Talbot Mundy

“ Millionaires don't travel in the second cabin, and they must have seen the labels on your trunks."
"What d'you suppose I tipped the cabin steward for? All my things were marked, 'Wanted on the voyage,' and I made him pull all the labels off before we got to Southampton and put on first-class labels."
"You ought to have been a criminal. But perhaps you are one. I'd better wait until you've told me how you got the money." ”

“ Lewisohn, that was not in the bargain. If I tell you the name of the shares, the secret will be out!'
"He said: 'Madam, it was distinctly in the bargain. I must insist on knowing the name of the shares. So far as the secret is concerned, there is no safer depository for a secret of any kind than within the four walls of a lawyer's private office. I can assure you--in fact, I promise you faithfully--that what you may tell me will remain an absolute secret.'
"'But even Lord Tipperary doesn't know,' I objected. ”

“ When too entirely inexperienced people open an account on the Stock Exchange, there can be only one result--a dead loss. Don't you think my arrangement would be better?'
"Well, of course, I thought it was better, and when Lord Tipperary returned from London I made him go round and settle it that way with Mr. Lewisohn. The lawyer agreed to supply me with funds as long as the agreement lasted, and though his idea and mine on what constituted enough money to go on with were slightly divergent, I got enough out of him from time to time to pay my hotel bills. ”

“ How stupid men are! How could I possibly make a plan when I hadn't any money, and didn't know where I was going to stop, or what Southampton was like or anything? It was different, of course, after I'd landed and had taken a room at the hotel. ”

“ He'll look after you, all right. He's as slow as one of his own horses, and he's stagy; but he's honest, and there isn't a better lawyer in England. I borrow money off him when I get broke--that's to say pretty often.'
"So we had lunch together at the hotel, and I took him a little more into my confidence. I didn't tell him that I had only thirty shillings left, though it was a fact; but I did say that I'd be tickled to death to get my business settled up, because I needed the money very badly. ”

“ Afterwards, when I had seen her home, and we were still chattering on the pavement outside her apartment, I said:
"Well, good night, Kitty. I've come to the conclusion that you're a better actress off the stage than on it!"
"You're getting too wise," she said, laughing. "Good night!" ”

“ That was the man for me.
"I couldn't pay anybody's bill as things stood, so it seemed best to me to run up a real, fat bill with a big man, who might possibly wait for his money and give me a chance to turn round.
"Then I asked to see the proprietor of the hotel. When he'd finished bowing--they're not in the least like American hotel proprietors, they're really polite--I asked him if he knew Mr. Lewisohn; and he told me that Mr. Lewisohn was his lawyer and conducted all his legal business." ”

“ Lewisohn to be most discreet, and he assured me that I could; so I asked him to telephone for an appointment for me, and he did it at once. Later on I ordered a carriage to drive round to the lawyer's office.
"They tried to palm off a one-horse thing on me at first; but I sent it back and ordered a landau with two horses, and the proprietor of the hotel came out himself and helped me into the carriage.
"In Southampton people don't usually drive when they're going to see their lawyers; they walk. ”

“ Crothers,' he said. 'I'm going to make you a little confidence. My client, Lord Tipperary, has been spending far too much money. Too much for his own good. He is altogether too fond of borrowing, and still fonder, I am sorry to say, of gambling. ”

“ It would never have done to seem worried about money."
"He didn't let you pay for the lunch, did he?"
"Of course not. But I had to pay for the carriage--or, rather, I had it charged up on my bill. I was getting so short of ready money that I was beginning to feel desperate. I hadn't enough money to pay my fare back to New York, even third class, by that time, because I'd been spending my ready money pretty freely in order to keep up appearances. ”

“ Crothers, it's an awful shame your not being able to get any money out of old Lewisohn for a month or two; you'll probably miss having the flutter through it. Can't we work it this way. I'll go up to town and open an account with a firm of brokers that I know of, and arrange it so that you can buy the shares on my account without my knowing the name of them; then we'll go shares in the profits. ”

“ Before the agreement came to an end, and while I was still waiting in Southampton, Mr. Lewisohn discovered that as Amos's widow I was entitled under somebody or other's will to a life interest in a small part of the Carruthers estates. So Amos was right, after all! The income isn't much, but it's regular and safe, and I needn't go on the stage again.
"Lord Tipperary is the nicest boy in the world, but I couldn't have him falling so violently in love with me that people began to talk about it; so when I had got all the money that was coming to me, I said good-by to him and Mr. ”

“ The 'com.' and the 'pref.' were quoted at different prices, and I think it was the most confusing mix--up that I ever tried to puzzle out.
"I never would have puzzled it out if it hadn't been for Bertram, the proprietor. He passed me where I was sitting in the lobby, and smiled. I asked him what he was smiling about, and he said that it was easy to tell my nationality without hearing me speak, because American women were the only women who ever read the financial columns of the papers. ”