Then the Corporation smiled, and built away faster than ever. In the course of an almost incredibly short time the vast plans of Sternhold were completed by the various companies, by the Corporation, and by himself; for every penny he got as premium, every penny of ground-rent, every penny from his collieries, iron furnaces, and cut-nail factories, went in bricks and mortar. It was the most magnificent scheme, perhaps, ever started by a single man. The city was proud of it. Like Augustus, he had found it brick, and left it marble.
Yet, in reality, he was no richer. The largest owner, probably, of house property in the world, he could but just pay his way at his hotel. Although he had a fine country house (which old Romy had purchased) in the suburbs, he never used it—it was let. He preferred a hotel as a single man because there was no trouble to look after servants, etc. He lived in the most economical manner—being obliged to, in fact.
Yet this very economy increased the popular belief in his riches. He was a miser. Give a man that name, let it once stick to him, and there is no limit to the fables that will be eagerly received as truth. Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Call a man a miser, and, if he is so inclined, he can roll in borrowed money, dine every day on presents of game and fish, and marry anyone he chooses. I only wish I had the reputation.
No one listened to Sternhold’s constant reiteration of what was true—that he was really poor. It was looked upon as the usual stock-in-trade language of a miser. His fame spread. Popular rumour magnified and magnified the tale till it became like a chapter from the Arabian Nights.
After all, there was some grain of truth in it. If he could have grasped all that was his, he would have surpassed all that was said about his riches.
At last the Stirmingham Daily News hit upon a good idea to outdistance its great rival the Stirmingham Daily Post. This idea was a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Miser of Stirmingham.” After the editor had considered a little, he struck out “miser,” and wrote “capitalist”—it had a bigger sound.
The manuscript was carefully got up in secret by the able editor and two of his staff, who watched Sternhold like detectives, and noted all his peculiarities of physiognomy and manner. They knew—these able editors know everything—that the public are particularly curious how much salt and pepper their heroes use, what colour necktie they wear, and so on. As the editor said, they wanted to make Sternhold the one grand central figure—perfect, complete in every detail. And they did it.
They traced his origin and pedigree—this last was not quite accurate, but near enough. They devoted 150 pages to a mere catalogue of his houses, his streets, his squares, clubhouses, theatres, hotels, railways, collieries, ironworks, nail factories, estates, country mansions, etc. They wrote 200 pages of speculations as to the actual value of this enormous property; and modestly put the total figure at “something under twenty millions, and will be worth half as much again in ten years.” They did not forget the building leases; when these fell in, said the memoir, he or his heirs would have an income of £750,000 per annum.
They carefully chronicled the fact that the capitalist had never married, that he had no son or daughter, that he was growing old, or, at least, past middle age, and had never been known to recognise anyone as his relation (having, in fact, shipped the whole family to America). What a glorious thing this would be for some lucky fellow! They finished up with a photograph of Sternhold himself. This was difficult to obtain. He was a morose, retiring man—he had never, so far as was known, had his portrait taken. It was quite certain that no persuasion would induce him to sit for it. The able editor, however, was not to be done. On some pretext or other Sternhold was got to the office of the paper, and while he sat conversing with the editor, the photographer “took him” through a hole made for the purpose in the wooden partition between the editor’s and subeditor’s room. As Sternhold was quite unconscious, the portrait was really a very good one. Suddenly the world was taken by storm with a “Life of Sternhold Baskette, the Capitalist of Stirmingham. His enormous riches, pedigree, etc., 500 pages, post octavo, illustrated, price 7 shillings 6 pence.”
The able editor did not confine himself to Stirmingham. Before the book was announced he made his London arrangements, also with the lessees of the railway bookstalls. At one and the same moment of time, one morning Stirmingham woke up to find itself placarded with huge yellow bills (the News was Liberal then—it turned its coat later on—and boasted that John Bright had been to the office), boys ran about distributing handbills at every door, men stood at the street corners handing them to everybody who passed.
Flaring posters were stuck up at every railway station in the kingdom; ditto in London. The dead walls and hoardings were covered with yellow paper printed in letters a foot long. Three hundred agents, boys, girls, and men, walked all over the metropolis crying incessantly “Twenty Millions of Money,” and handing bills and cards to everyone. The Athenaeum, Saturday Review, Spectator, and Times; every paper, magazine, review; every large paper in the country had an advertisement. The result was something extraordinary.
The name of Sternhold Baskette was on everybody’s lips. His “Twenty Millions of Money” echoed from mouth to mouth, from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. It crossed the Channel, it crossed the Alps, it crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific. It was
