In a few days, therefore, Mr. Gibbs’ advertising baits were duly displayed in numerous journals. Several leading papers had at various times cautioned their readers against this class of announcement; still advertisements of the kind occasionally obtained insertion in the ordinary course of business. Thus the two I have mentioned had places in many newspapers, and in less than a week Mr. Gibbs found quite a heap of letters waiting for him at the little coffee-house, No. 6, Burkit-street, City, addressed to Henry Cavendish, Esq. To the first batch of these he replied, stating that applications were so numerous the materials could not be manufactured fast enough, but that they should be sent off in a few days. He had so many communications at Great Charlton-street, that he was compelled to have a printed form of reply, and in this he enclosed another form, which the applicant was requested to fill up and forward by return, with five shillings for inquiry fees and five shillings for preliminary fees, which would be returned in case the loan were not granted. “An agent will call upon you personally in the course of three or four days with the cash, Mr. Marfleeting having several agents travelling through the provinces, as he finds this mode of doing business safer, more expeditious and private, than negotiations by letter.” Hundreds of clients responded to Mr. Marfleeting’s reply, and scores of ladies continued to address private notes to Henry Cavendish, Esq. What pinching and starving, and need, and keeping up appearances, all these letters represented! What stories they indicated! What fears of bankruptcy, what hopes deferred, what cheerless hearths, what battles for life, what misery! Small tradesmen with bills of exchange coming due; shopkeepers pressed for rent; clerks who had overrun the constable; mechanics with extravagant wives; men of small means who had speculated, and had to meet unexpected calls upon shares which were to have made their fortune, and would prove their ruin--drowning men in the financial sea--these were they who caught at the monetary straws of Marfleeting. Widows with small allowances hardly enough to keep body and soul together, widows who lived on lodgers, widows keeping up appearances, spinsters with precarious incomes, daily governesses, eldest daughters in large families, mothers with invalid and drunken husbands--these were foremost in the crowd who sent their money to Henry Cavendish, Esq., and saw in the future competency and comfort by means of his glorious invention; and some of these poor people went down upon their knees at night and prayed that God would prosper their labours and so extend the use of this new invention, that it should be a blessing to them and to others who might be in necessity and tribulation. CHAPTER IV.