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“How?” was the eager question.

“Get into the direction of some bank, push through the notes of a business friend, in whom you have confidence, who will do the same for you in another bank of which he is one of the managers. There are wheels within wheels in those moneyed institutions, from which the few and not the many reap the most benefit. Connect yourself with as many as you can of them, and make the most of the opportunities such connections will afford. You know Balmier?”

“Yes.”

“And what a rushing business he does?”

“Yes.”

“He dragged heavily enough, and was always flying about for money, until he took a hint and got elected into the Citizens and Traders’ Bank. Since then he has been as easy as an old shoe, and has done five times as much business as before.”

“Is it possible?”

“Oh, yes! You are not fully up to the tricks of trade yet, I see, shrewd as you are.”

“I know well enough how to use money, but I have not yet learned how to get it.”

“That will all come in good time. We are just now getting up a petition for the charter of a new bank in which I am to be a director, and I can easily manage to get you in if you will subscribe pretty liberally to the stock. It is to be called the People’s Bank.”

“But I have no money to invest in stock. That would be taking away instead of adding to my capital in trade, which is light enough in all conscience.”

“There will be no trouble about that. Only an instalment of twenty cents in the dollar will be necessary to set the institution going. And not more than ten cents in the dollar will be called in at a time. After two or three instalments have been paid, you can draw out two-thirds of the amount on stock notes.”

“Indeed! That’s the way it’s done?”

“Yes. You ought to take about a hundred shares, which will make it easy for us to have you put into the Board of Directors.”

“I’ll do it,” was the prompt response to this.

“And take my word for it, you will not be many months a bank director, if you improve the opportunities that will be thrown in your way, without having a good deal more money at your command than at present.”

The charter for the People’s Bank was obtained, and when an election was held, Lawrence went in as a director. He had not held that position many months, before, by favouring certain paper that was presented from certain quarters, he got paper favoured that came from certain other quarters; and in this was individually benefited by getting the use of about fifteen thousand dollars additional capital, which came to him really but not apparently from the bank in which he held a hundred shares of stock. For the sake of appearances, he did not borrow back his instalments on stock notes. It was a little matter, and would have looked as if he were pressed for money.

From this time Sidney Lawrence became a financier, and plunged deep into all the mysteries of money-raising. His business operations became daily more and more extended, and he never appeared to be much pressed for money. At the end of a couple of years, he held the office of director in two banking institutions, and was president of an insurance company that issued post-notes on which three per cent. was charged. These notes, as the institution was in good credit, could readily be passed through almost any bank in the city. They were loaned pretty freely on individual credit, and also freely on real estate and other collateral security.

It is hard to serve two masters. The mind of man is so constituted, and the influences bearing upon it are so peculiar in their orderly arrangements, that the more it is concentered upon one object and pursuit, the more perfection and certainty attend its action. But if it be divided between two objects and pursuits, and especially if both of these require much thought, its action will be imperfect to a certain degree in both, or one will suffer while the other absorbs the most attention.