Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/778

772 taken a liking to you, and I don't mind telling you something of my financial story for your guidance. I owe you a debt, and I hope to do more than this to pay it; meantime I am sure I may count on your discretion, for you conceive it is not to every one that I should give a catalogue raisonné of my investments."

Jack merely bowed and smiled, – he was too deeply interested to interrupt; and Winstanley proceeded: –

"I don't pretend for a moment that the list is exhaustive; indeed I have been perpetually selling out and buying again elsewhere, for even a steady run of gains would pall intolerably. I merely give you some illustrative cases, and mention what I consider the turning-points in my career.

"I flatter myself my first hit was an inspiration, and the boldest of all. When in the Foreign Office as a mere boy, I had made friends with Isaacs, the great Jew financier; or rather, Isaacs had condescended to take notice of me. By way of extraordinary favour, he had allotted me a few shares in the Universal Bank. The shares had gone up like balloons, and they came down again as if the gas was escaping through rents, in the panic of — I don't precisely remember the year. I was in mortal terror, for the liability was unlimited; and I was in blessed ignorance of the bank's transactions and resources. I rushed off to my friend Isaacs. I think I must have taken his fancy, as you have taken mine. It was after dusk, in his private sitting-room, and before answering he went to see if the door was shut, and if the shutters were safe. Then he came back to me with an air of mystery, and told me that the concern was absolutely safe. 'Schwartzchild' was the only word he dropped besides, and I could see that he would shut up like an oyster if I cross-examined him. I thanked him, and shook hands, and chewed the cud of meditation through a sleepless night. If I sold, I should lose seriously, and might possibly be let in after all. But if the bank was safe, it must be the time to buy, for the falling shares were to be had for a song. It was all a question of Isaacs' good faith, for he was assuredly in the bank's innermost secrets, and as to that I exercised my diplomatic perceptions. I was persuaded that the man meant kindly by me, so I gave commission to sundry brokers to buy Universal shares. The bank was smashed up long ago, but I sold all I had bought afterwards, contenting myself with a modest gain of £8000. Had I chosen to hold on, I might have made half as much again; and had I stuck to the investment, I should have been a ruined man.

"Those were pleasant times in Paris, when I was second secretary in the Faubourg St Honore, during the golden days of the Empire. As a member of our Legation, I knew nothing and wished to know nothing of such things as that luckless 'Mexican Question,' which came on later, and was handed over to De Morny for the payment of his debts. But I cultivated M. Haussman and the MM. Fould. I used to dine with those magnificent gentlemen pretty frequently, smoking cigarettes over sweet champagne at dessert, and by putting two and two together I exercised, my prescience, and picked up sundry lots of house property on the lines of the Prefect's projected demolitions.

"I had got rid of most of them before I was sent on to Vienna, to profit by my Parisian experiences in the Kaiserstadt. I had my knife and fork at Schwartzchild's mansion in the Leopoldplatz, and I