It would have paid him to start an employment agency; as it was, instead of receiving fees, he very often supplied his friends' immediate necessities out of his own pocket.

The more he earned the more freely he bestowed, so that his occasional strokes of luck in commerce were of no ultimate benefit to him.

No man in his Position had a larger credit; for weeks at a time he could live without cash expenditure; but this was seldom necessary.
By a mental freak which was characteristic of him he nursed the thought of connecting himself with Messrs.

Quodling & Son, oil and colour merchants.

Theirs was a large and sound business, both in town and country.