"'You cursed old Jew,' he said to my father, 'I'll tell you what you are. You're a wrecker. You wait for those who are cast ashore by the waves of misfortune, and rob them of the remnants of their property.'
"'No, no,' said my father, 'I accommodate them with money to keep them alive, and in return take only the things they can spare.'
"My father himself did not like the trade, for he gave it up, and went to live in a villa at Eskbank. He continued, however, to lend money in private; but it was on a large scale. Young gentlemen, regular swells, used to call at the house and be closeted with him, and had difficulty in coming to an agreement. I heard one say as he was leaving, 'one hundred per cent. is tremendous.' 'So is the risk,' was all my father's answer.
"My mother was of an easy-going disposition, had no head for figures, and left the management of all money matters to her husband. Her whole care was devoted to me, her only child. I was the apple of her eye. Dear old mother! how I wish that I had appreciated her more!
"As we sat at the fire on a winter evening, she would say, 'Ben! my lad, we must give you the best education. I would like to see you a gentleman before I die.'
"'Nonsense!' my father would say, 'I'll not waste any money upon Latin and Greek, and rubbish of that kind. The training I got will be good enough for him.'
"However, to our great astonishment, he came round to mother's view. You see, he intended that I should carry on the money-lending business, and he thought that if I were sent to a high-class school, I would form a wide connection among young aristocratic spendthrifts, which would be of great service to me. So the question came to be discussed, 'to what school should I be sent?' and to settle this question our next door neighbour assisted us.
"This man was Captain Beaumont, but was popularly called 'the Earl.' He was, as he told everybody, 'a real gentleman that had taken a thousand years to be produced, not a shoddy one that can be turned out nowadays in a few weeks.' He was tall, grey, and scraggy, with a backbone as stiff as a walking-stick, and with a head that was uncommonly small, but that was 'large enough,' as our minister remarked, 'for all the ideas he had got to put into it.' His house was, like himself, cheerless but pretentious. He called it Dunmore, which, you must know, was the name of the castle where his ancestors had lived, heaven knows how long ago. He had a doited old serving-man, who was dressed in the family livery, and waited at table, and served the thin broth and scraggy mutton on the family silver. There was also above the dining-room mantelpiece his genealogical tree, with many branches and leaves, and each leaf had on it the name of one of his forefathers, and on the topmost leaf was written his own name, 'Reginald Algernon Beaumont, the present earl.'
"For some time the Earl was very haughty towards us, throwing us a word occasionally, just as he would throw it to a neighbour's dog. But by and by he made an excuse for calling on us; and in a few weeks he came in regularly every night to have a game of draughts at our fireside. 'His hungry nose,' my father said, 'had scented the havannas and the Glenlivet.' In the first part of the evening he was silent and grumpy, as if he looked down upon our society, and was half angry with himself for being in it. But when the whisky and cigars were placed on the table, he brightened up and grew pleasant and sociable, and would talk for hours about his ancestors, and would tell that he was the lineal descendant of Reginald de Beaumont, who came into Scotland in the reign of David the First, and that he was, therefore, the Earl of Abernethy; and then he would blackguard the House of Lords for not acknowledging his title, and would call them 'Brummagem peers, mostly made out of lucky lawyers, brewers, and cotton-spinners.' On one of these occasions, my mother took courage to talk about me, saying that she wished to make me a gentleman, and asked his advice as to what should be done. He was startled, and, screwing up his nose, said:—