Pelican House, E.C

Chapter I The Home Of The Syndicate On

my last visit to town from Herne Bay I learnt some facts which in these days, when nobody cares for anything except finance, may be interesting, and even instructive. I had gone to London for the purpose of investing a legacy recently bequeathed to me by my old maiden aunt, Dorothea Kettledrum. It was a poor sum of .£320 in New Threes, whereas I had expected £1,500. Consequently, as will easily be understood, I was anxious to lay it out in a manner to earn from 6 to 16 per cent. At the higher figure itself I should be netting no more than the very moderate rate of 4 per cent, on the amount of the bequest I had a right to anticipate. I did not consult my aunt's stockbroker, who, I was aware, would in his pig headed way bid me keep the money where it was. But I happened to glance at the Notices to Investors in a ragged number of a society paper which lay on the table of the dining-rooms where I was taking some refreshment.

The financial editor answered there one of his lady correspondents who had put to him a question on all fours with mine : " Why not in that case try Honey Sweaters Third Mortgage, No. 12?" I regarded the suggestion as providentially ad dressed to myself, and accepted it gratefully. Only, when I proceeded to search in a City directory for a company known as the Honey Sweaters, I could find no such title. Fortunately, however, I discovered an approximation to the name in one described as the " Honi Soit Qui Mai y Pense Syndicate, Limited," 572A, Great Distaff Yard, E.C. At once, by an inspiration, remembering the propensity of financiers to jocoseness, I leaped to the conclusion that the editor had converted Honi Soit into Honey Sweaters. That same afternoon I laid out my plans for paying the Syndicate a visit the next day.

To Great Distaff Yard accordingly I repaired on the following morning. It was a long narrow street, ending in a little paved, mildewy court, with no exit. Generally the houses were mean, with a look of being ashamed of themselves. But that was by no means the case with No. 572A. Obviously the structure was new ; and it had lately been renovated and embellished. A stone or stucco frieze over shadowed the front, on which was inscribed largely, " Pelican House." Below opened an imposing door way, decorated with a large and solid Prince of Wales's crest of feathers. At their foot was inscribed in swollen letters, richly gilt, " Honi Soit Qui Mai y Pense Syndicate, Limited," with, in brackets and in smaller letters unemblazoned, " Honi Soit Qui Mai y Pense Company, Limited, in Liquidation." The parenthesis was unexpected ; but the unexpected is common in high finance.

Certainly I was not daunted by the discovery that the company was THE HOME OF THE SYNDICATE 3 in liquidation. I seldom have heard of a successful City enterprise which has not liquidated once, if not oftener. So after a futile attempt to penetrate along a passage, I made my way up a wide staircase, and rang an electric bell. A door opened automatically, and on a scene of splendid disorder. There were two rooms, rather cramped than spacious, of which one had the appear ance of a board-room. Over the mantelpiece hung a grand historical painting, containing nine full-length portraits. The second room, en suite, might have been either a secretary's or a luncheon room. At present both were given up to a body of waiters laying tables as if for an entertainment. A sumptuous cold collation, with an abundance of bottles, was already spread.

It was a strange and confusing spectacle, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, for a prosperous City company's offices. I looked about me for an explanation. Luckily I soon attracted the attention of an old fellow in a sort of undress beadle's costume. At first he seems to have mistaken me for one of the restaurant men. On ascertaining that I was a stranger, he at the commencement manifested an intention to call to a rather rough looking person he addressed as Mr. Teague to eject me. But my evident curiosity, with the polite apologies I made for my intrusion, mitigated his original resentment. He gave me time to explain my presence. The intelligence that I had contem plated an investment of money, of which I may accidentally have exaggerated the amount, in Honi Soit stocks seemed to amuse him.

With something between a sigh and a laugh he informed me that I came too late. As I supposed he referred to the liquidation of the old Honi Soits, I mentioned that I should be satisfied with the new. No ; the new Syndicate, he stated, was equally off the market. A voluntary liquidation of that along with the original Company had already been completed. In proof he mentioned that the chairman of both was actually at the moment in process of being married at St. Paul's Cathedral. He himself, who was senior messenger both of the Company and the Syndicate, should have been present but for his age and infirmities. The double event of the wedding and the winding-up was to be celebrated by a grand breakfast to the bride and bridegroom, the directors, shareholders, staff, and principal customers. Indeed, the guests might arrive from church at any moment.

Naturally I intimated my readiness to withdraw. But my informant had some leisure which he was glad to occupy. He was pleased with the opportunity of drawing upon his reminiscences of a very eventful history. He said I might stay if I liked, and did not mind helping the waiters when the wedding party returned. He regretted that I should not be allowed to listen to the speeches, which were sure to be eloquent. Meanwhile, he gave me a glass of sherry, and in a casual way told me a good deal about the very remarkable enterprise, or enterprises, with which he had been connected. He had begun by waiting on the chairman when that gentleman was in business. In his old age, instead of a pension he had received from him the post of senior messenger. No, there was no assistant messenger ; but that was no reason why he should not be senior.

At any rate, there were few incidents in the careers either of the two societies, or of the directors and officials, with which THE HOME OF THE SYNDICATE 5 he was not acquainted. Where there were occasional lapses or obscurities, I was enabled to supplement his narrative by means of the post-prandial dis courses, to which, I may mention at once, I listened after all from a very quiet corner with much edifi cation. Here is the account as a whole. Though derived from interested sources, it is, I am sure, at least as accurate as that contained in any company prospectus which I have ever read.

Chapter II The Board And Staff In

the first place it may be convenient to give a brief account of the very remarkable persons who composed the board and staff of the two under takings. To give precedence, as is due, to the Chairman, Mr. Robert Lykphill's early and middle life had been passed in the establishment of Sir F. Wardour & Co., the eminent baby linen dealers, both of Upper Bond Street and also of Houndsditch. In Bond Street for many years he had been invaluable for his manner to children of uncertain tempers. Young mothers of high rank adored him, and only lamented that his sex prevented his more permanent engagement as upper nursemaid. He could dandle an infant to perfection. He had an equal gift for passing off the most unsaleable frocks and flounces by a winning manner in smoothing down the creases. In other respects it must be allowed that he was less effective.

His incapacity for arithmetic was incurable, though he was liable to the amiable weak ness of doating on money. At length he became too evidently deaf to serve in the shop. His hand shook too much for him either to write legibly or to display little shifts and sashes to advantage. His employers, who had long regarded him as half imbecile, resolved, notwithstanding the pleasant smile he still retained, to dismiss him on the pension he had fairly earned. As they reckoned it liberally at £350 a year, and in fifty years of rigid economy he had accumulated £24,000, he might have esteemed himself as a lonely bachelor, without a relation in the world, beyond the necessity of trying to save more. But he had money-making in the blood. Leisure and its tedium, unrelieved except by the Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society, turned the craving into a fever.

Captain Desmond Gulliver was a volunteer officer, and owned a small estate in County Clare. It was heavily mortgaged, and his agent found an increasing difficulty in collecting the rents. None of them, at any rate, reached the top floor bedroom in Apsley Mansions, Jermyn Street, inhabited by Captain Desmond Gulliver. Meanwhile, being of a sociable disposition, he required an income, till his estate should be in working order. Actually in various odd ways he had managed to make one. For a time he sat for an Irish borough ; and the labourer was worthy of his hire. In virtue of the political rank he thus enjoyed, he had, in conjunction with a marquis's younger son, a retired colonial judge, an undoubted baronet, two briefless barristers, a poet, and a secretary, run a new club. Though the club had failed he had enjoyed free quarters in it, with a few more or less legitimate commissions, for the best part of a twelvemonth.

For another year and a half he had perambulated Europe as bear leader to the heir of an Australian squatter. As he lived and let live he might have followed the same vocation in definitely, had not his pupil run off with a London barmaid, whom the Captain had invited to Boulogne for a fortnight's holiday. Just at the moment of the foundation of the Honi Soit Qui Mai y Pense Com pany, Limited — the old Company — he happened to be out of employment, and of resources. Theodore Pard was a barrister and journalist. He supplied London letters on the fashions for ladies to three country newspapers. His signature was " Evadne Bohun." They, or the modistes mentioned in them, paid tolerably well. In his learned pro fessional character he was less active, from no fault of his. Lately he had married a widow with a fair life income.

Her husband, in the drapery trade, had been an acquaintance, and had left him trustee for his wife. Spencer Rush had the making in him of a diplo matist, being a younger son of a baronet who had subsisted to extreme old age on his wits, and half brother to an Irish Dean. But unfortunately, in consequence of family circumstances, he had been brought up to no regular business. Purely as a gentleman, and on nobody's behalf but his own, he dealt intermittently on the Stock Exchange. But he was of a friendly nature, and was never so happy as when he was the means of bringing to the knowledge of gentlemen of inferior taste to his and superior means, the choice brands in wines and tobaccos of purveyors, such as Messrs. Aquavita Levanter, of Cadiz, and Senora Gonzages, of the Havana. Howard Carnivor was the African traveller.

It was whispered that in his unregenerate days he had made a good thing out of black ivory. People conversant with the habitual condition of his banking account might have doubted. He was now, at all events, a philanthropist, and resided in the Albany. No director was more assiduous in his attendance at the Honi Soit board, even when it conflicted with an engagement to assist at a simultaneous meeting of the Hulaloo Pockethandkerchief Mission at Exeter Hall. Ion Duvallides, having spent his boyhood and early manhood between Malta and Gibraltar, was, it may easily be understood, English to the backbone. His mother, who had been twice previously married, if not oftener, was now the widow of Moses Hirams. Mr. Hirams is believed to have been a pawnbroker. Mrs. Hirams, a sharp woman of business, allowed Ion, her favourite son, a competent, not an excessive, income, of which his nearest confidants never ascertained the exact amount.

His own pursuits had been many, and, it may be said, catholic. He was known to have tried the stage, the music halls, a mineral-water agency, and more than one Noncon formist pulpit. Joseph, or Giuseppe, Venalia had been heard to assert that he might, if he liked, as with his innate modesty he did not, print on his visiting cards, " dei Marchesi di Venalia." He was capricious from sanitary reasons in the matter of his residence, which frequently varied. His address for letters and business interviews was " The International Reading- Room," in Naples Street, Leicester Square. He was fully as constant in his attendance at board meetings as Mr. Carnivor, though, as all the directors were constant, it may seem invidious to single out one or another. The same criticism may apply to the remark that he regularly supported the Chair.

But, certainly, his assent to any expression of opinion which emanated thence was peculiarly emphatic. Mr. Lykphill had formed his acquaintance education ally. On his retirement from Bond Street he had been seized with a desire to learn Italian that, like the rest of the world, he might translate the " In ferno." He was understood to value his tutor's pro found learning so highly as to have insisted on quali fying him as a Honi Soit director. In any case, Giuseppe was one. Mr. John Brown, the Secretary, was short, stout, and rosy, with the most transparently simple and unsuspicious of countenances. He was the kind of person to whom it is delightful to make a request. There was a sympathetic curiosity in his gaze, a look of expectation gratified rather than startled or shocked in his demeanour, however extraordinary the petition.

Along with his manifest desire to be obliging went an attractive air of shrewd capacity for discovering means for accomplishing the benignant object. Whenever I propose to borrow any amount of cash on no visible security at any rate of interest, commend me to a loan office functionary like John Brown, of Clapham Villas, S.W. To his directors it was easy to see that he was at once absolutely deferential, even reverential, and most amiably dogmatic — the ideal public functionary. As I was credibly informed, and might have guessed, he was as well the soul of honour as an excellent hand at whist and at a song, after business hours. Occupying a stage in the official hierarchy dis tinctly subordinate stood Simon Kyneggs, the Chief Accountant. All Great Distaff Yard knew him as a finished arithmetician.

With figures he could do anything. Tell him the sort of balance on the year's business which was wanted ; he would bring it out with irrefutable exactness. A power like this is especially valuable in young companies, which have to declare a dividend before having had time to earn it. Simon withal was perfectly modest, never taking airs as if he could show his superiors up. He was veracious in a sense and honest too. It was not for him, any more than for a professional auditor, to venture an opinion on the bases on which the balance sheet had to be constructed. He was a virtuous ciphering automaton, or rather a teetotum. On a lower range still came my friend, the Senior Messenger, Samuel Rawlings. Till his legs failed none surpassed him in the solemn carriage of a luncheon tray for the Board.

His early years had been spent in the service of Sir F. Wardour & Co., where his main duty had been to fetch finger cakes for the infants, while Mr. Lykphill presided at the fitting of their frocks. He had quitted Bond Street contemporaneously with Mr. Lykphill, and from the same cause. Beneath Rawlings in rank, though in a post demanding more activity, if less deportment, stood Head Almoner, alias Chief Detective, Teague. To the old Company Teague had been Chief Detective. To the new he was Head Almoner. He was sup posed to have a wonderful scent for despairing impecuniosity. It may account for the expansiveness of his nose. His principal business was to perambu late Great Distaff Yard and the neighbourhood on the look-out for hungry-eyed wayfarers, and to compel them to come in. His subsequent work was to follow them home, and, for charitable purposes, to ascertain their degrees of insolvency.

Finally, a little outside of the regular rungs of the official ladder must be mentioned the Solicitor to the Company and the Syndicate. Mr. Joshua Hyems apparently was the junior, but in reality the first and sole partner in the eminent City firm of Moss, Hyems & Co., Solicitors, Redgauntlet Street, E.C., if, indeed, Hyems were not Moss and Moss Hyems. He was a thorough lawyer, with a skill for dressing an alibi which drew a devout thanksgiving from more than one stipendiary magistrate on the circulation of the news that he was about to fly at higher game than a London Police Court. In fact, he was ambitious, and resolved to be solicitor to a rising Company. As every existing Company of importance already had its own, he saw no alternative but the establishment of a new one. He was a dexterous lawyer, though as much the soul of honour as Mr. John Brown him self.

He possessed many gifts, but no money, and was impatient at the want. Similarly at once essential to, and not of, the regu lar hierarchy were the two Auditors, elected by the Proprietors, not by the Directors, to guard specially and independently proprietary interests. They were chosen year by year, and for the current twelvemonth had been Mr. Pard and Captain Gulliver. Though they happened, as their predecessors in the old Com pany, to be Directors, they were Auditors as being themselves Proprietors. Their brother Directors, if they voted for them, voted wholly as Proprietors and not as Directors. The notices of the election most scrupulously noted the fact. The seven Directors, the Secretary, the Chief Accountant, the Detective and Chucker-out, after wards Head Almoner, the Senior Messenger, and the Solicitor, with the Auditors, formed the work ing body of the Company.

With laudable prudence the office was at starting manned experimentally or inchoately only. As the titles of the actual ■3 functionaries implied, the Accountant, Almoner, and Messenger were intended to have each one or more lieutenants. A side table had been bought, with a fixed inkstand and a bundle of quill pens for an Assistant Secretary. There were high stools if not desks for the eight clerks hereafter to be engaged. For the present the enterprise opened with the modesty of true greatness. But I remember that I have omitted to state what the enterprise really was, and how it originated. In this, however, I have merely followed the practice of many prospectuses of vast and magnificent under takings, which, I have noticed, when they are launched omit to inform expected applicants for shares of the nature of the business to be done.

In fact, the authors of the Honi Soit Company decided to have a Company before they thought it worth while to make up their minds what should be the subject of its operations. The original promoters were Mr. John Brown and Mr. Joshua Hyems. They were old acquaintances, and had already been colleagues in various recondite transactions. One such scheme had just come to an end, and it was indis pensable to find something to take its place. The prematurely deceased was the International, National, and Domestic Cercle. It had been located in a couple of rooms off Shaftesbury Avenue. Being of the most fashionable and exclusive character it had attracted Mr. Lykphill, and Messrs. Gulliver, Pard, Rush, Carnivor, Duvallides, and Venalia among its original members without an entrance fee. Mr. Lykphill, Captain Gulliver, Mr. Rush, and Mr., or the Marchese, Venalia were indeed members of the com mittee.

Very much to the surprise of everybody subscribers did not pour in. A committee of six, inclusive of Mr. Hyems, the eminent lawyer, and Mr. John Brown, late of Scuttles and Madrepore, late of Rangoon, Patras, and Malacca, East India merchants, and dry goods warehousemen, Houndsditch, backed by four ordinary members, Mr. Theodore Pard, Mr. Howard Carnivor, Mr. Ion Duvallides, and Mr. Simon Kyneggs, could not run to a profit a couple of expensive, airy top apartments in Wilberforce Buildings, W., with the incidental wear and tear of glass and carpets, and refreshments for the Com mittee. Consequently the Cercle quietly, and with no ostentatious fuss, one evening determined to dis solve ; and there was an end of it.

Chapter III In The Shell In

one sense undoubtedly there was an end of it ; not in another, and of a kind much more im portant. A good many active wits — certainly three or four — had been released from more or less lucrative employment. A substitute had to be found. The frequenters of the Cercle, though strangers before, had made each other's intimate acquaintance. They had enjoyed opportunities of estimating their respective tempers, abilities, and resources of various descrip tions. Mr. Joshua Hyems and Mr. John Brown, for example, could have specified in the most accurate manner the amounts and natures of the incomes on which the group of members of the International, National, and Domestic Society habitually subsisted. No sooner, therefore, had the constituents of the Cercle, with gentle violence, parted than a very slight pressure, as with globules of quicksilver, sufficed to reunite them.

That pressure was applied by two of the associates, who happened to be Mr. Joshua Hyems and Mr. John Brown. Between them they resolved to raise a limited joint stock phœnix of a commercial company out of the more or less fragrant ashes of their social institution. They even determined to use the self-same human materials. The particular shape had revealed itself by a special inspiration to the brain of Mr. Brown. In a measure the impulse may have been given by the accident of the per secution of the defunct Cercle by an unthinking trade society. When he explained his plan in outline to Mr. Hyems that astute intelligence at once perceived, if he did not even somewhat exaggerate, its merits. Together they found not the slightest difficulty in gaining the rapturous assent of their colleagues of the ex-Cercle to an invitation to join in its elaboration in different capacities.

In a conclave of ten, held on Saturday afternoon at the umbrageous offices of Messrs. Moss and Hyems, within double doors, carefully closed, the large questions of ways, means, and objects were thoroughly sifted. Everybody was for once in his life, and, it may freely be admitted, much against his habit, entirely frank and open. Mr. John Brown set the example nobly in his introductory comments on a prospectus, headed by a crest neatly sketched and coloured, which he had drawn up of the undertaking he recommended for promotion by them. The title of their Company he proposed should be " Honi Soit Qui Mai y Pense," because they meant to be ashamed of nothing, what ever ill was thought of it. The feathers in the crest were manifestly pigeons' feathers : he hoped the Company would live to pluck many.

In the pursuit of its vocation he felt assured that it must both greatly benefit its shareholders and be discharging a high public duty. One of his friends he heard asking what its osten sible work was to be. Simply this. It was a matter of common notoriety that multitudes of mercantile concerns spring daily into existence with the seeds of decay and death in them from their birth. It would be the aim of the Honi Soit to look out everywhere for the signs of coming dissolution, and to ripen them quickly. It hoped to perform the benevolent function of the Spanish nurse who smooths the final agony of the writhing patient with the accommodating bolster. Critics might call it a vulture ramping after symptoms of mortality. It welcomed the metaphor or any analogous allusion as a compliment. It would rejoice to be known as the Ishmael of Commerce, or as common scavenger, where it was not genteel undertaker.

As for black mailing, was not the labourer fully worthy of his hire? The draft prospectus itself went into details. The capital was to consist of five hundred thousand £1 shares, sixpence a share paid up. Ten per cent, for five years was guaranteed by the promoters. Every holder of a hundred shares on which the call had been paid was to be entitled to require the Company to prosecute to conviction any incriminated company, firm, or private person, from the Bank of England to the Patent Bootjack Suppression Corporation. The legal advisers of the Company were the well known firm of Messrs. Moss and Hyems. Their skill, repute, and integrity were sufficient to ensure both the Company and its proprietors against drifting to the lee shore of the law. An asterisk directed attention to a footnote, which mentioned that Messrs. Moss and Hyems had been for the defence in Reg. v. Beer shaker, where the defendant, an Irishman, had been acquitted on an alibi in the one-pair-back of the charge of having killed his English mother-in-law with a coal-scuttle in her own cellar.

The Company banked with the Kilmanjaro Banking Company, Limited, Grocers Avenue, E.C. It had consented for the first year to pay the call of half-a-crown per share on any shares which should be taken up, and also the stipulated dividend of 10 per cent. Mr. John Brown's speech and the reading of the draft prospectus were received with equal enthusiasm. The meeting then proceeded, having thrown open the doors and observed that nobody was haunting the staircase, to elect the first board of directors. Subscription for a thousand shares was the qualifi cation for a director ; and Messrs. Lykphill, Gulliver, Pard, Rush, Carnivor, Duvallides, and Venalia, the last named at Mr. Lykphill's suggestion, forthwith qualified. They next, sitting in their new capacity, elected Mr. Robert Lykphill Chairman.

Then the full Board appointed Mr. John Brown Secretary ; the firm of Moss, Hyems & Co., Solicitors ; and Mr. Simon Kyneggs, Chief Accountant. On the recommendation of Mr. Hyems, Richard Teague, who had recently quitted the Detective Police without a pension, was engaged as Chief Detective and Chucker-out. Samuel Rawlings was, at the same time, through the Chair man's influence, nominated Senior Messenger. Before the Board adjourned, however, the most serious part of its business in some respects, though in others doubtless a mere formality, had to be arranged. The Secretary, with suggestions from the Solicitor, had to see that the question of ways and means was clear. The Kilmanjaro Bank, he explained, was most liberal in its dealings. Rivals in the banking world even denounced it as a financial wild cat.

Its faith, for instance, in the honour and solvency of the Honi Soit Board was incredible. There was no parallel to the trustfulness which offered to pay not calls alone in a new limited company, but unearned dividends. What investor could fairly expect to be allowed the not perhaps extravagant, but handsome rate, of 10 per cent, on his shares without payment by him of a penny of cash ? Still, the Kilmanjaro Manager and Directors were business men and men of the world, in addition to the brilliancy of their intellects and vastness of their fortunes. They required, as was only reason able, cover. He had promised on behalf of the directors that they would lodge securities to an adequate amount at 735, Grocers' Avenue, E.C. What did they severally offer? The proposal, it must be admitted, hardly evoked the same joyous acquiescence as the general pro gramme of the Honi Soit's operations.

But not all the persons upon whom the demand was made understood very precisely the meaning and the inci dents of cover, in banking or Stock Exchange diction. They agreed to the principle ; and, it may be said at once, they had to comply in practice within the next two or three days. Mr. Lykphill, on the principle of noblesse oblige, was honoured with the largest share of pecuniary responsibility. He assigned his pension of £350 from Sir F. Wardour and Co., and also deposited the certificates of his beloved stocks and shares. He felt a little sinking at the heart, which he laboured heroically to suppress, as he handed over the packet. Captain Desmond Gulliver's demeanour was much more gay, as he executed a fifth mortgage of his property in County Clare in the bank's favour. Mr. Theodore Pard happened at the moment to possess nothing strictly his own.

By a lucky coincidence, however, he happened, as executor for his wife's late husband, to have by him a certificate of £700 Blair Atholl Railway £6 per Cent. Debenture Stock, which had lately been substituted for a smaller sum of £7 per cent. This, it being a pure formality, he de posited. Mr. Spencer Rush would, as gladly as Mr. Pard, have deposited securities positively his. But the sole property available for the purpose was the invoice of a consignment to himself from Cuba of Pinto cigars, which he had procured on an under taking to palm them off on his young friend, Lord Demirep. Mr. Howard Carnivor lived on the profits of a boarding-house for young negro princes from Guinea at Islington, of which he was understood to be the munificent patron. He lodged the title deeds, which lucidly expounded his honest but pecuniary connection with the institution.