The paragraph was not altogether an inch long, but it proved enough to make Mr. Forde turn as faint and sick as many a man brave enough and honest enough had turned before in that very office.

In imagination he saw looming in the distance ruin and beggary. He heard the gates of St. Vedast Wharf close behind him for the last time. Things were worse with him, much worse than they had been when Mortomley's nephew came to say his uncle meant to go into liquidation, and Mr. Forde felt impelled once again to take his hat.

"I wish I had left then," he muttered.

If a house be tottering, the removal of even a single stone may hasten the impending catastrophe. As Mr. Forde believed, Mortomley was a most important stone in the edifice of his own safety, and yet even at that juncture it never occurred to him it was his own mad sledge-hammer blows had driven it so completely out of place that no one could ever hope to make it available at St. Vedast Wharf again.

Really the manager was to be pitied. If there chanced to be one thing more than another on which he piqued himself, it was his genius for diplomacy, and, as Mr. Gibbons said, he had done a neat thing when he employed his own solicitor to do Mortomley's work.

If everything could have been prevailed upon to work as he intended it should, Mr. Forde would have been comparatively at ease; but edged tools have sometimes a knack of cutting those who play with them, and already one of Mr. Forde's tools had inflicted upon him a nasty wound.

"I will go round to Basinghall Street," he said almost aloud, as though some balm of Gilead might be extracted even from Salisbury House, and he went round to find Mr. Swanland out, Mr. Asherill urbane and unctuous as ever.

Deriving little consolation from his unsatisfactory interview with the latter gentleman, he walked on to Kleinwort's office, only to find him absent also, and the time of his return uncertain.

Then, because he was able to think of no other person to whom he could speak on the subject, he turned into Werner's counting-house.

As usual, Mr. Werner was within and visible.

"Have you seen the 'Times'?" asked Mr. Forde, after the first greetings were exchanged.

"Yes," was the short reply.

"Were you not surprised?"

"I do not know. I suppose I was. I thought you would have expressed your wishes more clearly."

"Clearly!" No italics and no number of interjections could convey an idea of the tone in which Mr. Forde uttered this word. "Why, sir, I told Benning as plainly as I could speak I wanted the matter kept out of the papers, and if that was not sufficiently explicit, I repeated the same thing to Swanland, and now just see the mess they have got me into."

"What do your directors say?"

"I have not seen any of them yet. What I shall say to them I cannot imagine."

And Mr. Forde beat a dismal tattoo on the corner of the desk as he spoke.

Then ensued a pause, during which Werner looked out at the weather, which was wet and cheerless, and Mr. Forde looked at him.

"What do you think?" asked the manager at length.

"I do not think. What is the good of thinking? If you had not been so decided on having your own way and insisting on Benning taking out the order, this need never have happened; but you always imagine yourself cleverer than anybody else, and so overshot the mark. Have you been to Swanland?"

"Yes, he was out. I saw Asherill, however, who repudiated all knowledge of Mortomley and his affairs and Swanland and his doings. He blessed me and gave me a tract, and said he was going to speak at a meeting this evening on behalf of a mission to some hopeful heathens in Africa. He presented me with tickets and asked me to give them to any friend if I could not make use of them myself. Here they are."

Henry Werner took the tickets and tore them into small atoms, flinging these contemptuously into his waste basket.

"If he would speak on behalf of a mission to the heathens of the City of London, I could furnish him with some anecdotes calculated to adorn his address," he remarked. "But to return to Mortomley. In your place I should meet the difficulty boldly. There is nothing disgraceful about Mortomley's debt to you; nothing disgraceful about the man, spite of all the mud with which you have been pleased to bespatter him. His worst crime is illness, and that illness leaves you at liberty to make good any story you like to tell. If it were Kleinwort now--"

"Kleinwort would never serve me as Mortomley has done," interrupted Mr.

Forde.

"It is very hard to tell what any man would do till he is tried," said Mr. Werner sententiously.

"_You_ would not fail me. _You_ would always consider me. _You_ would remember I have a wife and family depending upon me," observed Mr. Forde entreatingly.

"If I were in a corner myself, I am quite certain I should do nothing of the kind," was the frank reply. "My dear fellow bring the case home. Do _you_ never fail other people? Do _you_ always consider me for instance?

Have _you_ given throughout the whole of this affair of Mortomley's one thought to his wife or child? No you have not, and no man in business does. You would pitch Kleinwort and me and a score more over to-morrow if you could do so safely, and we would pitch you over if any extraordinary temptation came in our way. You do not believe in us, and we do not believe in you; but we do believe we have amongst us got into such a cursed muddle we cannot afford to throw anybody overboard who might swim to land and tell the story of our voyage. That is the state of the case, my friend. It is not a cheerful view of the position, but it is the true one."

"I have no doubt you would throw anybody overboard and jeer him while he was drowning," said Mr. Forde bitterly. "Now let Kleinwort be what he may, he has a heart. He is not like you, Werner."

"Well that is a comfort at any rate," remarked Mr. Werner. "I do not think I should care to be like Kleinwort."

Mr. Forde did not reply. He always got the worst of the game when he engaged in a verbal duel with Mr. Werner, so he remained leaning against the corner of the desk for a minute or so in silence thinking how extremely disagreeable Werner was and how hardly every one dealt with him.

At length he roused himself and said, "I suppose there is no good in my staying here any longer."

"You are quite welcome to stay" was the reply; "but I agree with you that there is no good purpose to be served by your doing so."

"What a Job's comforter you are," sighed poor Mr. Forde.

"Job came all right in the end, if you remember," Mr. Werner replied.

"If you only fare ultimately half so well as he did you will not have much cause to complain."

"Yes, to-morrow must come, no matter how much sorrow to-day holds,"

answered Mr. Forde unconsciously paraphrasing one of Kleinwort's utterances. "If you see any of my people, Werner, do try to make things a little pleasant for me."

"You had better explain what you propose telling them, so that I may know the statement I am expected to back up," said Mr. Werner. "These things ought to be arranged beforehand."

But Mr. Forde had already banged the door and departed, so that the last utterance failed to reach his ears.

When Mr. Werner went out during the afternoon he met Mr. Kleinwort.

"Have not you some shares in that Spanish mine Green promoted," he inquired.

The German nodded.

"Well, I heard this morning from good authority that the mine will never pay, that the whole thing is a swindle, and was a swindle from the beginning."

"Ah! what a world is this," said Kleinwort with a pious and resigned expression of countenance.

"I do not think it is too late for you to sell," suggested Mr. Werner.

The German shrugged his shoulders.

"It matters not to me," he replied.

"I thought you said you had shares," remarked his companion.

"So I have; but they are in pledge don't you call it. That dear Forde wanted them and he has got them. How nice it is when a man has got what he wants."