so I turned my back upon the old
neighbourhood, and went forth to learn
wisdom, and to seek my fortune.

After several years, many rebuffs, and
some privations, I found myself the marker
at a noted West-end billiard-room. Our
house was a very late house, where the
young gentlemen, and sometimes the old
gentlemen, played very high at pool, and I
thus became acquainted with the names, the
manners, the wants, and the habits of the
minor aristocracy. I picked up much
information upon loans, loan-offices, discounting,
and bills of exchange; and, while I acquired
a certain mechanical dexterity in handling
the cue, my mind was devoted to far higher
things.

One evening towards dusk, when the
afternoon play in the public room had ceased,
and before the evening play had begun, old
Major Fobbs entered into very amicable
conversation with me, as he was lazily
practising some difficult cushion cannons.

"Pendragon," he said, "are you any relation
to the late Governor of the Bank of
England?"

"Not that I'm aware of," I replied, thinking
that the major was amusing himself at
my expense.

''It's the same name, exactly," he
answered, making a double hazard.

"Indeed," I said, with affected apathy,
waiting to hear further.

"Has it never struck you, Pendragon," he
continued, "that, with that name, you might
do much better for yourself than sticking
here?"

"I should be glad to better my position,"
I said, meekly, "though I do not exactly see
how."

"Then I can show you," he returned,
throwing down the cue, and speaking
confidentially; "become a director of a public
company!"

This remark at once opened my eyes to a
new field of enterprise; and, a little further
conversation with the major enlightened me
still more. He was about to open an office—
or, as he described it, to get up an association
—to be called The Peace and Concord
Loan and Discount Company; and he wanted,
he phrased it, to strengthen his Board.

I knew something, before this, of the major's
mode of life. The major had a small half-pay,
as a retired member of some Indian
military service, and he now traded on his
position as a director of public companies.
He belonged to the Chutnee Club, which
gave him an aristocratic address that looked
well in prospectuses. He was a director of
two assurance companies, and the chairman
of a trading company for providing the public
with something they did not want, at a price
rather higher than that of the regular trades-
people. These occupations procured him
fees for each sitting (and the boards took
care to sit pretty frequently), and he filled
up his time and his income by playing at
pool with unfledged youths about town at
our public and private billiard tables.

At the time when Major Fobbs first spoke
to me, the trading company had nearly sat
out the whole of its subscribed capital; one
assurance office was already undergoing the
pleasing process of winding-up under the
Acts for that purpose made and provided;
and the other office—so rumour said—was
waiting anxiously to be served with the
legal notice of dissolution.

I knew all these things concerning the
major, and yet I listened to his proposals;
for they promised to enlarge my experience
of the world, and to afford me an agreeable
change of employment. In a few days I was
transformed into Stanley Pendragon, Esquire,
of Aurora Chambers, Mayfair, and Marsh
Mallows Hall, near Fenny-Tokel, Lincolnshire.
The first of these places was a metropolitan
attic, the second a rural barn; and
as they both belonged to the major, all
letters, messages, and inquiries were properly
received, and property and carefully
answered.

The Peace and Concord Loan and Discount
Office was speedily opened, and fully advertised.
There were only two directors besides
myself, the major and a gentleman from the
Stock Exchange—or rather from the
immediate neighbourhood. His name was Owen
Griffiths, and he was described as belonging
to the Cwmgwyrdyr Slate Quarries, near
Gywrcmw Vale, Caernarvon,

We made no bad debts, for we neither lent
money upon personal security, nor did we
discount bills; and we existed entirely upon
the inquiry fees which we extracted from the
applicants. We charged ten shillings a mile
(paid in advance) for investigating the
character of the borrower and his referee,
and we were so fastidious in our choice (as
our terms were unusually easy, and our rate
of interest very low), that we could never
find anyone worthy of being entrusted with a
portion of our capital. When we told the
expectants, after the expiration of the third
day, that our information was satisfactory,
but not sufficiently so, and for several reasons
we must decline to make the loan, we were,
in some cases, loaded with strong epithets,
which we received calmly, because we knew
they were undeserved.

After the first year, notwithstanding
constant and judicious advertising, our business
began to show palpable symptoms of dry-rot,
and we began to look for some other employment
suitable to our talents and our energies.
The major becoming involved in some
troublesome Chancery proceedings connected
with his former companies (in which he had
been indiscreet enough to accept shares),
transferred all his interest in Aurora
Chambers, Mayfair, and Marsh Mallows
Hall, to me, and his eminent financial ability
to the region of the Himalayas.