“But I haven’t, sir,” says I.

“You have, sir. I will take the shares; but I want you.  I want as many respectable persons in the Company as I can bring.  I want you because I like you, and I don’t mind telling you that I have views of my own as well; for I am an honest man and say openly what I mean, and I’ll tell you why I want you.  I can’t, by the regulations of the Company, have more than a certain number of votes, but if your aunt takes shares, I expect—­I don’t mind owning it—­that she will vote with me. Now do you understand me?  My object is to be all in all with the Company; and if I be, I will make it the most glorious enterprise that ever was conducted in the City of London.”

So I signed the letter and left it with Mr. B. to frank.

The next day I went and took my place at the third clerk’s desk, being led to it by Mr. B., who made a speech to the gents, much to the annoyance of the other chaps, who grumbled about their services:  though, as for the matter of that, our services were very much alike:  the Company was only three years old, and the oldest clerk in it had not six months’ more standing in it than I.  “Look out,” said that envious M’Whirter to me.  “Have you got money, or have any of your relations money? or are any of them going to put it into the concern?”

I did not think fit to answer him, but took a pinch out of his mull, and was always kind to him; and he, to say the truth, was always most civil to me.  As for Gus Hoskins, he began to think I was a superior being; and I must say that the rest of the chaps behaved very kindly in the matter, and said that if one man were to be put over their heads before another, they would have pitched upon me, for I had never harmed any of them, and done little kindnesses to several.

“I know,” says Abednego, “how you got the place.  It was I who got it you.  I told Brough you were a cousin of Preston’s, the Lord of the Treasury, had venison from him and all that; and depend upon it he expects that you will be able to do him some good in that quarter.”

I think there was some likelihood in what Abednego said, because our governor, as we called him, frequently spoke to me about my cousin; told me to push the concern in the West End of the town, get as many noblemen as we could to insure with us, and so on.  It was in vain I said I could do nothing with Mr. Preston.  “Bah! bah!” says Mr. Brough, “don’t tell me.  People don’t send haunches of venison to you for nothing;” and I’m convinced he thought I was a very cautious prudent fellow, for not bragging about my great family, and keeping my connection with them a secret.  To be sure he might have learned the truth from Gus, who lived with me; but Gus would insist that I was hand in glove with all the nobility, and boasted about me ten times as much as I did myself.

The chaps used to call me the “West Ender.”