established in business several years. The sum
required to be paid for the partnership was
three hundred pounds, and he asked me to
advance him that amount upon the security of
a policy of insurance for one thousand pounds
upon his own life. On inquiry, I found that,
years before, Strange had, when a young and
healthy man, effected an insurance upon his life
for five hundred pounds, and afterwards
increased it to one thousand pounds. This policy
he had always managed to keep up, and still
wished that it should not relapse. As it had
been running on for nearly twenty years, and as
he paid a very small premium, and was now in
bad health, the insurance company would have
been glad to purchase it back. Therefore, after
looking at the affair in every possible way, I
came to the conclusion that the security was
good, and that I might safely advance the sum
of three hundred pounds upon the security of
the policy being endorsed over to me. This was
done, and I advanced the money! Gentlemen,
the worst day's business I ever did in my life.

"In general a creditor sees but little of his
debtors, whether they are few or many. The
man who owes money generally avoids the
individual to whom he owes it. But it happened
otherwise with Strange and myself. With the
new business that he had bought, he was not
expected, nor even wished, by his partner to
interfere; and his own indifferent health made it
very desirable that he should be as free as
possible from the confined air of the close printing
rooms. The partnership he had purchased
secured him a certain amount of income, which,
together with what he had besides, allowed him
to go about in divers parts of the country,
travelling being much recommended by his
medical attendant. Knowing that I had to make
weekly trips to Harwich, and that I had often
to go to Rotterdam in the way of business when
looking after cattle, he asked me whether he
could be of use to me as a clerk? He asked
for no salary, only his actual travelling expenses;
and for this he was to keep my accounts,
write and copy my letters, and make
himself generally useful. The bargain was a
good one for both parties. On the one hand
my business was increasing every week, and
having to knock about a great deal at fairs,
and to, see a great many dealers, I had no
time to look properly after my accounts, which
sometimes got rather complicated. On the
other hand, Strange had enough to live upon,
but not enough to pay travelling expenses
with comfort. Having been friends for several
years, when we travelled together we always
had our meals in common; and in country
places, or where the inns were very full, we
generally took a double-bedded room between us.

"After a time I found Strange's assistance
of such value to me that I was able to increase
my connexions very materially indeed. Being a
shrewd man, he was able at the end of a
twelve-month to make purchases and conduct my
business as well as I could. This led, naturally
enough, to a partnership being formed between
us, by the terms of which I was to lend him
five hundred pounds to put into the business,
of which he was to have a fourth of the net
profits. As surety for the five hundred pounds,
he insured his life for another thousand. Thus,
when we commenced working together as
partners, Strange owed me eight hundred
pounds, and I held policies of insurance on his
life for two thousand pounds.

"Our business trips used generally to last
from a week to a fortnight. Sometimes we
were detained at the port to which we had
brought the animals, for four or five days,
awaiting the means of shipping them to England; for
it is not every steamer that will take bullocks,
or sheep, or pigs, as cargo. Sometimes, one of
us would remain in London conducting the
sales of such animals as his partner sent him
from abroad. And this had happened when the
event of which I am now going to tell you took
place.

"As Strange could speak Trench very well,
I often sent him alone to the fairs in Normandy
and Britanny, nearly always going myself
to those in Holland and the north of Germany.
It was somewhere about the end of a
certain May that he went over to France,
intending to remain there about six weeks, and
go from one fair to another on a certain round.
Three or four consignments of beasts had
reached me in London, and the last was to
come over in a day or two. My partner had
visited all the fairs he intended to go to, and
was to join me. I wrote him at Southampton,
where he was to land, saying that I would
meet him there, take a look at the cattle he
had bought, and send some to London, and go
with the rest to some of the southern counties,
where there was likely to be a market that
would suit my book.

"I reached Southampton on the day named,
and met Strange. We dined together in the
afternoon at a small inn near the docks, and,
finding we could not get two bedrooms,
engaged a double-bedded room for the night.
Then we began to square up accounts and
spent the afternoon seeing how we stood in
the matter of money. But something that
Strange had done, vexed me sorely. He had,
in the face of what I had written to him in
London to the contrary, paid some two pounds
a head more for about thirty or forty beasts
than we should ever realise. When I told
him how foolishly he had acted, he answered
me back that he had done his best, and that he
had as much right as I had to speculate with
our joint funds. To this I replied that, although
he was undoubtedly a partner in the concem,
it was I who had put in all the capital, and that
he had only an interest of twenty-five per cent,
in the profits. His rejoinder, I remember well.
He said that if he died, I would get all the
money he owed me and more. To this I retorted
in a passion, that I knew it, and that
I did not care how soon he died. All this
wrangling took place in the coffee-room of the
inn, before the girl who waited on us, the