Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/342

 railroad work were made to him. One was contained in a letter from Oscar Straus, then United States Minister to Turkey under President Cleveland, conveying an invitation from the Sultan to go to Constantinople and take charge of the proposed construction of a system of railroads through Anatolia in Asia Minor. To one who had thrown open a vast wild region in the New World to civilization, there was something tempting in the opportunity to instil new life into the ancient regions of Asia Minor. However, the thought of settling with his family for years in the Orient was utterly repulsive to him, and he declined the proposal. He called the attention of the Deutsche Bank to the scheme, and found that the institution was already working for a concession to build roads in Anatolia, which it eventually obtained and under which a main line and branches, representing a large aggregate mileage, have since been constructed. The other offer was of an even stranger kind, it being nothing less than a proposition to take in hand the financiering and building of a long narrow-gauge line from the coast of German East Africa to the interior. He felt, of course, even less inclination to enter upon that venture than upon the other.

His stay in Berlin really led, however, to his return to business life, not in foreign parts, but in his former American field. He was frequently consulted by the managers of the Deutsche Bank regarding American affairs generally and their own transactions with their correspondents in New York. The close relations thereby established gave rise to the consideration of the advantages of a regular representation of the Bank in New York City, for the purpose of enlarging its American business. After due consideration of the matter, it was agreed that he should undertake that duty for the Deutsche Bank and another powerful banking-firm at Frankfort-on-the-Main. Not being a trained banker, Mr. Villard was not to do general business for them, but to confine himself to transactions in good public and corporate securities chiefly, indeed, to