BENZON'S MORTGAGES 



the old Neptune in Clayton Square and had a regal 

 dinner in a private room. 



It was in that same hotel where some years before 

 Benzon lost two thousand pounds to Richard Fry in 

 a couple of hours in the billiard-room. Fry played a 

 very sound game, and they bet tens and twenties on 

 the shots. Many of the statements about Benzon are 

 pure fiction. He had an extraordinary way with him, 

 and Liverpool was not the only Lancashire town I 

 met him in. He would stalk into Bailey's hotel 

 at Blackpool, saying he was in a devil of a hole. 

 At that time he was getting seven pounds a week and 

 had mortgaged it to more than one pal. He was in 

 desperation one day and sent a telegram to have it 

 forwarded direct to himself at Blackpool; he lived 

 at the South Shore Hotel. We would renew the pyra- 

 mids contest. I am quite sure that if he had come into 

 another big fortune he would not have lost it. Paren- 

 thetically, this might be taken as an object lesson by 

 those who have money to bequeath to very young men. 

 I never inherited any more in my life than a few 

 hundred pounds ; I am therefore not talking feelingly. 



A year or two before he died Benzon used to write to 

 me occasionally about the articles I had written, and 

 tell me some odd experiences he had met with, but 

 they never were exciting. One of the stories concern- 

 ing him was that he never would wear a shirt more 

 than once — that is to say, it would go on him as it came 

 from the shirt maker, but after that he never wanted 

 to see it again, however well it might have been 

 laundered. I asked him about this one day, and 

 he laughed, saying : " What man doesn't like new 

 things?" But that same afternoon he gazed long- 

 ingly in Hope Brothers' window, wishing he could 

 get three. It was irresistible, and there was a little 



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