Occasionally, the members of this needy fraternity of borrowers perform some very smart tricks. We have heard of an audacious knave who went to an auctioneer, and in a few minutes succeeded in effecting a loan of thirty pounds by depositing as security a picture not worth a guinea. He represented it as a valuable work of art by a painter of repute, whose name he had painted on one corner of the picture. The price of the miserable daub, he said, was fifty guineas; but he did not want to sell it—he only wanted a loan of thirty pounds for a month, when he would redeem his art treasure. By the end of the month he was in America; and the auctioneer still has the picture, unless he has thrown it on the fire through vexation of spirit.
Showle and Bynnes—dry goods and general store—were well known for a hundred miles around Cincinnati, in which city they were located, no house standing higher for solvency, promptness, and for that indefinable but yet easily understood quality, smartness. With the tenacity with which business men in the United States cling to their work, never contemplating the luxury of retirement and ease, which to them would be penance, Mr Bynnes, who was much advanced in years, would probably have continued in the store as long as he lived, but for his purchase of some land fully a thousand miles away. He had never seen this property, having bought it upon the representation of an agent in whom he had confidence; but believing that its value would be much enhanced by his personal supervision, he at once decided to go out and reside upon it. Mr Bynnes was near seventy years of age; his new acquisition was in a wild, bleak, unsettled part of the country; but such considerations did not weigh with him for a moment; the property required his presence, so he resolved to go there, ‘right away.’
This change involved the taking of a fresh partner by Mr Showle, as the business was too large for one person to manage; while, as a new warehouse, apart from the original store, was being built, it was clear that in time a third partner must be added, or a manager employed. As Mr Showle had a decided aversion to managers, or to the allowing any one to have potential authority in the business who was not vitally interested in it, there was no doubt that the addition would be in the form of a partner. For the present, however, but one was taken in, although there was a rumour that Mr Bynnes had recommended a relative of his own, who would appear shortly as a third in the firm.