Third Scene: The Money Market
Let us be serious.--Business!
The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levant trading-
house of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca. What on earth do we know about the
Levant Trade? Courage! If we have ever known what it is to want money we are
perfectly familiar with the subject at starting. The Levant Trade does occasionally
get into difficulties.--Turlington wanted money.
The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from his third
partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed:
"A crisis in the trade. All right, so far--except our business with the small foreign
firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) forty thousand pounds--and, I fear,
no remittances to cover them. Particulars stated in another letter addressed to
you at Post-office, Ilfracombe. I am quite broken down with anxiety, and confined
to my bed. Pizzituti is still detained at Smyrna. Come back at once."
The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars, investigating the
state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him.
Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscellaneous sort. They
plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of commodities. Nothing came amiss to them,
from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs. They had branch houses
at Alexandria and Odessa, and correspondents here, there, and everywhere,
along the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the ports of the East. These
correspondents were the persons alluded to in Mr. Branca's letter as "small
foreign firms;" and they had produced the serious financial crisis in the affairs of
the great house in Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London.
Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the privilege of drawing bills
on Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca for amounts varying from four to six thousand
