young" a club for a
man in my position. I set up a brougham, kept
my private account at Drummond's, had serious
thoughts of taking a wife, and got myself elected
a member of the Conservative Club.

My friendship for Smithson had not
decreased, although I had distanced him in the
race. Smithson was a director of one or two
of my companies, but he did not push his luck
with sufficient energy. If he had gone to bed
early the night before (an event which very
rarely happened), and could manage to get over
his breakfast and cigar by ten o'clock next
morning, he generally found his way on a board-
day to the office. But for one board meeting
that he was present at, he missed two.

About this time, credit and finance
companies began to attract notice in London. One
or two of these concerns had been started, and
others were about to come out. Talking over
the probable gains of such undertakings, in the
board-room of the Rio Grande Company, three
or four of the directors agreed to start a
finance company for themselves, and invited
Smithson and myself to come on the direction.
We both consented, and in very few days we
published to the world a scheme by which
people had only to take shares in this concern,
in order to become wealthy beyond the hopes of
ordinary mortals. The name of our company
was, the " GENERAL HOUSE AND LAND FINANCE
AND CREDIT COMPANY (LIMITED);" the managing
director was to be myself, the secretary was
to be Smithson, my salary was to be two thousand
a year, Smithson's was to be eight hundred,
and every director was to have a five-pound note
each time he attended a board meeting.

The business which the "GENERAL HOUSE
AND LAND FINANCE" proposed to do, was as
follows: Our nominal capital was to be a million,
but of this only two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds were to be called up for the present. We
intended to invite depositors to place their
money with us, and, to induce them to do so,
we offered them a much higher rate of interest
than was current with the joint-stock banks.
The money thus lent us —say at five per cent—
we lent out again at ten, twelve, and even a
higher per-centage, taking the security of houses,
lands, or any other immovable property, for our
repayment. This alone would have left us a
wide margin for profit, notwithstanding the
great office expenses we had to pay. But we
intended to do better than that. We meant
not only to lend and charge a high rate of
interest for the money of our depositors, but to
lend, and charge for, our acceptances, which
was—in England at least—a scheme entirely
new, and which could hardly fail to be profitable.
Thus, suppose an individual who owned
houses and land to the amount of say ten
thousand pounds, wanted to borrow money upon
them. To raise a mortgage in the ordinary way,
was a matter of time, expense, and greater or
less publicity. He could not take the property
in his pocket to the bank, and ask them to
discount it as he would a bill; and to deposit title-
deeds with a banker—when he will take them—
as security for loans, injures a man's credit very
much. The intending borrower—who seldom
wants the accommodation for any length of
time, but always wishes the affair to be kept
secret—would therefore come to us, and upon
the security of his ten thousand pounds' worth
of property, would ask for an advance of six
thousand pounds for a year. We should reply
that we could not give him the cash, but if he
liked to draw upon us, we would accept bills
for that amount, and not charge him more than
ten per cent for doing so.

Knowing that the kites flown by a finance
company of good credit could be discounted
at any bank at the current rates of the day,
the borrower invariably accepted our offer.
We were made quite safe, by the title-deeds
which were left with us; and he was content
with getting his money, although he had to
pay a somewhat higher rate of interest for
the use of it. On the other hand, the finance
company got a good rate of interest for merely
putting its name to bills, which were quite
secure from having the title- deeds of
property, with a very large margin, in hand. When
transactions of tliis kind came to be multiplied,
no wonder that we hoped to declare a dividend
of at least twenty-five per cent upon our paid-up
capital.

But there was another means of making
money which we profited very largely by. At
the period I write of—as is still the case—
joint-stock companies of various sorts were
"floated," with greater or less success, every day
of the week. Atter a time it became impossible
for any of these schemes to take with the
public, unless the concern were palpably "a good
thing," or unless some finance company stood
godfather for it before the share-taking world.
Thus, to us there would perhaps come a gentleman
who had a patent by which writing-paper could
be made out of old ink, or plate glass fabricated
from turnip-tops. The patent might be good—