1 8 MR. HENRY PAD WICK 



pected at the time, although they were strangers to me, 

 men of straw, and in a few days the bill came back dis- 

 honoured ; on being apprised of which Mr. Padwick 

 promptly sent me his cheque for the amount. I should 

 add that the acceptor, Mr. Isaacson, within a week shot 

 himself with a pistol at Datchet ; and had it not been 

 for my precaution in having Padwick's valuable auto- 

 graph to the document, I should assuredly have lost the 

 money. Some may think Mr. Padwick would have seen 

 me through. But I suspect he would have treated it, in 

 his pleasant way, ' as a matter of business ' ; and if I 

 had been foolish enough to take an unendorsed bill, 

 would have left me to stand the racket of it. 



I have given two instances of my dealings with Mr. 

 Henry Padwick in which everything was not entirely 

 above suspicion. Yet, in justice to his memory, I should 

 add that both before and after, I had many important 

 business transactions with him in which there was no 

 cause whatever for distrust. The rates of interest charged 

 were no doubt always high. But this is a matter with 

 which I have nothing to do ; nor do I think other people 

 had much right to complain. For it should be remem- 

 bered that it is the borrowers who seek the mc A iey-lender ) 

 and not he who goes to them. There is no compulsion. 

 If they think his terms too high, they can decline them 

 and go elsewhere. The usury laws have long since been 

 abolished, and if the money-lender is not generous, he 

 is, it must be recollected, carrying on business at very 

 considerable risk, and must exercise care in the way he 

 thinks best suited to his own interest, which of necessity 

 precludes any great regard for the interests of others. 



I do not wish to champion in the least a fraternity I 

 dislike. Yet I think it more often happens that men 

 are injured through their own innate stupidity or care- 



