CHAPTER XI
HOW TO START IN BUSINESS
“THAT’S a pretty tidy sum,” said the old man; “not that the amount makes much difference while you are about it. It is just as easy to make twenty thousand pounds as twenty thousand pence, if you are on the right track. Now, I have been turning you two young chaps over in my mind, and the question is, what are you fit for that has got money in it? I should judge you,” turning to Alec, “to have a good loud voice!”
Without a word Alec stood up and gave a coo-ee like a steam whistle, a screech that could have been heard across the water at North Shore, and woke up the Domain sleepers like the sound of the last trump.
“That will do,” said the old man. “What a pair of bellows you must have! Now, the first thing you must do is to start in business.”
“But that will require capital, whatever we choose,” observed Huey.
“That is where you make the mistake, my lad. When a man starts in business with capital, the chances are ten to one he loses it. If a chap’s smart enough for business, he’s smart enough to start without capital. Now, money is made to be lost by the mug and picked up by the man of talent.”
“Then if no money is wanted, how do you start?”
“On credit, my lad, and the more you owe to the right people the safer you are. Who will help you when you are hard pushed? Your friend? Not a bit of it. Your creditors! Who will push your business, bring you customers, put you in the way of a good deal? Your creditors. No man ever failed for debt. It was for not owing enough! Why, half Sydney firms would be wound up to-morrow but for their wise foresight in owing too much. The creditors dare not face the loss, so they keep them going. As for the squatters in the country, from what I hear there is not one in a score could pay ten shillings in the pound, and they are as jolly as sand-boys and as happy as kings. Does the price of wool trouble them? Not much!”
“And is it wise to pay nobody?”
“No, that is a fool’s game! A small creditor is a small enemy, while a big creditor is a big friend. It’s the same with appropriating. Never take a few paltry pounds, you may get seven years. It is just as simple to start a rotten company and scoop thousands—just as easy and no risk; only fools can’t see it. And who gets in quod? The little fishes or the big ones? Why, the little fishes all the time? Why, the law is a net made so delicate that all the big sharks can break through; the only question is, will you be a man eaten or a man-eater?
“It’s all the foolishness and humbug we are taught while we are boys that spoils life for most men. They start out at a game they don’t understand, with the certainty they do. Mind you, I’m not saying things are not pretty well as they are, for if there were no mugs where would our turn come in?”
Huey felt at first a certain revolt and repugnance to the doctrines of Soft Sam, but little by little the feeling wore off. The calm certainty of the speaker, the evidence he had of the success of his plans, all told with force. How could he argue against success; he, who so far felt himself a failure? A thought came into his mind how One was in old time taken to a pinnacle of the Temple, and the kingdoms of the world shown to him—“All these will I give you if you will bow down and worship me.”
But he put the recollection aside as not suited to the affairs of practical life.
Alec, on his side, received all these new maxims like new milk.
To him they were as the keys of Heaven—self-evident propositions that he wondered had never struck him before.
“Well, what had we better start?”
“I think book-making would do to begin with,” said Sam, “you have got a good voice and plenty of muscle,” turning to Alec. “I think that’s about your dart.”
“But I know nothing of the business,” replied Alec, despondingly.
“There you go again! Did you think I expected you did? That’s another foolishness folks have got in their head, that you have to understand a thing before you try it. Does the clever miner know where the gold is when he sinks a shaft? Not a bit of it. Does the old hand that knows all the points strike it rich? Not a bit of it. It’s the mug that comes along and does not know pyrites from peas-pudding that hits the patch! I suppose you know a horse from a cow?”
“I should say so!” said Alec.
“Then that’s all you want to know to be a bookmaker. Directly you begin to know one horse from another you commence to be too clever; you are inclined to back your fancy on your own hook, and it’s very soon all up with you.”
“But don’t you have to make a book? Is there not some science or skill in taking the proper bets, or hedging, or something of that kind?”
“There is nothing in it that a baby can’t learn in five minutes. You back the field against the public all the time, and the public all finish by losing their money; you always finish by getting it.”
“But bow much shall I make? Shall I get £20,000?”
“No, I don’t say you will. I only said this was to commence with. You might make a thousand a year. Will that suit till I can put you on a lay for the other?”
Would it suit? A lad who had been earning so far a few shillings a week with the life of a working bullock! Would it suit? Was honey sweet in the mouth; was pleasure better than pain? Alec just closed with the offer right away, and had to get up and shake hands with Soft Sam on the strength of it.
“But I must warn you,” continued Sam, “that it is not all beer and skittles. It will be awkward if the favourites win the first few races, because you will have to cut and run, and your business is as good as done for in that line for the future. But there is no good meeting trouble half-way. I’ll see you launched when the game is pretty right. All the same, it is as well to be prepared for a belting.”
“I’m ready,” said Alec. “I can stand hard knocks with anybody.”
Huey had said nothing to all this. The possibility of being hunted as a blackleg was not tempting to him, so he turned a look on Soft Sam, which the old gentleman seemed to understand.
“I suppose now the hard knocks and the clearing racket are hardly in your line?”
“I can’t say they are,” answered Huey.
“So I thought. You want a gentlemanly occupation, without risk, no trouble to speak of, and bags full of profit?”
“That’s just about my complaint.”
“Then here’s the very thing? You must start as a turf prophet. You have been on a newspaper and can string words together, and that is what is wanted.”
“But I know no more about horses or who is likely to win than Cook’s statue over there.”
“No more does any other turf prophet. Do you think that even if they knew one certainty they would not go and pawn their shirts, make their pile, and retire to private life? Do you think these men are what they call philanthropists, who sell turf knowledge, equal to bank-notes, to the first comers, at five bob a head? Of course the public does—that Al copper-fastened fool, the public. You will have to learn the ‘pitch’—that’s easy. Always refer to the ‘stable,’ what the stable says, what the stable think. And when your tip loses, as it generally will, ‘Very sorry I could not tell you sooner. But at the last moment the stable decided to run him stiff. Could not get the money on. Ring was afraid of him. So they are saving him. Will be a dead bird for sure the next handicap, and I shall have the straight wire, you make no error.’ That’s about the total of it; of course you will vary it a bit, just for variety, ‘The stable has been forestalled; the owner is saving him for the Cup, and the stable did not know till the last moment. The jockey was got at.’ Or, supposing it’s a mare, then it was ‘one of her off days.’ The fact is, the game is too simple for a smart man. To an old fisherman it is like catching yellowtail.”
“But five shillings a tip won’t bring in much, I should think, unless the yellowtail you speak of are very numerous,” objected Huey.
“The five bobs, as you say, do not amount to much; hardly pay the advertising. The profit is another branch of the business. It stands to reason that the mugs who go to turf prophets are about the muggiest of mugs there are. This is what makes the business such a soft thing. Suppose a race is coming off with eleven horses entered and five of them possible winners; then to five different mugs you give five different ‘extra special’ tips, in consideration of which you are to stand in free for half the winnings. One mug wins and shares, and swears by you ever after, or at least till you have cleaned him out. As for the others, you smooth them down as per usual—horse could have done it easy, his time at private trials was seconds under, but stable was not on the job!”
“It seems to me that this kind of thing is what is called swindling?”
“You can call it that if you like,” said Soft Sam, smiling. “Most people call it business, and very good business too. There is only one thing you have to get to make a start.”
“And what is that?” asked Huey, with a tone of misgiving, as he remembered the diminished state of his finances.
“A name. The mugs like a good name. Let me think,” and the old gentleman paused. “Fred Archer was called the ‘Tinman,’ that will do as well as another, and it sounds ’cute. Now come along, lads, let’s make a start. We must have a fresh rig-out to begin with.”
With this the old man led the way, and in a few minutes conducted the young men to the interior of a tailoring establishment much patronized by the fancy. At the suggestion of Soft Sam an order was left for a complete outfit of the latest fashion in sporting garments. No payment was asked for; the presence of the old gentleman appearing to smooth all difficulties.
On leaving the shop Soft Sam said—
“You can pay them when you are in funds. The price will be pretty stiff, but after this they will always serve you on the same terms; and remember this, and paste it in your hat: If you have only one friend in the world let him be a tailor.”