COMPANY," on which—written in the name of
the deputation—the operation of advancing
twenty thousand pounds on the security of the
estate was strongly recommended, and a most
flourishing account given of the property we
were to hold as security. This was signed by
the solicitor, by Monsieur Montaine, and by the
other director, and, having been forwarded to
London, received the sanction of the board.
Had we known—what afterwards came to
light—that Monsieur Montaine had received
from "the other side" a fee of one thousand
pounds for carrying the business through, and
that the estate we held as security had been
in the market any time these ten years for less
than a fourth of its asserted value, we should
not have been quite so ready.

As it was, the bills were accepted and sent
out to Bordeaux; the two thousand pounds
commission and interest was paid us; and the
title-deeds, in all due form, were made over to
a notary in Bordeaux who acted as our agent in
the business.

In the first half-yearly report of our
company, nothing could "look better than the statement
—among others—in our accounts, that.,
without parting with a shilling of our capital,
and while holding undoubted security for the
bills we had given, even to four times the
amount of the sum we had guaranteed, we had
received in hard cash, and in advance, a bonus
of two thousand pounds. If every operation
we entered into, turned out as fortunate, we
might indeed expect that the shares of our
company would rise in value. Our shareholders
were delighted. Small hints respecting our
increased and increasing prosperity were allowed
to creep out in the money articles of the public
press, and these served to increase the desire of
the public to become shareholders. Our credit
was good, our respectability undoubted, and our
wisdom the praise of all the banks. The
uninitiated—Finance and Credit Societies were
new in England at that time—wondered how we
managed, in our reports, to prove that we had
nearly all paid-up capital at the banker's, and
yet could declare a very large dividend indeed
upon what our shareholders had paid. Many
companies made money by a profitable investment
of their capital, but we managed to do
this and yet kept our capital at interest at our
banker's. How did we do it? This was the
question asked everywhere.

In the mean time, another notable piece
of business was offered us nearer home, and
turned out to be most profitable. An English
railway wanted to increase its capital for the
purpose of laying down a branch line. The
undertaking was perfectly legitimate, and would
no doubt turn out very profitable for the
company. The bill had passed parliament, but as
yet the money to carry out the scheme had not
been raised. There were so many undertakings
before the public, so many new concerns springing
into life every day, that the directors of the
railway were afraid that any attempt on their
part to raise more capital would prove a failure,
and thus would ruin the credit of their
company, and greatly lower the market-value of
their existing shares. And yet, not to raise the
money would be tantamount to confessing their
inability to do so, and would thus as certainly
depreciate their shares by another mode. In
their difficulty the directors applied to us
—in the first place to me as managing director—
and after numerous negotiations, meetings,
and what not, the pith of the agreement
entered into between the two companies was as
follows:

"THE HOUSE AND LAND CREDIT AND
FINANCE COMPANY" was to advertise this new
stock of the railway, and was to state that a third
of the new shares had already been subscribed
for by our company, or rather by our individual
shareholders, and that only two-thirds remained
for the public. We undertook to guarantee the
railway company that whether these new shares
floated or not, they should have the money they
required from us, as they wanted it, either on
our acceptances or in cash. In return for our
carrying this business for them, and guaranteeing
that they should by one or the other means
have their money, they undertook to pay us a
fee of twenty thousand pounds. (They had
previously made matters pleasant for me by a cheque
for one thousand pounds.)

Seeing our name at the head of the prospectus;
believing that we would not " touch"
anything that was not very profitable; it being
stated that a third of the proposed stock was
already subscribed for by our shareholders; and
knowing that the affair was bonâ fide; the
public not only applied quickly for the new
shares of this railway, but those who applied
were mostly real investors, and not men of
straw, who ask for shares to-day in order
to sell them to-morrow, or as soon as they
rise in value. We managed to make matters
pleasant for the railway company as well as for
the new shareholders. In order to attract and
allure the latter, we made the calls upon the new
shares payable in very small instalments, and
spread over a considerable length of time. In
the mean time, as the railway directors wanted
funds to carry on the works, we gave them our
acceptances, which the contractors took as cash,
discounting them at a very low rate, or depositing
them as securities for loans with their
bankers. For these three months' acceptances,
we charged at the rate of five per cent interest,
and two per cent commission, being, together,
at the rate of about thirteen per cent per annum,
for we charged fresh commission every time we
paid off the old acceptances and gave out fresh
bills. This, with the twenty thousand pounds
bonus received at the commencement, made a
tolerably large addition to our profits for the
half year. The Bordeaux estate business had
been talked about, and represented as more
profitable than it really had been, but the
English railway "operation" being at the very
doors of the shareholders, was patent to all
London, and raised our name high with
the public. To our original shareholders our