WHAT I am going to tell you, gentlemen, happened when I was a very young man, and when I was just setting up in business on my own account.
My father had been well acquainted for many years with Mr.
Fauntleroy, of the famous London banking firm of Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham.Thinking it might be of some future service to me to make my position known to a great man in the commercial world, my father mentioned to his highly-respected friend that Iwas about to start in business for myself in a very small way, and with very little money.Mr.Fauntleroy received the intimation with a kind appearance of interest, and said that he would have his eye on me.I expected from this that he would wait to see if I could keep on my legs at starting, and that, if he found I succeeded pretty well, he would then help me forward if it lay in his power.As events turned out, he proved to be a far better friend than that, and he soon showed me that I had very much underrated the hearty and generous interest which he had felt in my welfare from the first.
While I was still fighting with the difficulties of setting up my office, and recommending myself to my connection, and so forth, Igot a message from Mr.Fauntleroy telling me to call on him, at the banking-house, the first time I was passing that way.As you may easily imagine, I contrived to be passing that way on a particularly early occasion, and, on presenting myself at the bank, I was shown at once into Mr.Fauntleroy's private room.
He was as pleasant a man to speak to as ever I met with--bright, and gay, and companionable in his manner--with a sort of easy, hearty, jovial bluntness about him that attracted everybody.The clerks all liked him--and that is something to say of a partner in a banking-house, I can tell you!
"Well, young Trowbridge," says he, giving his papers on the table a brisk push away from him, "so you are going to set up in business for yourself, are you? I have a great regard for your father, and a great wish to see you succeed.Have you started yet? No? Just on the point of beginning, eh? Very good.You will have your difficulties, my friend, and I mean to smooth one of them away for you at the outset.A word of advice for your private ear--Bank with us.""You are very kind, sir," I answered, "and I should ask nothing better than to profit by your suggestion, if I could.But my expenses are heavy at starting, and when they are all paid I am afraid I shall have very little left to put by for the first year.I doubt if I shall be able to muster much more than three hundred pounds of surplus cash in the world after paying what Imust pay before I set up my office, and I should be ashamed to trouble your house, sir, to open an account for such a trifle as that.""Stuff and nonsense!" says Mr.Fauntleroy."Are _you_ a banker?
What business have you to offer an opinion on the matter? Do as Itell you--leave it to me--bank with us--and draw for what you like.Stop! I haven't done yet.When you open the account, speak to the head cashier.Perhaps you may find he has got something to tell you.There! there! go away--don't interrupt me--good-by--God bless you!"That was his way--ah! poor fellow, that was his way.
I went to the head cashier the next morning when I opened my little modicum of an account.He had received orders to pay my drafts without reference to my balance.My checks, when I had overdrawn, were to be privately shown to Mr.Fauntleroy.Do many young men who start in business find their prosperous superiors ready to help them in that way?
Well, I got on--got on very fairly and steadily, being careful not to venture out of my depth, and not to forget that small beginnings may lead in time to great ends.A prospect of one of those great ends--great, I mean, to such a small trader as I was at that period--showed itself to me when I had been some little time in business.In plain terms, I had a chance of joining in a first-rate transaction, which would give me profit, and position, and everything I wanted, provided I could qualify myself for engaging in it by getting good security beforehand for a very large amount.
In this emergency, I thought of my kind friend, Mr.Fauntleroy, and went to the bank, and saw him once more in his private room.
There he was at the same table, with the same heaps of papers about him, and the same hearty, easy way of speaking his mind to you at once, in the fewest possible words.I explained the business I came upon with some little hesitation and nervousness, for I was afraid he might think I was taking an unfair advantage of his former kindness to me.When I had done, he just nodded his head, snatched up a blank sheet of paper, scribbled a few lines on it in his rapid way, handed the writing to me, and pushed me out of the room by the two shoulders before I could say a single word.I looked at the paper in the outer office.It was my security from the great banking-house for the whole amount, and for more, if more was wanted.
I could not express my gratitude then, and I don't know that Ican describe it now.I can only say that it has outlived the crime, the disgrace, and the awful death on the scaffold.I am grieved to speak of that death at all; but I have no other alternative.The course of my story must now lead me straight on to the later time, and to the terrible discovery which exposed my benefactor and my friend to all England as the forger Fauntleroy.
I must ask you to suppose a lapse of some time after the occurrence of the events that I have just been relating.During this interval, thanks to the kind assistance I had received at the outset, my position as a man of business had greatly improved.Imagine me now, if you please, on the high road to prosperity, with good large offices and a respectable staff of clerks, and picture me to yourselves sitting alone in my private room between four and five o'clock on a certain Saturday afternoon.