ALADDIN'S PALACE 293 



was no way by which he could capitalise his part of the 

 income. 



Probably there are insurance companies nowadays 

 who would have accommodated him, but there were none 

 at that time, and so, despite his 30,000 a year, he had 

 quite overstepped the mark. 



The sequel was curious. I had dined at the Stoke Park 

 Club one evening and gone back to town. Percy Smith 

 had seen that all was well and exactly to his mind. He 

 is a man of very nice taste, and had taken great care over 

 every detail. He went back the next morning to resume 

 his duties, when, to his horror and amazement, he found 

 the house absolutely gutted, with no stick of furniture 

 or anything else remaining in it. What wonder that he 

 could not believe his eyes and sat down half weeping in 

 despair. 



The truth was that Mr Charsley, alarmed by his liabilities, 

 had requested Messrs Maple to send down and repossess 

 themselves of all the furniture, and also to take the pictures 

 and everything else away. Twenty or more furniture 

 vans were sent down at night and this most portentous 

 midnight flitting was effected. The race meeting which 

 was brought off there the following week resolved itself 

 into a ramping affair of the very worst sort ; and so ended 

 the Stoke Park Club, and so ended Mr Charsley's subsidy 

 of 20 a week for the partly printed sheets, which was to 

 have gone on for a year and lasted only eight weeks. 



Thus we were left with contracts to supply close on 

 fifty papers with these sheets contracts which were 

 designedly losing ones so as to undercut all rivals, and I 

 suppose the attempt to do such a thing in such a way 

 deserved to fail. I can truly declare, however, that I 

 had no sort of idea that it would ever bring me personal 

 profit. All I was after was to get control of public opinion 

 and defeat the Gladstonians. 



The worst blow of all, however, came when Phil May 

 told me in October, 1885, that he had received an offer of 

 30 a week for three years to go out to New South Wales to 



