II
As I look back at them now, those energetic years seem all compacted
to a year or so; from the days of our first hazardous beginning in
Farringdon Street with barely a thousand pounds' worth of stuff or
credit all told--and that got by something perilously like snatching--to
the days when my uncle went to the public on behalf of himself and me
(one-tenth share) and our silent partners, the drug wholesalers and the
printing people and the owner of that group of magazines and newspapers,
to ask with honest confidence for L150,000. Those silent partners were
remarkably sorry, I know, that they had not taken larger shares and
given us longer credit when the subscriptions came pouring in. My uncle
had a clear half to play with (including the one-tenth understood to be
mine).
L150,000--think of it!--for the goodwill in a string of lies and a trade
in bottles of mitigated water! Do you realise the madness of the world
that sanctions such a thing? Perhaps you don't. At times use and wont
certainly blinded me. If it had not been for Ewart, I don't think I
should have had an inkling of the wonderfulness of this development of
my fortunes; I should have grown accustomed to it, fallen in with all
its delusions as completely as my uncle presently did.
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