But to return to money-making men. “The Fludyers had begun their career,” wrote Sir Samuel Romilly, “in very narrow circumstances; but by extraordinary activity, enterprise, and good fortune, they had acquired inordinate wealth, and were every day increasing it by the profits of a most extensive commerce. Sir Samuel was an alderman of the City of London, and a member of parliament. He had been created a baronet, and had served the office of Lord Mayor, in a year very memorable in the history of City honours, for it was that in which the king, upon his marriage, made a visit to the corporation and dined in Guildhall. Notwithstanding, however, the great elevation at which fortune had placed these opulent relatives beyond my father, they always maintained a very friendly intercourse with him, and professed, perhaps sincerely, a great desire to serve him. Sir Samuel, too, was my godfather.” He died of apoplexy, and Sir Thomas did not long survive him. But instances of money-making men in the City are as plentiful as blackberries, and I merely refer to a few of them. We all have heard of Sir Peter Laurie, who had such a wonderful way of putting down suicide, and other evils. He came to London in early life, and worked, it is said, as a journeyman saddler at a house in the neighbourhood of Charing-cross, with the late Sir Richard Birnie. The late Mr. Thomas Tegg, who, at one time, was one of the largest booksellers in the kingdom, acquired his fortune solely through the force and energy of his character as a man of business. When he first came to London, he called on Mr. Newman, a bookseller in Leadenhall Street, to ask for employment. “What can you do, young man?” “Anything you please, sir; I shall be willing to make myself generally useful.” “Then,” said Mr. Newman, “go and see if you can tie up that parcel,” pointing to a quantity of books, in a loose state, which were lying on the floor. “That,” said Mr. Tegg at a public meeting, “was the first employment I was ever engaged in as a bookseller.” And thus he made his money. Sir John Pirie, who, in 1841, was elected Lord Mayor, on returning thanks in the Guildhall for the honour done him, said—“I little thought, forty years ago, when I came to the City of London a poor lad from the banks of the Tweed, that I should ever arrive at such a distinction.”