“ARCADES AMBO,” BUT FLOURISHING
NEVERTHELESS.
All this time Richard Tallant had remained in London; not only remained
in London, but had regularly and assiduously attended to his duties at
the offices of the Meter Iron Works Company.
There had been numerous board meetings, and a half-hearted kind of
effort had been made to induce the chairman’s son to retire. Mr.
Christopher Tallant had given notice of his resignation; but the board
could not agree upon the question of his successor. Mr. Richard Tallant
attended every meeting, and had increased his holding of the company’s
stock to a large and important extent.
In his father’s absence he had made himself of value to the company;
the run upon their shares had been of brief duration; they had not only
speedily recovered, but had gone up to a heavy premium. Richard Tallant
held his own in the company with a tenacity that surprised everybody
connected with it. Unabashed by the disclosures at the Oriental Bank,
undaunted by newspaper attacks, since that notorious meeting when
his father left the chair of the Banking Company, he had been almost
ubiquitous. He had commenced actions against two newspapers for libel,
and had threatened others. Some of his former friends cut him dead in
the Stock Exchange and in the Park; but he defied them all, and was to
be seen as usual at the Corner, on ’Change, and at Westminster.
He had written a long letter full of excuses, and promises, and
regrets, and justification to his father; but the proud old merchant
did not even acknowledge it. His disgrace was not so much as a nine
days’ wonder in the City, and his continued success was considered, by
many, to be a sufficient justification of his conduct.
Amidst so many failures, with such numerous instances of sharping,
and in the presence of a panic so severe, Richard Tallant’s name soon
ceased to be canvassed: he paid every call that was made upon him,
and he maintained his reputation for wealth. It was known that he had
made enormous sums of money in recent speculations, and that he was
financially independent. So many men were shaking in their commercial
shoes, that few thought themselves able to afford to go out of their
way to interfere with a rich man.
“What have I done?” Mr. Richard Tallant asked at one of the Meter Board
Meetings, when he was attacked by an old friend of his father. “What
have I done more than others have done, and are doing daily?”
“You have circulated false reports to damage the credit of good
concerns, in order that you might make money by clever manipulations of
shares,” said his opponent.
“That is a mere assertion,” was Mr. Richard Tallant’s reply. “Prove
it,--prove it, sir; and take this as a caution if you cannot prove it;
there is an offence called slander, which is actionable at law; rely
upon it, I will not allow these things to be said with impunity. If I
have made a few hundred thousand pounds by speculation on the Stock
Exchange, by carefully watching favourable opportunities for buying and
selling, it is not my fault that others have lost, and I defy you or
any other man to prove that I have done anything without the pale of
legitimate speculation.”
“Did you not lend your shares in the Oriental Bank, of which you
were a director, to persons who were bearing the market? Did you not
throw shares upon the market, and did not timid shareholders sell, in
consequence, at a heavy depreciation, and did you not afterwards buy
all you could get?”
“Suppose I say yes? Had I not a right to deal as I pleased with my
own shares? If I did depreciate the property of the concern--which I
deny--was I not depreciating my own?”
“Why were you absent from that meeting?”
“I had unexpected business elsewhere.”
“Why have you not answered the attack which was made upon you?”
“I will answer it in a court of justice, sir,” said Mr. Richard
Tallant, striking his fist upon the table. “Do you think I shall permit
the thing to pass over? You shall see how I will put my detractors
down. Do you think I will permit the name of Tallant to be sullied by
pettifogging brokers in the City?--by twopenny-halfpenny newspapers? Do
you think a man with a balance of two hundred thousand pounds at his
bankers in these times is to be put down by reports and rumours, and
So-and-so says, and bosh of that character? If you do, you do not know
Richard Tallant. And with regard to the Meter Iron Works, how many are
there who have a larger stake in the prosperity of the concern than I
have myself? Who charges me with neglect of duty?”
Mr. Christopher Tallant--poor man--might almost have been proud of the
way in which his clever, unscrupulous son asserted himself. One or two
of the old men at the board applauded and backed him up. There were
many things in which he had been useful during his father’s absence,
and it was chiefly through his influence with a certain railway company
that a recent extensive order for girders had come in from India. Above
all, the young fellow had been successful, and there was a manliness
in his stand-up fight against all opponents that seemed to carry
everything before him.
The truth is, on that day when his course of knavery was exposed, he
had sent a trusty messenger to the meeting to report what took place,
and when he learnt the result, he quietly shut himself up in his rooms
at the West End, and debated with himself upon his line of conduct.
“Shall I make a bolt of it?” or “Shall I fight it out?” These were
the two momentous questions which he put and argued out in a dozen
different ways.
He knew that his father would never forgive him, and, despite all his
ill conduct, this gave him, a pang or two of regret and sorrow. It
was not until midnight was long past, that he settled his plans: the
ashes of many cigars lay upon the table, and numerous sheets of paper,
covered with figures, were torn up and scattered about the hearth,
before the final resolve was made.
“I’ll fight it out; I’ll go through with it,” he said at last. “The
world bows down before success, no matter how it is obtained: money
opens all doors, whoever knocks. I’ll go in for money--reputation be
hanged. Who has got a reputation worth a button in these times? We are
in the midst of a panic that will sweep away hundreds of reputations.
What is the reputation of an honest bankrupt worth? Where is the
flyblown reputation that money, and success, and bounce, and swagger
will not cover?”
So Mr. Richard Tallant began to “fight it out” next day. He served two
persons with notices of action for slander, and commenced actions for
libel against two newspapers; he obtained insertion of a paragraph to
this effect in a monetary journal; he attended to his duties at the
Meter Works with an assiduity that astonished everybody; he wrote that
letter to his father, and he fought that battle at the Meter Board
which we have briefly indicated; he plunged deeper and deeper into
speculations, and he was successful in almost every monetary operation
in which he was engaged.
Meanwhile things were not quite so pleasant with Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs.
His overthrow had been completed by poor Dibble’s confession. “Whom
the gods devote to destruction, they first deprive of understanding.”
Mr. Gibbs ought to have had sufficient experience of life to have
known that his passion for revenge was mastering his cunning; he ought
to have known enough of character to have seen that Dibble would
break down in the part which he had assigned to him; but Fortune had
permitted Gibbs to have his day, as she lets every other dog have his;
and she selected her time and instruments accordingly for bringing his
day to an end.
With justice upon his heels, he had been compelled figuratively to
blot himself out; he could not only not sign his name to anything, but
he could not put in a personal appearance anywhere as Mr. Shuffleton
Gibbs; he had ventured to do a little business in his semi-clerical
capacity, but failure was the result. The transfer of the shares which
he had induced Dibble to take had never been completed, and when Gibbs
benevolently took them back again they were improving; but two days
after Dibble ran away, they went down to a heavy discount. Other things
in which he was interested went wrong, the purse that the police held
he could not hope to obtain, and he soon found himself reduced to his
last fifty pounds.
He invested this sum characteristically.
Assuming his semi-clerical disguise, he took lodgings in a quiet
respectable street off the Strand, purchased a Newspaper Press
Directory, and wrote out the following attractive advertisements:--
“LOANS.--Sums of money, varying from 2_l._ to 2000_l._, may be had for
short or long periods, on personal security, on application to the
undersigned. Secrecy observed in all transactions. Interest at the rate
of 5 per cent. Apply (enclosing stamp for reply) to James Marfleeting,
Esq., Accountant, 3, Great Charlton-street, Strand, London.”
“TO WIDOWS AND LADIES IN NEEDY CIRCUMSTANCES.--The advertiser has
patented a new invention, which opens up employment for ladies in their
own homes, whereby they can make from 1_l._ to 2_l._ a week with ease.
Send 5_s._ in stamps for materials and instructions to the inventor and
proprietor, Henry Cavendish, Esq., No. 6, Burkit-street, City, London.”
Having penned these enticing announcements, Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs called
upon an engraver and ordered a couple of very business-like headings to
be printed upon unimpeachable letter paper.
These he obtained in the course of the next day, and meanwhile he
studied the Press Directory. This valuable work contained an elaborate
index to the newspapers of the United Kingdom, giving their titles
in full, the names and addresses of the publishers, with a brief
description of the towns in which they were published, and the dates
of their first publication. It also contained the publishers’ own
descriptions of their newspapers, from which it would seem that each
paper was the best medium for giving publicity to announcements of all
descriptions; that several journals in the same town claimed to have
the largest circulation; that they were all leading papers, first-class
family papers, influential papers; some were the oldest Liberal papers,
some the oldest Conservative papers, many the only Penny papers in the
district.
Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs made a careful list of these numerous journals,
selecting largely from among the newest penny papers, carefully jotting
down all the dailies, and judiciously balancing the old weeklies,
in the manufacturing districts, against those claiming to be more
especially county papers.
A printer in Shoreditch struck off for him a number of copies of his
advertisements, and when all was prepared he commenced to write his
orders for their publication. With these orders he enclosed packets
of postage stamps, varying in value from sixpence to five and six
shillings. Nearly one hundred and fifty went away without any stamps
at all, the writer requesting a bill for the amount to be sent off
when the advertisement had appeared, with a quotation for thirteen,
twenty-six, and fifty-two insertions. These were chiefly posted to the
penny district papers and to those most recently established.
These missives duly passed through the post-office, and were opened
by newspaper publishers, clerks, proprietors, and editors, the next
day, in all parts of England. Some of them were opened in bright,
well-furnished counting-houses; many in dingy little back rooms; others
were carried up to private houses, where proprietors and editors read
their letters before business hours in the morning.
If you could have witnessed the varied treatment which these letters
of Mr. Gibbs, _alias_ Marfleeting, _alias_ Cavendish, received, you
would have been highly entertained. Some gentlemen who opened the
letters smiled contemptuously, said, “Indeed,” and returned stamps and
order; others who were not favoured with stamps tossed the letters
into waste-paper baskets; some said, “Bah!” and tore the things up.
In many cases, however, the stamps were passed to credit, and the
advertisement ordered for insertion in the ordinary course of business;
and amongst the new and cheap district papers, half printed in London
and otherwise, the order unaccompanied by stamps was duly obeyed,
and a price gravely quoted for thirteen, twenty-six, and fifty-two
insertions, with discount carefully mentioned for pre-payment.
In a few days, therefore, Mr. Gibbs’ advertising baits were duly
displayed in numerous journals. Several leading papers had at various
times cautioned their readers against this class of announcement; still
advertisements of the kind occasionally obtained insertion in the
ordinary course of business. Thus the two I have mentioned had places
in many newspapers, and in less than a week Mr. Gibbs found quite a
heap of letters waiting for him at the little coffee-house, No. 6,
Burkit-street, City, addressed to Henry Cavendish, Esq. To the first
batch of these he replied, stating that applications were so numerous
the materials could not be manufactured fast enough, but that they
should be sent off in a few days. He had so many communications at
Great Charlton-street, that he was compelled to have a printed form of
reply, and in this he enclosed another form, which the applicant was
requested to fill up and forward by return, with five shillings for
inquiry fees and five shillings for preliminary fees, which would be
returned in case the loan were not granted. “An agent will call upon
you personally in the course of three or four days with the cash, Mr.
Marfleeting having several agents travelling through the provinces,
as he finds this mode of doing business safer, more expeditious and
private, than negotiations by letter.”
Hundreds of clients responded to Mr. Marfleeting’s reply, and scores of
ladies continued to address private notes to Henry Cavendish, Esq.
What pinching and starving, and need, and keeping up appearances, all
these letters represented! What stories they indicated! What fears
of bankruptcy, what hopes deferred, what cheerless hearths, what
battles for life, what misery! Small tradesmen with bills of exchange
coming due; shopkeepers pressed for rent; clerks who had overrun the
constable; mechanics with extravagant wives; men of small means who
had speculated, and had to meet unexpected calls upon shares which
were to have made their fortune, and would prove their ruin--drowning
men in the financial sea--these were they who caught at the monetary
straws of Marfleeting. Widows with small allowances hardly enough
to keep body and soul together, widows who lived on lodgers, widows
keeping up appearances, spinsters with precarious incomes, daily
governesses, eldest daughters in large families, mothers with invalid
and drunken husbands--these were foremost in the crowd who sent their
money to Henry Cavendish, Esq., and saw in the future competency and
comfort by means of his glorious invention; and some of these poor
people went down upon their knees at night and prayed that God would
prosper their labours and so extend the use of this new invention, that
it should be a blessing to them and to others who might be in necessity
and tribulation.