view of making money. He was difficult to
persuade, but, after two or three interviews, I
obtained from him the following written,
although conditional agreement to do what I
wanted.

                                   36, Enfield-square, W.,
                                   London, 8th July, 1865.

I hereby agree to become a Director, and the
Chairman of " THE RIO GRANDE AND MEXICO
GRAND JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY (LIMITED),"
on the following conditions:

1st. Not less than seven other gentlemen must
have agreed to become members of the Board.

2nd. The names of these gentlemen must be
submitted to me before my name is published in the
prospectus.

3rd. If I object to any of the other names, I am
at liberty to cancel this agreement.

4th. I will agree to qualify myself by subscribing
for twenty-five shares.

5th. I will not be responsible for any part of
the preliminary expenses.

6th. If my name is published in the prospectus,
with my written consent, I agree to remain Chairman
and a Director of the Board for at least one
year from the time the shares are allotted, and not
to sell any portion of my twenty-five shares during
that time.

                                       (Signed)       DUNSTRAW.

What more could I ask? Armed with this
letter, I set off eastward on the following day,
taking with me a note of introduction to Mr.
Wood, one of our City financial magnates, whose
touch appeared to turn everything into gold.
Mr. Wood was a vulgar and a proud man. He
had an office, speculated largely in every kind of
share, stock, and scrip, and was universally
respected as one on whom Mammon had showered
her choicest favours. He had not begun life
penniless, as is the boast of some men who
now own their hundreds of thousands. His
father had left him a respectable and lucrative
haberdasher's shop in the west of England; but
he had soon taken to speculating, and by degrees
had made such large profits, that he sold all he
had in the country, and settled in London. He
was not easy to get upon the board of any
company was Wood. He had been offered untold
sums—in shares, of course—to come upon the
direction of many new undertakings, but he had
refused all save three or four good concerns.

But Wood had his price. Money could not
have bought him, but title could. He had been
always unfortunate in his attempts to get into
what he called the circles of Haristocracy—
chiefly perhaps from the great liberties he
took with the letter H. I knew my man, and
felt sure of him. The only person with a
handle to his name he could even bow to, was
Sir James Cider, a retired Indian judge, who
snubbed poor Wood most unmercifully
whenever he met him, but who was " Yes, Sir
Jamesed," " No, Sir Jamesed," " Do you really
think so, Sir James?" upon every possible
occasion, until the unfortunate knight declared he
would rather be back in the Supreme Court of
Bombay than have to undergo two hours of any
dinner-table at which Wood was present.

I was received ungraciously enough; for
my introduction was from one not much gifted
with this world's wealth, the curate of a West-
end parish, who had been at Trinity with
me, and whose previous curacy was close to
Mr. Wood's place down in Essex. But when
I opened out my business, and said I had come
to ask him to sit as a director of the Rio
Grande and Mexico Grand Junction Railway
Company, he almost turned purple with rage.
He join a company of which not one director
was named yet? No, indeed, not if he knew
it. At last, without giving him time to
turn me out of the room, I said that the Earl
of Dunstraw had agreed to join the board
conditionally. His manner changed at once,
first to astonishment, and then to almost
civility. " Dunstraw! " said he; " highly
respectable man the earl. His father died
and left him well off; steady young man, too;
got an estate near my little place down in
Essex. But are you sure of what you say, my
dear sir?" I replied by showing him Lord
Dunstraw's conditional agreement, and, after
very few more words I got Wood to give
me a letter to the effect that if Lord Dunstraw
would agree to join the board, he (Wood)
would at once do the same, and on the same
conditions as his lordship.

From that time my task was easy. So
anxious was Wood that the affair should
succeed, that he took the trouble of getting two
first class City men on the direction, who gave
their written agreement to join the concern
provided Mr. Wood did so, and on condition
that the bank of which they were both directors
should have the account of the Rio Grande
and Mexico Grand Junction Railway Company
(Limited).

I had four more names to get, but these
were easy to obtain, armed as I now was
with the conditional promise in writing of
four first-class men. For business, no person
makes a better director than your retired
Indian official, whether civil or military. His
previous occupations fit him peculiarly for
business, he is invariably punctual, and seldom
otherwise than honourable and honest to a fault,
if the expression may be allowed. What I mean
is, that he is too apt, both from his own respect
for truth, and the feeling he has that every man's
word should be believed until found out to be
false, to make himself the victim of the first
sharper into whose hands he may fall. The fifth
gentleman I got to sit on our board was one of
this class. General Foster had, in the military
pay or audit office of Bengal, acquired a
knowledge of business which is rare to find amongst
military men, and, this being known to all his
old colleagues now in England, we felt sure that
the appearance of his name upon the list would
bring us many applications for shares from old
Anglo-Indians when once we were able to come
out with our advertisements in the public papers.

The next gentleman I applied to was a person
of a very different stamp. A judicious promoter
of companies is obliged, if he wishes to bring