The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-06-24

PARIS, June 1O.-It is good to
bank with the Paris Rothschilds--
even when you have no money.
Nowadays they refuse all new &C.
counts. Only old depositors are
kept on.
It is strange bank, in the Rue
Laffltte, without name or sign. 1t
ers, rented out in flats to silent ten
ants. A polyglot PORTER at the
entrance seems altogether in the
service of the Austrian consulate
an American went there three times
for his auto-tryptic and imagined it
to be the only business office. Aged
Baron Gustave is consul general-Co
please Franz Josef.
Up the great stairs, where twenty
can walk abreast, it looks like a
mournful aristocratic old London
club, vast stone pillars, magnificent
balustrade, relics of the first Paris
Rothschild, Baron James, and his
wife Evelina.
For fifty years the son kept the
garden of their mother, with its huge
trees, in mid-business-Paris. Only
the cutting of street destroyed it.
Speak English, and you are led to
salons where retired British cavalry
colonel with soft, rich brogue and
time-killing sociability makes you
forget your business, while silent
clubmen wander in and read the pa
pers. You are being studied.
$50
Speak French, and you are let to
wander in spacious club hall. Mel
ancholy elderly gentlemen, perfectly
dressed, seem boring themselves,
smoking, yawning, studying the
stranger. Soon, one or two will take
you off for social intercourse, in
some little bijou parlor. In the end
they will discover your business.
The reason is that few enter
Rothschilds without reason. All are
taken to be worth an unprecedented
first impression.
A young Frenchman with ideas
like these stood by the deathbed OF
his father, an honorable old army
officer, who had played a good role
in war and commune.
''Keep honor" whispered the dying
man; and handing a small, fiat book,
added painfully: Bank your spare
money with them. If ever in tight
place, draw, but never without need
in honor"
It was a Rothschild check book.
Few in Paris nave seen one. Later
the young man had the account trans
ferred and made a small deposit. The
French seldom draw checks; he drew
none. Time passed. First, he put
away small spare sums with the
Rothschilds. Then he grew hard up
and took out One day he awoke to a
great need. Counting up his balance
he saw that it lacked 400 francs Of a
sum he must pay in honor, Dare he
overdraw?
He went to the Rue LafIitte, up the
vast, silent stairway, to the melan'
choly club. Engaged in chat about
the opera by two charming gray
whiskered idiers, ne at last found
opportunity to spring the question:
"Would I dare to overdraw 4OO
francs?"
you have an account with Roth
schild. Use it," said the blue-eyed
one with the red nose.
"Are there no blank checks in your
book?" inquired the pale brunette
with solicitude.
Desperately the young Frenchmar
wrote the check, passed it ln-anc
got the money. In two months hl
had paid back the overdraft and ha-
small credit Time passed. His
finances did not improve, yet he wa
economical. Now and then ne over
drew and paid back, until Gay came
when, not having paid back, ne haf
an immense need to draw again.
Trembling, he made a second over
draft-and got the money. He wa
ashamed. Once or twice he tried Il
explain to those clubmen, but the
failed to understand or deemed 1t o
no Importance. So, being pressed, H.
came to overdraw a third time, an
a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. Fl
has now stopped counting, He doe
.,Nt attan,rt ~ snIua the MYSTERY