"You are a good fellow, Michael. You were always a generous-hearted lad—an exception to the general rule. When you were five years old, you used to share your biscuits with me. It was a fine trait in your character. Proceed."
"You are aware, Mr Planner, that through my father's death increased responsibilities have come upon me."
"You may say that. He never would take my advice about the bank-notes. Stop—remind me before you go, of the few hints to bankers, which I drew up. You will do well to look at them. You'll see the advantages of my system of paper issues. Your father, sir, was stone-blind to his own interests—— but I am interrupting you."
"I have for some time past determined to associate with me in the bank, two gentlemen of noble fortunes and the first respectability. I would not willingly carry on the concern alone, and the accession of two such gentlemen as I describe, cannot but be in every way desirable."
"Humph—go on."
"Now Mr Planner, you are a very, very old friend of my father's, and I know he valued your advice as it deserved to be."
"The old gentleman was good in the main, Michael."
"Had he been aware of my position, he would have recommended the step which I am about to adopt. Mr Planner, I am young, and therefore inexperienced. These gentlemen are very worthy persons no doubt; indeed, I am assured they are; still, they are comparatively strangers to me, and I am certain you would advise me to be most cautious."
"Proceed."
"What I feel to want is the constant presence of a friend—one who, from personal attachment, may have my welfare and interest at heart, and form as it were a second self at all times—let me be present or absent—and absent I must be very often—you perceive?"