"NOTHING succeeds like success," I remarked to my friend, Captain J——, as we came out of the Royal Pantheon Theatre, after having witnessed the 301st representation of some piece which, had it "run on its merits," would scarcely have reached its 31st night.

       "Quite right," answered the Captain, who, I may mention, was governor of one of our large prisons; "and if you will come and smoke a cigar with me at my club, I will tell you rather an amusing instance of that principle, as exemplified in the career of one of my proteges."

       I gladly assented, and in a few minutes we were seated in a snug corner of the quiet smoking-room in the Junior Fogies' Club.

       "You may remember," said the Captain, "the trial of one George Topham, for fraud, about six months ago?"

       "Perfectly; a very clever fellow, and well-educated too."

       "Yes; he was the cleverest rogue in the three kingdoms; and though it was pretty certain he had been in half the great swindles for the last ten years, the police could never before get any case against him. After his conviction he was sent to my place; and during the first week he met with an accident which necessitated his going into the infirmary. I used to sit and talk with him sometimes; he amused me and interested me as a study of character. One day he quoted the same proverb as you did coming out of the theatre to-night, and narrated following illustration of it from his own personal experience:—

       "'One of the most successful enterprises I ever worked was the Hildebrand Mine. It was a real silver mine in South America, which had been abandoned by the owners ; one of my friends and myself had bought it cheap, and we resolved to work it as a limited liability concern, with a small company. When you have got a good plant of that sort, the snugger you keep it the better; the fewer the people in it, and the larger their stake, the easier they are to manage. It may take a little more trouble to get a thousand than a hundred pounds out of a man, supposing he has it; but it's well worth the extra trouble. When a man has got a serious stake in any affair, he is always cautious how he blows on it, and he is always anxious to put more in to save his first risk; but when he has got only two or three hundreds in, he cuts up rusty at the first sign of being swindled, and does not mind what shindy he makes.'"

       "Your friend was a bit of a philosopher," I remarked.

       "He was, indeed. But to continue his story: 'We had got one or two pretty good men into the mine, but we wanted some more capital, so that we might be able to pay a good dividend to begin with. I determined to go and try my luck at Slowcumleigh, which was marked in my private map of England as a very good place, with plenty of rich men in the neighbourhood of just the sort we wanted: not large land-owners, but men who had made a good fortune, and had bought a bit of ground, and built themselves substantial, comfortable houses, with well-kept gardens and capital vineries; houses where you could still get a glass of old port wine out of a handsome cut decanter, instead of light claret out of a thin blown one, which is what nearly all your swells have come to now-a-days.

       "'I hesitated for a little what character to adopt, but at last I settled on that of a retired scientific gentleman with a taste for mineralogy. I took a neat villa outside the town, bought a few specimens of minerals and a pair of spectacles, devoted a couple of hours every day to the study of a "Text-Book of Mineralogy," and kept my eyes and ears open whenever I went into the town.

       "It was not long before I came across the very man for my purpose — a Mr. Blagham, of Blagham Park. His was one of the best houses in the neighbourhood, with about a hundred acres of ground and a stone quarry, of which I availed myself, as an excuse for scraping an acquaintance with him. I asked leave to search in this quarry for specimens, and he very graciously granted it.

       "'Mankind may be classified in many ways; but I divide them briefly into "men who don't want more than five per cent for their money," and "men who are never content with less than ten." Blagham was one those who would stick at almost nothing, if he saw his way to anything over the latter figure. We soon got upon the subject of mines, and I saw that my constant allusions to the Hildebrand had made an impression on him. I did not fall into the mistake of being too eager at first; and to make a long story short, in less than a month Mr. Blagham had taken £10,000 worth of shares in the Hildebrand Mine, at par. Two months after he had paid the money he received his dividend at the rate of twelve per cent. per annum.

       "'Meanwhile, I had established myself as one of the family at Blagham Park. Of course, the master of the house, or rather his money, was my chief attraction; but there was a secondary one in the shape of the younger Miss B——, a very pretty girl, rather fast; but in these days one looks over that defect. The father and the daughter comprised the whole family. In spite, or perhaps partly in virtue of, my assumed character, I made considerable advance in Emily's affections; she thought there was something rather creditable, I suppose, in making an impression on the heart of a steady scientific man.

       "'As soon as Mr. B—— had received his dividend, he was anxious to buy a few more shares, and after a very decent show of reluctance, I let him have £5,000 more of Hildebrands. Of course, I remonstrated with him; but his answer was, "My dear Bonson" — that was my assumed name — "I know what I am about. I began life with with five hundred pounds, and I am worth a good sixty thousand now; you can't tell me I don't know a good thing when I see it."

       "I took the five thousand pounds, which, as it happened, came in very useful; and in a week afterwards, Miss Emily Blagham and I were on our way to the Continent. We returned by a circuitous route to England, and settled down at a very quiet watering-place in Yorkshire. To oblige the lady, I had gone through the ceremony of marriage; but I had previously yielded to similar scruples in one or two other cases. The exact value of the contract, from a legal point of view, I would not take upon myself to determine.'"

       "That was a pretty cool confession of bigamy, Captain."

       "Oh, my friend Topham, alias Bonson, thought nothing of that. But the amusing part of the story is now to come."

       "'I never shall know,' continued my ingenious friend, 'how it was that old Blagham found us out so soon, but he did. We had not been established in our cottage at Dulhamsea quite a week, when one morning who should walk into our little sitting-room, but my darling Emily's father. I naturally prepared for an explosion; what was my astonishment when he came up to me, took my hand most cordially, and exclaimed in heartiest tones, "My dear boy, what have you been hiding for all this time?" I thought it was "a kid," of course, and looked over his shoulder to see if any representative of the law's majesty was behind him; but no, he was alone. Before I could recover from my astonishment Emily came in, and immediately rushed into her father's arms. The family picture was now complete.

       "'You must both come back to London with me, and we'll have a regular jolly time of it. I am going to introduce you to my friends, Bonson — or George, as I ought to call you."

       "'I rather winced at the "George," as the last Christian name I had adopted was Arthur; but the old gentleman clapped me on the back, and whispered in my ear, "I know all about it, my boy; you are a clever fellow, and one of the most successful men I ever met."

       "'Certainly I had been pretty successful in getting money out of him, but I scarcely expected him to see it in so amiable a light. We had a very pleasant little dinner, and afterwards, when old Blagham and I were smoking a cigar in the garden, he said to me, "George, I have always, as you know, admired one thing, and that is, success; yours has been, hitherto, a very successful career, and as long as it remains so, I stick to you. You must be married again under your right name, and then we shall get along swimmingly."

       "'So we went back to London together: Emily and I were married again at a registrar's office, and Mr. B—— took a splendid suite of rooms in one of the best West-end hotels. There we gave dinners and parties, and led a very jolly life of it. He introduced me to all his friends as "a very clever man," and boasted what a lot of "good things" I had put him into; so that I had many private applications for advice from people who wanted to make a few thousands. Into the honesty of the schemes they never inquired; the only question was how much was to be got out of them; anything over ten per cent. they jumped at, and I never knew before how great a solvent of principle Interest is.

       "'I remember one party especially, one of the first given, when I had taken rather more wine than usual, and my father-in-law was bent on drawing me out after dinner. I was drawn out, and — of course, without mentioning names — I was induced to give a vivid sketch of some of the most happy swindles in which I had been concerned. My narrative was received with the most hearty laughter and approbation, for I said not a word about any but the most successful. I did hear one man say to his neighbour, "What a d—–d scoundrel!" but the answer was quite decisive — "That may be, but he's a devilish clever fellow."

       "'It was only fair that I should stand by old Blagham, as he stood by me; so we set to work to get out of the Hildebrand Mine with as little loss as possible. I called a meeting of two or three of my cleverest friends, and we resolved to make a really grand coup — namely, to get up a company ourselves to buy the property from us. There was a vein of silver, a very shallow one, as we knew; but by working this properly, and getting two engineers to report favourably, we got rid of the mine on capital terms, and Blagham recouped his loss, and something more besides. I don't think the new company managed quite so well, for they were wound up in about six months afterwards, though you may take your oath my friends had got out of it first.

       "'Emily had very expensive tastes, and money went out quicker than it came in. I was drawn, in a weak moment, into the unfortunate affair on account of which I have been forced to pay a visit, Captain J——, to your hospitable roof. When I got nabbed, I sent at once to Blagham for some ready money to pay for my defence; he returned an indignant answer, to the effect that he was astonished at my effrontery, and from that moment "he renounced all connection with a monster of deceit who had imposed upon his too generous nature, and had robbed him of two of his greatest treasures — his self-respect and his beloved child." He threatened to proceed against me for bigamy, and so release his daughter from "a tie which could but reflect on her indelible disgrace." To this most virtuous effusion I replied, reminding him of certain transactions in which we had been concerned together, and intimating that if he refused to help me I should be obliged to call him as a witness on my trial, and put to him some very disagreeable questions. As to his daughter, I informed him that she had relieved herself of the tie that bound her to me by running away with my friend Captain Flashingham, news of which interesting event had reached me that very morning.

       "'Old B—— never answered this letter, but he sent me a hundred pounds, and since that I have never heard anything more of him. But I have to thank him, at least, for confirming me in the great principle of modern morality — "Nothing succeeds like success.'"

       "Such was the story," concluded Captain J——, "which Mr. George Topham to me; and I think he was justified in the inference that he drew from his own experience."

(THE END)