Having come into possession of a quantity of ready money courtesy of a charitable contribution from an elderly benefactor, Mr Headstone naturally enough began to look around for opportunities to improve upon his capital by investing it in a venture. In this he was most readily assisted by Mr Bonney, a pale gentleman, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all over his head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely around his throat, looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed himself since. Mr Bonney was a speculator and had an eye for business. Were ocular proficiency not sufficient to secure his most deserving reputation, Mr Bonney could also claim that he had a nose for business. In addition to any olfactory prowess he was wont to demonstrate in monetary matters, the gentleman also had an ear for business; and, indeed, depending as he did so very much upon gossip and rumour, he was perhaps most indebted to this particular sense in providing his clients with sound financial advice.
Sniffing out the scent of fresh twenty pound notes with his finely tuned proboscis, Mr Bonney called upon the pedagogue at breakfast time and urged that gentleman to dress himself without any delay. A cab was waiting at the door ready to carry them to Bishopgate Street Within, where a public meeting was to take place for the petitioning to parliament in favour of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each. Why the very name alone - which Mr Bonney delivered all together as if he were squeezing a concertina - was enough to guarantee that the shares would reach a premium within a week.
Mr Headstone, never having done business with the gentleman before, had no good reason to doubt this prediction, and Mr Bonney pressed home his point as he always did by employing a great many number of fiscal and business-like phrases, which left his client in such a confusion that he had no recourse but to surrender his entire capital into the speculator's grasping hands. Mr Bonney promised Mr Headstone such a return on his investment that the latter gentleman could hardly believe it; which, indeed, he was right to do, for the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company (capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each) collapsed within a week, making many men the poorer, and only a few the richer.
Mr Charles Dickens
