No man is safe from losing every penny he has in the world, unless
he has had his facer. How often do I not hear middle-aged women and
quiet family men say that they have no speculative tendency; they
never had touched, and never would touch, any but the very soundest,
best reputed investments, and as for unlimited liability, oh, dear!
dear! and they throw up their hands and eyes.
Whenever a person is heard to talk thus he may be recognised as
the easy prey of the first adventurer who comes across him; he will
commonly, indeed, wind up his discourse by saying that in spite of all
his natural caution, and his well knowing how foolish speculation
is, yet there are some investments which are called speculative but in
reality are not so, and he will pull out of his pocket the
prospectus of a Cornish gold mine. It is only on having actually
lost money that one realises what an awful thing the loss of it is,
and finds out how easily it is lost by those who venture out of the
middle of the most beaten path. Ernest had had his facer, as he had
had his attack of poverty, young, and sufficiently badly for a
sensible man to be little likely to forget it.
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