nglish with perfect fluency. The banker sat listening, quite
crestfallen, beneath his intense and melancholy gaze, in which,
nevertheless, there twinkled some rays of kindly sympathy.

'It was all those foreign railways,' said Mr. Smith pensively.

'And it serves you quite right,' answered the stranger. 'Did I not
warn you of the folly and sin of sinking capital in foreign
countries while English land was crying out for tillage, and English
poor for employment?'

'My dear friend' (in a deprecatory tone), 'it was the best possible
investment I could make.'

'And pray, who told you that you were sent into the world to make
investments?'

'But--'

'But me no buts, or I won't stir a finger towards helping you. What
are you going to do with this money if I procure it for you?'

'Work till I can pay back that poor fellow's fortune,' said the
banker, earnestly pointing to Lancelot. 'And if I could clear my
conscience of that, I would not care if I starved myself, hardly if
my own children did.'

'Spoken like a man!' answered the stranger; 'work for that and I'll
help you. Be a new man, once and for all, my friend. Don't even
make this younker your first object. Say to yourself, not "I will
invest this money where it shall pay me most, but I will invest it
where it shall give most employment to English hands, and produce
most manufactures for English bodies." In short, seek first the
kingdom of God and His justice with this money of yours, and see if
all other things, profits and suchlike included, are not added unto
you.'

'And you are certain you can obtain the money?'

'My good friend the Begum of the Cannibal Islands has more than she
knows what to do with; and she owes me a good turn, you know.'

'What are you jesting about now?'

'Did I never tell you? The new king of the Cannibal Islands, just
like your European ones, ran away, and would neither govern himself
nor let any one else govern; so one morning his ministers, getting
impatient, ate him, and then asked my advice. I recommended them to
put his mother on the throne, who, being old and tough, would run
less danger; and since then everything has gone on smoothly as
anywhere else.'

'Are you mad?' thought Lancelot to himself, as he stared at the
speaker's matter-of-fact face.

'No, I am not mad, my young friend,' quoth he, facing right round
upon him, as if he had divined his thoughts.

'I--I beg your pardon,