When the World Shook | Page 8

were worth millions.
For the next year I worked as few have done, and when I struck a
balance at the end of it, I found that on the most conservative estimate I
was the owner of a million and a half in hard cash, or its equivalent. I
was so tired out that I remember this discovery did not excite me at all.
I felt utterly weary of all wealth- hunting and of the City and its ways.
Moreover my old fastidiousness and lack of perseverance re-asserted
themselves. I reflected, rather late in the day perhaps, on the ruin that
this speculation was bringing to thousands, of which some lamentable
instances had recently come to my notice, and once more considered
whether it were a suitable career for an upright man. I had wealth; why
should I not take it and enjoy life?
Also--and here my business acumen came in, I was sure that these
times could not last. It is easy to make money on a rising market, but
when it is falling the matter is very different. In five minutes I made up
my mind. I sent for my junior partners, for I had taken in two, and told
them that I intended to retire at once. They were dismayed both at my
loss, for really I was the firm, and because, as they pointed out, if I
withdrew all my capital, there would not be sufficient left to enable
them to carry on.
One of them, a blunt and honest man, said to my face that it would be
dishonourable of me to do so. I was inclined to answer him sharply,
then remembered that his words were true.
"Very well," I said, "I will leave you œ600,000 on which you shall pay
me five per cent interest, but no share of the profits."
On these terms we dissolved the partnership and in a year they had lost
the œ600,000, for the slump came with a vengeance. It saved them,
however, and to-day they are earning a reasonable income. But I have
never asked them for that œ600,000.
Chapter II

Bastin and Bickley
Behold me once more a man without an occupation, but now the
possessor of about œ900,000. It was a very considerable fortune, if not
a large one in England; nothing like the millions of which I had
dreamed, but still enough. To make the most of it and to be sure that it
remained, I invested it very well, mostly in large mortgages at four per
cent which, if the security is good, do not depreciate in capital value.
Never again did I touch a single speculative stock, who desired to think
no more about money. It was at this time that I bought the Fulcombe
property. It cost me about œ120,000 of my capital, or with alterations,
repairs, etc., say œ150,000, on which sum it may pay a net two and a
half per cent, not more.
This œ3,700 odd I have always devoted to the upkeep of the place,
which is therefore in first-rate order. The rest I live on, or save.
These arrangements, with the beautifying and furnishing of the house
and the restoration of the church in memory of my father, occupied and
amused me for a year or so, but when they were finished time began to
hang heavy on my hands. What was the use of possessing about
œ20,000 a year when there was nothing upon which it could be spent?
For after all my own wants were few and simple and the acquisition of
valuable pictures and costly furniture is limited by space. Oh! in my
small way I was like the weary King Ecclesiast. For I too made me
great works and had possessions of great and small cattle (I tried
farming and lost money over it!) and gathered me silver and gold and
the peculiar treasure of kings, which I presume means whatever a man
in authority chiefly desires, and so forth. But "behold all was vanity and
vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun."
So, notwithstanding my wealth and health and the deference which is
the rich man's portion, especially when the limit of his riches is not
known, it came about that I too "hated life," and this when I was not
much over thirty. I did not know what to do; for Society as the word is
generally understood, I had no taste; it bored me; horse-racing and
cards I loathed, who had already gambled too much on a big scale. The
killing of creatures under the name of sport palled upon me, indeed I

began to doubt if it were right, while the office of a junior county
magistrate in a place where there was no crime, only