Chance

And, you know, there was no game, no game of any sort, or shape or kind.

It came out plainly at the trial. As I've told you before, he was a

clerk in a bank, like thousands of others. He got that berth as a second

start in life and there he stuck again, giving perfect satisfaction. Then

one day as though a supernatural voice had whispered into his ear or some

invisible fly had stung him, he put on his hat, went out into the street

and began advertising. That's absolutely all that there was to it. He

caught in the street the word of the time and harnessed it to his

preposterous chariot.

One remembers his first modest advertisements headed with the magic word

Thrift, Thrift, Thrift, thrice repeated; promising ten per cent. on all

deposits and giving the address of the Thrift and Independence Aid

Association in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Apparently nothing more was

necessary. He didn't even explain what he meant to do with the money he

asked the public to pour into his lap. Of course he meant to lend it out

at high rates of interest. He did so--but he did it without system,

plan, foresight or judgment. And as he frittered away the sums that

flowed in, he advertised for more--and got it. During a period of

general business prosperity he set up The Orb Bank and The Sceptre Trust,

simply, it seems for advertising purposes. They were mere names. He was

totally unable to organize anything, to promote any sort of enterprise if

it were only for the purpose of juggling with the shares. At that time

he could have had for the asking any number of Dukes, retired Generals,

active M.P.'s, ex-ambassadors and so on as Directors to sit at the

wildest boards of his invention. But he never tried. He had no real

imagination. All he could do was to publish more advertisements and open

more branch offices of the Thrift and Independence, of The Orb, of The

Sceptre, for the receipt of deposits; first in this town, then in that

town, north and south--everywhere where he could find suitable premises

at a moderate rent. For this was the great characteristic of the

management. Modesty, moderation, simplicity. Neither The Orb nor The

Sceptre nor yet their parent the Thrift and Independence had built for

themselves the usual palaces. For this abstention they were praised in

silly public prints as illustrating in their management the principle of

Thrift for which they were founded. The fact is that de Barral simply

didn't think of it. Of course he had soon moved from Vauxhall Bridge

Road. He knew enough for that. What he got hold of next was an old,

enormous, rat-infested brick house in a small street off the Strand.

Strangers were taken in front of the meanest possible, begrimed, yellowy,

flat brick wall, with two rows of unadorned window-holes one above the

other, and were exhorted with bated breath to behold and admire the

simplicity of the head-quarters of the great financial force of the day.

The word THRIFT perched right up on the roof in giant gilt letters, and

two enormous shield-like brass-plates curved round the corners on each

side of the doorway were the only shining spots in de Barral's business

outfit. Nobody knew what operations were carried on inside except

this--that if you walked in and tendered your money over the counter it

would be calmly taken from you by somebody who would give you a printed

receipt. That and no more. It appears that such knowledge is

irresistible. People went in and tendered; and once it was taken from

their hands their money was more irretrievably gone from them than if

they had thrown it into the sea. This then, and nothing else was being

carried on in there . . . "