'Tis a very good world to live in,
To lend or to spend or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
It was through my sojourn in South Africa in 1896 that I came to know the world of modern finance, where millions sometimes are made or lost in a day by speculation. It was in Johannesburg that I first got acquainted with this characteristic of the time.
Long before meeting him, I had heard of Barney Barnato: every one in the Rand Club knew the sturdy little middle-aged man, who was said to be worth twenty millions and was considered by many to be the true rival of Rhodes and Beit. Ten or twelve years before he had landed in Kimberley with the proverbial five pound note. How had he made such a fortune in so short a tune? His presence and speech were against him; he was commonly dressed and spoke like an uneducated Cockney, dropped his 'h's' and made grammatical howlers in almost every sentence. Rhodes after all was 'someone,' while Barnato was plainly a rank 'outsider,' to use the ordinary English phrase.
It was said of Barney that in early days at Kimberley he had got a living by showing off as a fighter: he would put a square of carpet on the ground and bet that no one could stand up to him on it for five minutes. One rough miner after the other used to take on the job, but they soon found that little Barnato was really hard to beat, and they usually lost their money and took a good deal of punishment into the bargain.
Barnato soon bought claim after claim in Kimberley, and working as he had fought, with all his heart, quickly became one of the richest men in the camp.
From the beginning he was inconceivably mean: he never paid for a drink- always pretended that he had no loose cash about him. A story was told of him that always seemed to me to paint him to the life. Going to the Kimberley races once, he answered some jest made at his expense by saying that he would bet he could make a thousand pounds before the evening.
Several people bet with him. When he got to the race course, Barnato went up to a woman who was selling lemonade and drinks and asked her how much she expected to make during the day. She said, 'Perhaps ten pounds.'
'I'll give you twenty,' he said, 'for your stock, and five for yourself-is it a deal?'
The woman consented and Barnato began to sell her stock, and he did it with such humor and such understanding of almost every miner who came up that he soon had a great crowd about him and sold out at fabulous prices, getting higher and higher sums toward the end of the day; and finally achieved his aim and made his clear thousand pounds, besides the bets he had also won.
His common cockney English endeared him to the ordinary miner, but his knowledge of life and men was extraordinary; his energy extraordinary, too, as was his self-confidence. I have told the story how Rhodes and Beit bought him out at Kimberley; but Barnato soon established himself in Johannesburg as one of the great mine owners and made another huge fortune. Yet he only gambled when he was sure to win. I was once at a game of baccarat in his house where nearly a quarter of a million changed hands in two hours while Barney, having shed his boots, dozed on a sofa in the room.
I remember his telling me once that he was worth twenty-five millions. 'My boy,' he added, 'I have made three millions in one day.' I always thought that that was the day when he sold his claims in Kimberley to Rhodes and Beit.
I am giving no portrait of him, and yet I liked Barney Barnato, for he was really likable in spite of his meanness about petty sums. He told me one day how he had given one hundred pounds for his first claim in the diamond mine of Kimberley: he worked day and night at it with his niggers, and when he got down, a month later, to the blue ground where the stones were found, he made ten thousand pounds in the first hour. 'Thirty good diamonds,' he said.
'I could hardly believe my ears when I was offered eight thousand pounds for them; but I didn't sell them till I got the round ten thousand-about half their real worth, I should think.'
'The week after, I bought three adjoining claims and since then my bank balance has grown pretty rapidly; I'm not complaining. I remember on my first day on the carpet in Kimberley, I had to fight like a wildcat with a big miner, and all for five quid-a change, eh?'
Every one knows how Barney Barnato bucked against the falling market in Johannesburg, brought about by Rhodes's schemes. He was said to have lost a million. I met him once near the end when he told me how Rhodes and Beit had kept him out and how he had bought on a f ailing market and lost his money. 'My dear Barney,' I said, 'one of these days you will make another fortune. What's a million to you?'
'A million!' he snarled, 'A million to me-it's ten hundred thousand pounds, you-!' There was something mad in his glare. It suddenly came to me that Barney had worn his mind out, and when he hurried into an inner room, muttering to himself, I felt sure that if he didn't soon win to self-control, he would come to grief. I perhaps read Barney correctly because I, too, had suffered from nerves and knew how essential it was to cure them. I may say here that constant change of scene and companionship, and the determination to take life easy for awhile are the best cures; but poor Barnato stuck to his work till the last.
A little later, on his way to England, he threw himself off the steamer into the sea; his body was recovered and brought to Southampton.
Woolfie Joel, his nephew, told me that Barney had worn himself out. Woolfie Joel had many of the fine qualities that Barney Barnato lacked. He hadn't the genius of his uncle, but he was far better educated and of a generous and kindly nature. I always had a great liking for Woolfie Joel.
It is the development of a man, the growth of him, that is of supreme interest to his fellows: whoever can tell this story is sure of hearers; but how much more sure when the story is that of the master of millions in a day when all would be rich if they could.
It was in Alfred Beit's house in Park Lane in '97 or '98 that I put him to the question. We were seated in the room which was at once a sort of rockery and palm garden: a room of brown rocks and green ferns and tesselated pavement-an abode of grateful, dim coolness and shuttered silence, silence made noticeable, as it were, framed off by the vague hum of the outside world.
We had been talking of Kimberley and his early days there and his first successes, and I was eager to learn how, even in the race for wealth, he had outstripped a man like Barney Barnato, who had reached Kimberley years before him, and who had never cared for anything in his life but money, and had sought it night and day with the meanness of avarice which collects pennies and saves crusts; or, better still, which dines sumptuously at someone else's expense, inspired by the insane Jew greed which finds a sensual delight in the mention of gold and silver, and diamonds and pearls, and rubies- above all, rubies, hued like pigeon's blood, and more precious than a thousand times their weight in refined gold. In spite of his savage greed and oriental garishness, Barney Barnato had a touch of genius in him, and wasn't easily beaten at his own game.
In person Beit was not very remarkable: he was short-shorter even than Barney Barnato-and plump; in later days the plumpness became fat. But even in his prime he seemed to have 'run to head'; the great round ball appeared too large for the little body and small limbs; but it was excellently well-shaped, the forehead very broad, and high-domed to reverence and idealism, like a poet's; the rest of the face was not so good; the nose fairly large, but slightly beaked, not noticeably fleshy-a good rudder; the chin rather weak than strong-no great courage or resolution anywhere. After the forehead the eyes and mouth were the two noteworthy features: the eyes prominent, large, brown, the glance at once thoughtful and keen; the mouth coarse and ill-cut, the lower lip particularly heavy. It reminded me of Rhodes's face; but Rhodes's mouth was coarser and more cruel than Beit's; his nose, too, larger and more beaked; his chin and jaw much more massive — altogether a stronger face, though not so intellectually alert.
Beit's manner was nervous, hesitating: he had a tiny dark moustache and a curious trick of twirling at it with the right hand, though he seldom touched it; the embarrassed nervousness of a student, rather than the assurance of a man of affairs accustomed to deal with men; but the nervousness was chiefly superficial, due perhaps to weak health, for as soon as he began to talk business he came to perfect self-possession.
