hown to Mr. Fauntleroy. Do many young men who start in
business find their prosperous superiors ready to help them in that way?

Well, I got on--got on very fairly and steadily, being careful not to
venture out of my depth, and not to forget that small beginnings
may lead in time to great ends. A prospect of one of those great
ends--great, I mean, to such a small trader as I was at that
period--showed itself to me when I had been some little time in
business. In plain terms, I had a chance of joining in a first-rate
transaction, which would give me profit, and position, and everything
I wanted, provided I could qualify myself for engaging in it by getting
good security beforehand for a very large amount.

In this emergency, I thought of my kind friend, Mr. Fauntleroy, and went
to the bank, and saw him once more in his private room.

There he was at the same table, with the same heaps of papers about him,
and the same hearty, easy way of speaking his mind to you at once, in
the fewest possible words. I explained the business I came upon with
some little hesitation and nervousness, for I was afraid he might think
I was taking an unfair advantage of his former kindness to me. When I
had done, he just nodded his head, snatched up a blank sheet of paper,
scribbled a few lines on it in his rapid way, handed the writing to me,
and pushed me out of the room by the two shoulders before I could say
a single word. I looked at the paper in the outer office. It was my
security from the great banking-house for the whole amount, and for
more, if more was wanted.

I could not express my gratitude then, and I don't know that I can
describe it now. I can only say that it has outlived the crime, the
disgrace, and the awful death on the scaffold. I am grieved to speak
of that death at all; but I have no other alternative. The course of
my story must now lead me straight on to the later time, and to the
terrible discovery which exposed my benefactor and my friend to all
England as the forger Fauntleroy.

I must ask you to suppose a lapse of some time after the occurrence of
the events that I have just been relating. During this interval, thanks
to the kind assistance I had received at the outset, my position as a
man of business had greatly improved. Imagine me now, if you please, on
the high road to prosperity, with good large offices and a respectable
staff of clerks, and picture me to yourselves sitting alone in my
private room betw