CHAPTER II.
WHAT I am going to tell you, gentlemen, happened when I was a very young man, and when I was just setting up in business on my own account.
My father had been well acquainted for many years with Mr.Fauntleroy, of the famous London banking firm of Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham.

Thinking it might be of some future service to me to make my position known to a great man in the commercial world, my father mentioned to his highly-respected friend that I was about to start in business for myself in a very small way, and with very little money.

Mr.
Fauntleroy received the intimation with a kind appearance of interest, and said that he would have his eye on me.

I expected from this that he would wait to see if I could keep on my legs at starting, and that, if he found I succeeded pretty well, he would then help me forward if it lay in his power.

As events turned out, he proved to be a far better friend than that, and he soon showed me that I had very much underrated the hearty and generous interest which he had felt in my welfare from the first.
While I was still fighting with the difficulties of setting up my office, and recommending myself to my connection, and so forth, I got a message from Mr.Fauntleroy telling me to call on him, at the banking-house, the first time I was passing that way.