156 PANDEMONIUM ; OR, 



particle of copper ore will ever be found in it." " Faith," retorted 

 the barrister, " / doubt its very existence ; and, although we now 

 are in the depth of winter, I shall proceed forthwith into Cornwall 

 to solve the problem." He was, however, saved the trouble, by the 

 following coup de jarnac on the part of his colleagues certainly 

 without parallel in the annals of escroquerie : 



By the constitution of the company, it was enacted, that all per- 

 sons becoming directors should hold fifty shares, as a qualification 

 for taking office. With the exception of the barrister, not one of 

 them, however, ever fulfilled this condition, and were actually ad- 

 ministering its affairs without having embarked a farthing in it. A 

 suspicion of this arose in the mind of certain of the shareholders ; 

 and Captain Ashtree, at that time only an auditor, was deputed to 

 inquire into the fact, who immediately transmitted a communication 

 to the directors, announcing his intention of presenting himself, in his 

 official capacity of auditor, at the next board, to put certain questions, 

 to its members on subjects of paramount importance to the interests 

 of the company. Of the real nature of Ashtree's mission, Christopher 

 O'Faquin, through his extensive stock-jobbing connexion, soon ob- 

 tained a knowledge, and, of course always excepting the barrister, 

 prepared his colleagues for the event. What was to be done ? To 

 have taken up their fifty shares a-piece, now that they were at a dis- 

 count in the market, was not to be thought of. Directors, according to 

 their theory, never take up shares but when they are at a premium ; 

 in fact, when there is a mathematical certainty of realizing a hand- 

 some profit. But what was to be done ? here was the question. At 

 last they recollected that on the first issue of the shares, 350 mark 

 this well, reader 350 shares had been thrown on the market, and 

 sold for the good of the company at a small premium. Monstrous 

 as it may appear, these shares, which had never been entered in the 

 books, they now resolved should be entered in their own names, and 

 the premium made upon them be divided among themselves. Ac- 

 cordingly, 60 of these shares were entered in the names of one of 

 the principal directors, 175 in the name of another, and 50 in that of 

 a third. By this act these gentry qualified themselves as direc- 

 tors, without expending a farthing without possessing, in their 

 own right, a single share. On this entry being made, the secretary 

 took an opportunity of exposing to two of the directors its monstrous 

 injustice, and one of them so far coincided with his opinion, that it 

 was agreed to cancel it ; but the suggestor of the plot came in at 

 the time, and this veteran in directorial iniquity so influenced his 

 companions, that the idea was abandoned. te What care we for the 

 shareholders ?" quoth he, we must " brave it out !" 



" Populus me sibilat ac mihi plaudo, 

 Jpse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in area;" 



and, accordingly, they prepared for action. In order to strengthen 

 their position, the second of the three displayed on this occasion a 

 fertility of resource in the ways of iniquity which surprised his older 

 colleagues ; he borrowed from some of his stock-jobbing connexions 

 a number of shares, which he studiously spread out before them, in- 



