Explore "The Cad's Encyclopædia" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I have a wealthy friend. He made his money by accident during the war. The Government owed him £500. A careless clerk (who was talking to a minx at the time) added three noughts without thinking, and on his modestly pointing out the error, the department wrote back to say they never made mistakes. And so it rested at that. After long hesitation how to get rid of all this money, he is at last engaged upon what I cannot but think a very useful work. I only wish that every rich man could be inspired by similarly valuable ideas, instead of frittering away money upon buying newspapers and souls and uneatable food in noisy restaurants.
This rich friend of mine had always had the idea, when he was poor, of getting together a Cad's Encyclopedia.