eep my eye on when
I want to watch them go up and down?"

"Both. One eye on each. And don't talk about Boffin River to me."

"Is it like that, Henry? I am sorry. I suppose it's too late now to
offer you a safe mortgage at five per cent? I know a man who has some.
Well, perhaps you're right."

On the next day I became a magnate. The Jaguar Mine was the one I fixed
upon--for two reasons. First, the figure immediately after it was 1,
which struck me as a good point from which to watch it go up and down.
Secondly, I met a man at lunch who knew somebody who had actually seen
the Jaguar Mine.

"He says that there's no doubt about there being lots there."

"Lots of what? Jaguars or gold?"

"Ah, he didn't say. Perhaps he meant jaguars."

Anyhow, it was an even chance, and I decided to risk it. In a week's
time I was the owner of what we call in the City a "block" of
Jaguars--bought from one Herbert Bellingham, who, I suppose, had been
got at by his solicitor and compelled to return to something safe. I
was a West African magnate.

My first two months as a magnate were a great success. With my heart in
my mouth I would tear open the financial editions of the evening papers,
to find one day that Jaguars had soared like a rocket to 1-1/16, the
next that they had dropped like a stone to 1-1/32. There was one
terrible afternoon when for some reason which will never be properly
explained we sank to 15/16. I think the European situation had something
to do with it, though this naturally is not admitted. Lord Rothschild, I
fancy, suddenly threw all his Jaguars on the market; he sold and sold
and sold, and only held his hand when, in desperation, the Tsar granted
the concession for his new Southend to Siberia railway. Something like
that. But he never recked how the private investor would suffer; and
there was I, sitting at home and sending out madly for all the papers,
until my rooms were littered with copies of _The Times_, _The Financial
News_, _Answers_, _The Feathered World_, and _Home Chat_. Next day we
were up to 31/32, and I was able to breathe again.

But I had other pleasures than these. Previously I had regarded the City
with awe, but now I felt a glow of possession come over me whenever I
approached it. Often in those first two months I used to lean against
the Mansion House in a familiar sort of way; once I struck a match
against the Royal Exchange. And what an impression of financial acumen I
could make in a dra