He was in the habit of going
personally to see what had been offered to him. If the enterprise were
big enough, he thought little of taking a voyage to the other end of the
world for the sole purpose of looking the investment over. It was true
that in many cases he knew nothing whatever of the business he went to
examine, but that did not matter; he liked to have a personal inspection
where a large amount of his money was to be placed. Investment seemed to
be a sort of intuition with him. Often, when the experts' opinions were
unanimously in favour of the project, and when everything appeared to be
perfectly safe, Longworth would pay a personal visit to the business
offered for sale, and come to a sudden conclusion not to have anything to
do with it. He would give no reasons to his colleagues for his change of
front; he simply refused to entertain the proposal any further, and
withdrew. Several instances of this kind had occurred. Sometimes a large
and profitable business, held out in the prospectus to be exceedingly
desirable, had come to nothing, and when the company was wound up,
people remembered what Longworth had said about it. So there came to be a
certain superstitious feeling among those who knew him, that, if old Mr.
Longworth was in a thing, the thing was safe, and if a company promoter
managed to get his name on the prospectus, his project was almost certain
to succeed.
* * * * *
When Edith Longworth was pronounced finished so far as education was
concerned, she became more and more the companion of her father, and he
often jokingly referred to her as his man of business.
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