* * * * *

OUR FINANCIAL COLUMN.

Telegraphic Address.—­“Croesus,” Everywhere.

[Illustration]

Of course I knew perfectly well what would happen after I had put forth the programme of my financial operations.  I said at the time to my friend GUS BRUMMAGEM, “Mark my words,” I said, “I shall have all the Crowned Heads of the world grovelling at my feet and imploring, actually imploring me to allow them to hand over their money and their ancestral regalia to me for investment.  They’re bound to do it.  I know the beggars well, and a more grasping lot you couldn’t find within a day’s march of Holloway Gaol.”  Dear old GUS (Beau GUS he is always called on account of his singularly attractive appearance) went so far as to pooh-pooh what I said.  I don’t bear him any ill-will.  Gus was always a bit of a courtier, and got his head turned for good, when the Japanese Prince CHI IKAH invited him to stay a week at his country house, and to act as godfather to the infant prince, KA CHOOKAH, the necessary ceremony haying been postponed for six months in order to allow GUS to get there in time.  That, as I say, was the ruin of GUS, and since that time he has had an offensive way of giving himself not merely airs, but what I may call regular blasts in the company of men better than himself.  He ought to recollect that he owes his start in life to the lucky chance that threw him in my way.  If I hadn’t appointed him Chairman of the Turp, Pin and Bolt Company, and Managing Director of the New Gatefringe Syndicate, Limited, he might still be engaged in sweeping out the tenth-rate office which was formerly the scene of his labours.  But I never expect gratitude.  I am content to do good to my fellow-creatures without the least hope of merely temporal reward.  On this particular occasion I was right, as usual.  Telegrams stamped with the coats-of-arms of all the principal dynasties of the world have been inundating me.  For instance, H.R.H. the Hereditary Grand Duke of LEIBWEH has wired to me in the following terms, of which I have caused an accurate translation to be executed by my staff of paid short-hand clerks:—­“Have on my faithful and with-joy-inspired subjects a tax of ten reichsgulden each after great on the part of my ministers reluctance imposed.  Invest proceeds for me in the best to your wisdom known company, and without delay.  Perfect confidence.”  Now I can assure His Royal Highness, who will look in vain for any other answer than this, that no power on earth, and least of all the cajoleries or menaces of the great and highly-placed shall induce me to depart by one jot or tittle from the course I have marked out for myself.  And I take this occasion to assure all other potentates that I do not propose by any effort of mine to bring wealth to the foreigner.  The welfare of the British people is my only care.  For them, but for no others, my investments are open; to them alone I devote my unrivalled experience.  And after this I trust I shall be troubled with no further importunities from abroad.