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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