“Shelf commenced the business with prayer, which is right enough at its proper time, but struck me as being particularly out of place there. The audience, however, groaned approval, and their confidence in the man seemed to be strengthened. He followed this up with a clever speech about the profits to be made out of the modern sea-carrying trade, and enlarged upon the notorious fact that the losses of the business largely arose from the lack of interest on the part of the ship-masters and other officers. This last, he said, would be entirely removed in the Brothers S. S. Co., because, by the articles of association, no man would hold a responsible position on any one of their vessels who was not an actual shareholder of the company. And then he pointed out that there was an eight per cent. dividend guaranteed on preference stock, and a certain fifteen or eighteen per cent. on the ordinary, and wound up with another dose of cant. The company, he said, would not be alone content with earning income for its bond-holders; it would have as its equal object the spreading of the Gospel and the civilization of England to the uttermost parts of the globe. “Then the meeting cheered and amenned, and wrote out an application for 10,000 £5 shares then and there in the room on forms which were handed round; and down your blessed guardian went on his knees again, and prayed for grace to bless his efforts; and when the poor fools dispersed, Mr. Theodore Shelf and I drove back to the offices. “‘Look here,’ I said to him; ‘you’ve put me down on the directorate of this thing with a salary of £1000 a year. I want to resign.’ “‘What on earth for?’ “‘Oh! Shall we say I haven’t sufficient loose money to take up enough shares?’ “‘But,’ he said quickly, ‘you needn’t take up many. You can draw your first quarter’s salary and pay that back to the company’s bankers on your first call. That will qualify you.’ “‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to do that. I’m going to be mixed up with this new company in no degree whatever. Flatly, I don’t believe in the thing one bit. It’s a notorious fact that freights are so low just now that thousands of tons of shipping is laid up because it can’t be run at a profit; and if you put more in commission, freights will tumble down still lower.’ “‘You speak from your ignorance,’ he said. ‘I should remind you that I am by far an older man, and have a much deeper experience. The business of Marmaduke Rivers and Shelf is a lasting monument of what my humble talents can accomplish, and you will some day see for yourself the newer company on an equal footing. Did you not notice what enthusiastic confidence in its prosperity those humble friends of mine showed this afternoon?’ “‘A fat lot they know about the shipping business,’ said I. ‘In the mood you worked them up to, they’d have believed in an advertising stock-broker’s circular if only there were a text at the head of the page.’