own plausible tongue he persuaded more than one such old fellow to advance
him money. Mayhap these confiding persons, like a certain Shallow, J.P.,
have since earnestly besought him in vain to return them five hundred of
their thousand. In like manner one or two elderly ladies--cunning as
magpies in their own conceit--let him have a few spare hundreds. They
thought they could lay out this money to better advantage than the safe
family adviser 'uncle John,' with his talk of the Indian railways and a
guaranteed five per cent. They thought (for awhile) that they had done a
very clever thing on the sly in lending their spare hundreds to the great
Mr. Frank D---- at a high rate of interest, and by this time would perhaps
be glad to get the money back again in the tea-caddy.

But Frank was not the man to be satisfied with such small game. After a
time he succeeded in getting at the 'squire.' The squire had nothing but
the rents of his farms to live upon, and was naturally anxious for an
improving tenant who would lay out money and put capital into the soil. He
was not so foolish as to think that Frank was a safe man, and of course he
had legal advice upon the matter. The squire thought, in fact, that
although Frank himself had no money, Frank could get it out of others, and
spend it upon his place. It did not concern the squire where or how Frank
got his money, provided he had it--he as landlord was secure in case of a
crash, because the law gave him precedence over all other creditors. So
Frank ultimately stepped into one of the squire's largest farms and cut a
finer dash than ever.

There are distinct social degrees in agriculture. The man who occupies a
great farm under a squire is a person of much more importance than he who
holds a little tenancy of a small proprietor. Frank began to take the lead
among the farmers of the neighbourhood, to make his appearance at public
meetings, and to become a recognised politician--of course upon the side