Some were white and earnest, some flustered beyond measure at their
opportunity. Some of them begged and prayed to be taken up. My uncle
chose what he wanted and left the rest. He became very autocratic to
these applicants.
He felt he could make them, and they felt so too. He had but to say
"No!" and they faded out of existence.... He had become a sort of vortex
to which wealth flowed of its own accord. His possessions increased by
heaps; his shares, his leaseholds and mortgages and debentures.
Behind his first-line things he found it necessary at last, and
sanctioned by all the precincts, to set up three general trading
companies, the London and African Investment Company, the British
Traders' Loan Company, and Business Organisations Limited. This was in
the culminating time when I had least to do with affairs. I don't say
that with any desire to exculpate myself; I admit I was a director
of all three, and I will confess I was willfully incurious in that
capacity. Each of these companies ended its financial year solvent by
selling great holdings of shares to one or other of its sisters, and
paying a dividend out of the proceeds.
Pages:
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381