ing property there with the
view of forming a company. Our hero immediately offered his own. The
Frenchman responded to the appeal, but expressed the desire to go down
himself into the shaft to examine the property and get some ore in order
to test it before the purchase was completed. The condition was agreed to
with eagerness, and a few days later the victim and his executioner
proceeded together to the mine. The Frenchman went down whilst Mr. X----
remained above. He walked about with his hands in his pockets, smoking
cigarettes, the ashes of which he let fall with an apparent negligence
into the baskets of ore which were being sent up by the Frenchman. When
the latter came up, rather hot and dusty, the baskets were taken to
Johannesburg and carefully examined: the ore was found to contain a
considerable quantity of gold. The mine was bought, and not one scrap of
gold was ever found in it. Mr. X---- had provided himself with cigarettes
made for the purpose, which contained gold dust in lieu of tobacco, and
the ashes which he had dropped were in reality the precious metal, the
presence of which was to persuade the unfortunate Frenchman that he was
buying a property of considerable value. He paid for it something like two
hundred thousand pounds, whilst the fame of the man who had thus cleverly
tricked him spread far and wide.

The most amusing part of the story consists in its _denouement_. The duped
Frenchman, though full of wrath, was, nevertheless, quite up to the game.
He kept silence, but proceeded to form his company as if nothing had been
the matter. When it was about to be constituted and registered, he asked
Mr. X---- to become one of its directors, a demand that the latter could
not very well refuse with decency. He therefore allowed his name to figure
among those of the members of the board, and he used his best endeavours
to push forward the shares of the concern of which he was pompously
described on the prospectus as having been once the happy owner. As his
name was one to conjure with the scrip went up to unheard-of prices, when
both he and his supposed victim, the Frenchman, realised and retired from
the venture, the richer by several hundreds of thousands of pounds.
History does not say what became of the shareholders. As for Mr. X----, he
now lives in Europe, and has still a reputation in South Africa.

This story is but one amongst hundreds, and it is little wonder that,
surrounded as he was with me