Derring Dos & Don'ts
An instructive guide for the English adventurer

Part Seven: Wealth

There is nothing more important than money. As the saying goes, "as long as you've got your wealth, that's the main thing". But how does one obtain a fortune, and more importantly keep it? Allow me to outline the options:

Inheritance

If your parents are rich, it is simply a matter of playing the waiting game. Or, if you are in a hurry, try arsenic.

Of course, once you're a parent yourself, you should be prepared for your brats getting the same idea. I've made it clear to all my offspring – legitimate or otherwise – that they won't get a bean when I croak.

Why else do so many wills leave everything to animal charities and Our Glorious Nation? It's not because we're cat-loving patriots, I can tell you.

I've outlived several of my children already, but then it's pretty much open season on them from birth.

Marriage

If you can't inherit money, marry it. A chap need only snap up one of those young heiresses that keep coming onto the market. Many have dowries the size of the gross domestic product of Belgium, plus deeds to impressive properties bursting from their voluminous undergarments. Some may also have other assets worth stripping, but sex in these matters should always be regarded as secondary.

Manual labour

I've heard some total arse suggest that one should purchase one of those newfangled 'bicycles' and go look for work. The very idea stinks like Delhi in July!

Firstly, a gentleman does not work (the point would be what?). And on a practical note, what would all the servants do? Butlers, housekeepers, gatekeepers, innkeepers and prostitutes would be left standing idle.

Travel overseas

If home-grown opportunities are not immediate, or if dogs of war and goons of lender are necessitating a radical departure, then it's time to find yourself a far-flung outpost of the Empire (FFotE).

Once you have established yourself in foreign climes, spend a few years happily fleecing the natives.

Your coffers can be replenished through implementation of a diligent programme of civilising the indigenous populace. Modernising influences I recommend are pyramid selling (the occupants are long dead) and time-shares: sharing the natives' time on a fair and practical basis, where I get the waking hours.

When it comes to squeezing money out of the New World, Germany, Belgium and France are up to much the same thing, but we Brits still show 'em the way. To my mind this is one of our great patriotic duties.

Incidentally, whoever thought of marking out the Empire on the map with all that awful pink to lull the natives into a false sense of security was a bloody genius.

Philanthropy

I am not heartless. I have done my small best to share my wealth with those less fortunate.

For example, occasionally one of my less acceptable lady friends (e.g. one who was not an heiress, or with whom I had dalliances with whilst otherwise engaged) would find herself expecting one of my numerous bastards.

In these cases I have done the honourable thing and had them incarcerated in mental asylums. Institutions which, in fact, I had founded for this purpose, and which were therefore tax deductible.

Actually, the asylum business has proven quite lucrative, particularly after I began offering the service to the chaps in my gaming circle, who, like myself, occasionally found themselves with fertilised females necessitating discrete sectioning.

This solution may sound harsh, but these women would otherwise have become single parents, wholly dependent on charitable donations. So in a very real way, this is another of my selfless contributions to society.

~ R.A.

Illo: S.C.