was going to default. Peabody
issued an open letter calling on the citizens of Maryland to preserve
their commercial honor. The State bonds were held mostly in New York and
Philadelphia, and these were rival cities. Baltimore was to be tabu.
Stephen Girard had loaned money to Maryland, and in Eighteen Hundred
Twenty-nine had declined to renew, and this some said had led to the
stringency which reached its height in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-five.
Then it was that the State of Maryland empowered George Peabody to go to
London and negotiate a loan. The initiative was his own. He went to
London, and floated a loan of eight million dollars. Robert Owen said
that Peabody borrowed the money "on his face."

He invited a dozen London bankers to a dinner, and when the cloth was
removed he explained the matter in such a lucid way that the moneybags
loosened their strings and did his bidding without parley. Peabody
sailed back to Baltimore with the gold coin. Another case of Charm of
Manner.

Peabody knew the loan was a good thing to both borrower and lender. And
the man who knows what he is going to do with money, and when and how he
is going to pay it back, is never at a loss for funds.

In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three Andrew Carnegie called upon the banks
of Pittsburgh for a million-dollar loan. The bankers said, "Why, Mr.
Carnegie, this is unprecedented!" The reply was: "Well, I am a man who
does unprecedented things. If you believe that I know what I am doing,
get this money together for me--life is too short for apologies--I'll be
back in an hour."

Three of the bankers coughed, one sneezed, but they got the money and
had it ready when Andy called in an hour. In this transaction Andy held
the whip-hand. The Carnegie Mills were already owing the Pittsburgh
banks a tidy million or so, and they were compelled to uphold and
support the credit of their clients, or run the risk of having
smokestacks fall about their ears. It was so, in degree, with Peabody
and the London bankers. A considerable portion of Maryland's old bond
issue had been hypothecated by the Philadelphia and New York bankers
with merchants in London. It was now Peabody's cue to show London that
she must protect her own. His gracious presence and his logic saved the
day. It is a great man who can flick a fly on the off-leader's ear, when
occasion demands.

As a commission for securing the London loan, the State of Maryland gave
Peabody a check for sixty thous