ene of Act I.

The next day I went to the Continental Bank, in Lombard street, and
bought sight exchange on Paris for 200,000 francs, paying for it by a
check on the Bank of England. I was given a note of identification to
the Paris agent of the bank.

That night I left Victoria Station for Paris. At 10 the next morning I
had my money, and, going to the Place de la Bourse, near the Exchange, I
commissioned a broker, who was a member of the Exchange, to purchase
bills on London for L8,000. I cautioned him to buy bills drawn only on
well-known banking houses. About 3 o'clock he had the bills ready. I
paid him the amount, along with his commission, and, examining the
paper, found that he had purchased for me about what I wanted.

I will explain, for the benefit of any reader not conversant with
financial transactions, that if John Russell, cotton broker in Savannah,
ships a thousand bales of cotton to a firm in Manchester, England, the
firm in Manchester authorizes him to draw a bill of exchange on their
firm, payable at some London bank at three or six months' time, for the
value of the cotton. We will say the price is L10,000. Russell draws ten
bills for L1,000 each, say payable at the Union Bank of London. He gives
these bills to a money broker in Savannah, who sells them on the
Exchange and gets for them whatever the rate of exchange may then be on
London. The president of the Georgia Central Railroad may have ordered a
thousand tons of steel rail in England for his road, and to pay for them
he orders a broker to buy for him bills on London to the amount of the
cost of the rails. He purchases the Russell bills, and these bills of
exchange he sends in payment to the steel rail manufacturers in England,
so, as a matter of fact, the president of the Georgia Central pays
Russell for his thousand bales of cotton, but has the bills of exchange.
So, in place of L10,000 in gold being freighted twice across the ocean,
the ten pieces of paper cross only once. These ten bills for L1,000
each, drawn on the Union Bank of London at six months, in due time are
presented, duly accepted and paid at maturity by the bank.

Instead of commercial notes or bills they are now known as acceptances,
and are just as good as a bank note. Therefore, if the owner--no matter
who it is--wants the money at once, any bank will discount all or either
for the face value less the interest. In every commercial centre of the
world these accepted bills a