anxious consideration I gave way.

Personally, before I consented to accept the chairmanship, which carried
with it a salary of £100 a year (which I never got), I bought and paid
for in cash, shares to the value of £1,000 sterling. I remember that
Jacob and his friends seemed surprised at this act of mine, as they
had offered to give me five hundred of their shares for nothing "in
consideration of the guarantee of my name." These I refused, saying that
I would not ask others to invest in a venture in which I had no actual
money stake; whereon they accepted my decision, not without enthusiasm.
In the end the balance of £4,000 was subscribed and we got to work. Work
is a good name for it so far as I was concerned, for never in all my
days have I gone through so harrowing a time.

We began by washing a certain patch of gravel and obtained results which
seemed really astonishing. So remarkable were they that on publication
the shares rose to 10s. premium. Jacob and Co. took advantage of
this opportunity to sell quite half of their bonus holding to eager
applicants, explaining to me that they did so not for personal profit,
which they scorned, but "to broaden the basis of the undertaking by
admitting fresh blood."

It was shortly after this boom that the gravel surrounding the rich
patch became very gravelly indeed, and it was determined that we should
buy a small battery and begin to crush the quartz from which the gold
was supposed to flow in a Pactolian stream. We negotiated for that
battery through a Cape Town firm of engineers--but why follow the
melancholy business in all its details? The shares began to decrease in
value. They shrank to their original price of £1, then to 15s., then
to 10s. Jacob, he was managing director, explained to me that it