contrived to have a brick-yard close to where I was
building. The timber, tiles, carpentering-work,
and other necessary outlays, I paid for; and to
raise money for this purpose I got accommodation
bills accepted by a brother-builder, and had
them discounted in what is called a regular
business-like manner, at the bank where I kept
my account. In return for the bills which he
accepted for me, I accepted bills for my friend
the other builder, which he in turn discounted
at his bank, also in a regular business-like
manner. What we were always careful of
was that there should be no clashing of
interests, and that his bank should not know that
he accepted bills for me, nor mine know that
I accepted bills for him. I had also other
dummies to which I applied from time to time
to accept bills for me—of course for a consideration
—and these bills served me either to pay
away as cash or else to get discounted at my
bank. By the time I had run up the shell of
some half-dozen or so of houses, I generally
found my resources, both real and fictitious, at
so low an ebb that I was only too glad to
mortgage the buildings in their unfinished state, and
I not unfrequently was able to turn a penny
by obtaining more on mortgage than I had
expended in building the houses.

Of late years a class of men has arisen in
England who are a sure source of wealth to
those who, like myself, are always anxious to
raise money upon questionable securities. I
allude to persons who are known generally as
having "been in Australia." These have almost
always gone out to the antipodes as poor men
—labourers, in fact—and after ten or fifteen
years of labour, and toil, and economy, they
return to England with what is to them a mine
of riches—say from three to ten thousand
pounds. Of business and business life in the
old country, they know nothing whatever. The
small rate of interest allowed on money in all
safe securities disgusts them, and, having plenty
of time on their hands, they look about for
something that will yield them ten or twelve
per cent, such as they have been accustomed to
in Tasmania, Victoria, or New Zealand. If they
took the advice of men well acquainted with
England, they would get on; but unfortunately
—at any rate, in most instances—they mistrust
every one but themselves, and when they find
an investment that promises a large rate of
interest, if friends try to dissuade them from
touching it, they immediately believe that those
who advise them are anxious either to procure
it for themselves or to persuade them to invest
in something in which they have an interest.
It is to catch one of this class of men that
advertisements like the following (which is one
of the many I inserted in the penny daily
papers) are addressed

TO CAPITALISTS.—Wanted to Borrow,
upon Copyhold Property worth £3000, the
sum of £1000. This advertisement being bona fide,
no agent will be treated with. —Apply, by letter, to
H. H., 76, Java-street, N.W.

Of course H. H. (otherwise myself) was not
long in waiting for an answer, and an appointment
being made at a tavern in the City, I
found, as I expected, that the proposed lender
was one of the numerous men who had " been,
in Australia," and had a small capital which he
wanted to_invest. I had, however, to show
great tact in the management of my fish both
before and after he was hooked. At first I
pretended that it was no matter now whether I
obtained the loan or not, for I expected "to
make other arrangements." However, I said
that I would not mind showing Mr. Andrews,
(this was the name of the capitalist), the
property that was to be mortgaged. The next
day but one, having in the mean time given
orders that a double number of men should be
employed on the buildings, I took Mr. Andrews
to the spot, situated at one of the extreme
outside points of a north-west suburb of London.
The land, which I certainly held at a very low
building rent, was about four hundred yards in
length, by about ninety in breadth. On it there
were the roofed in, but otherwise quite
unfinished, shells of half a dozen houses, the
foundations being dug for as many more. I had
expended upon these houses somewhere about
five hundred pounds; and as they were anything
but substantially finished even as far- as they
went, no builder in the land would have given
me more than four hundred pounds to buy them
out and out, nor would he have advanced me
more than three hundred pounds by way of
mortgage. But my Australian capitalist had
turned his money in Melbourne by buying land
cheap and selling it dear, and he thought that
the rules applicable to this kind of traffic in
that country were applicable to the same sort
of business in England. The neighbourhood in
which the houses were situated was one of those
new and half-needy districts which are so
common outside of London. However, it was
not difficult to persuade Mr. Andrews that the
place would improve, and that with the outlay
of, say about another thousand pounds in finishing
the six. half-built houses, he might get a
rent of sixty pounds a year for each of them.
This, after deducting the ground rent and
property tax, would leave him a net interest of
something over nine per cent for his money, to
say nothing of the chance he had, should the
mortgage be foreclosed, of selling them at a
considerable profit when the neighbourhood
improved. All this I persuaded him of in order
to prove that the houses were fully worth the
three thousand pounds, at which I valued them.
Of course, if he believed this, he would believe
all the more that he could safely advance me
the one thousand pounds I wanted. But I
very soon saw that the object Mr. Andrews
had in view was to purchase, not to lend on
mortgage. Once aware of this, I humoured
him, so as to cause him to persevere in his
intentions, although pretending that I did not
want to sell my property on any account
whatever. Our coquetting as to the business went
on for some days, until he made me an offer of
two thousand four hundred pounds for the
houses, the lease of the ground, and the building