At the time of the projected marriage between the Marquis of Arondelle and the heiress of Lone, John Scott was deeply sunk in debt, and badly in want of money.
The capital given him by his father had been so tied up by the donor that nothing but the interest could be touched by the improvident recipient. It had, in fact, been given to Sir Lemuel Levison in trust for John Scott, with directions to invest it to the best advantage for his benefit.
This duty the banker had most conscientiously performed by investing the money in a mining enterprise, supposed to be perfectly secure and to pay a high interest. This investment continued good for years, affording John Scott a very liberal income; but as John Scott would probably have exceeded any income, however large, that he might have possessed, so of course he exceeded this one and got into debt, which accumulated year after year, until at length he felt himself forced to ask his trustee to sell out a part of his stock in the mining company to liquidate his liabilities.
This the banker politely but firmly refused to do, representing to the young spendthrift that his duties as a trustee forbade him to squander the capital of his client, and that he had been made trustee for the very purpose of preserving it.
The obstinacy of the banker enraged the young man, who protested that it was unbearable to a man of twenty-five years of age to be in leading-strings to a trustee, as if he were an infant of five years old.
The time came, however, when the trustee was compelled by circumstances to sell out.
The rare foresight which had made him the millionaire that he was, warned Sir Lemuel Levison that the mining company in which he had invested his ward's fortune was on the eve of an explosion. As no one else perceived the impending catastrophe, Sir Lemuel Levison was enabled to sell out his ward's stock at a good premium some days before the crash came—not an honest measure by any means, we think, but—a perfectly business-like one.
He informed John Scott of the transaction, telling him at the same time that he had the capital of thirty thousand pounds in his possession, ready to be re-invested, and the premium of three hundred pounds, which last was at the orders of Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott was not contented with the three hundred pounds premium. He wanted a few thousands out of the capital, and he wrote and told his trustee as much.
Sir Lemuel Levison was firm in refusing to diminish the capital that had been placed in his hands for the benefit of the spendthrift.