I heard of one case in which a father actually carried my idea into
practice. He wanted his son to learn how little confidence was to be
placed in glowing prospectuses and flaming articles, and found him five
hundred pounds which he was to invest according to his lights. The
father expected he would lose the money; but it did not turn out so in
practice, for the boy took so much pains and played so cautiously that
the money kept growing and growing till the father took it away again,
increment and all--as he was pleased to say, in self defence.
I had made my own mistakes with money about the year 1846, when everyone
else was making them. For a few years I had been so scared and had
suffered so severely, that when (owing to the good advice of the broker
who had advised my father and grandfather before me) I came out in the
end a winner and not a loser, I played no more pranks, but kept
henceforward as nearly in the middle of the middle rut as I could. I
tried in fact to keep my money rather than to make more of it. I had
done with Ernest's money as with my own--that is to say I had let it
alone after investing it in Midland ordinary stock according to Miss
Pontifex's instructions.
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