Rarely in these days did he enter Aldersbury without a feeling of elation. The very air of the town inspired him. The life of the streets, the movement of the markets, the sight of the shopkeepers at their doors, the stir and bustle had their appeal for him. He felt himself on his own ground; it was here and not in the waste places that his work lay, here that he was formed to conquer, here that he was conquering fortune. Garth was very well--a grand, a splendid reserve; but as he rode up the steep streets to the bank, he felt that here was his vocation. He sniffed the battle, his eyes grew brighter, his figure more alert. From some Huguenot ancestor had descended the Huguenot appetite for business, the Huguenot ability to succeed.
This morning, however, he did not reach the bank in his happiest mood.
Purslow, the irrepressible Purslow, stopped him, with a long face and a plaint to match. "Those Antwerp shares, Mr. Bourdillon! Excuse me, have you heard? They're down again--down twenty-five since Wednesday!
And that's on to five, as they fell the week before! Thirty down, sir!
I'm in a regular stew about it! Excuse me, sir, but if they fall much more----"
"You've held too long, Purslow," Arthur replied. "I told you it was a quick shot. A fortnight ago you'd have got out with a good profit. Why didn't you?"
"But they were rising--rising nicely. And I thought, sir----"
"You thought you'd hold them for a bit more? That was the long and short of it, wasn't it? Well, my advice to you now is to get out while you can make a profit."
"Sell?" the draper exclaimed. "Now?" It is hard to say what he had expected, but something more than this. "But I should not clear more than--why, I shouldn't make----"
"Better make what you can," Arthur replied, and rode on a little more cavalierly than he would have ridden a few months before.
He did not reflect how easy it is to sow the seeds of distrust.
Purslow, left alone to make the best of cold comfort, felt for the first time that his interests were not the one care of the bank. For the first time he saw the bank as something apart, a machine, cold, impassive, indifferent, proceeding on its course unmoved by his fortunes, good or bad, his losses or his gains. It was a picture that chilled him, and set him thinking.
Arthur, meantime, left his horse at the stables and let himself into the bank by the house-door. As he laid his hat and whip on the table in the hall, he caught the sound of an angry voice. It came from the bank parlor. He hesitated an instant, then he made up his mind, and stepping that way he opened the door.
The voice was Wolley's. The man was on his feet, angry, protesting, gesticulating. Ovington, his lips set, the pallor of his handsome face faintly tinged with color, sat behind his table, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingertips meeting.
Arthur took it all in. Then, "You don't want me?" he said, and he made as if he would close the door again. "I thought that you were alone, sir."
"No, stay," Ovington answered. "You may as well hear what Mr. Wolley has to say, though I have told him already----"
"What?" the clothier cried rudely. "Come! Let's have it in plain words!"
"That we can discount no more bills for him until the account against him is reduced. You know as well as I do, Mr. Wolley, that you have been drawing more bills and larger bills than your trade justifies."
"But I have to meet the paper I've accepted for wool, haven't I? And if my customers don't pay cash--as you know it is not the custom to pay--where am I to get the cash to pay the wool men?"
The banker took up one of two bills that lay on the table before him.
"Drawn on Samuel Willias, Manchester," he said. "That's a new name.
Who is he?"
"A customer. Who should he be?"
"That's the point," Ovington replied coldly. "Is he? And this other bill. A new name, too. Besides, we've already discounted your usual bills. These bills are additional. My own opinion is that they are accommodation bills, and that you, and not the acceptors, will have to meet them. In any case," dropping the slips on the table, "we are not going to take them."
"You won't cash them? Not on no terms?"
"No, we are going no further, Wolley," the banker replied firmly. "If you like I will send for the bill-book and ledger and tell you exactly what you owe, on bills and overdraft. I know it is a large amount, and you have made, as far as I can judge, no effort to reduce it. The time has come when we must stop the advances."
"And you'll not discount these bills?"
"No!"
"Then, by G--d, it's not I will be the only one to be ruined!" the man exclaimed, and he struck the table with his fist. The veins on his forehead swelled, his coarse mottled face became disfigured with rage.
He glared at the banker. But even as Ovington met his gaze, there came a change. The perspiration sprang out on his forehead, his face turned pale and flabby, he seemed to shrink and wilt. The ruin, which recklessness and improvidence had hidden from him, rose before him, certain and imminent. He saw his mill, his house, his all gone from him, saw himself a drunken, ruined, shiftless loafer, cadging about public-houses! "For God's sake!" he pleaded, "do it this once, Mr.
Ovington. Meet just these two, and I'll swear they'll be the last.
Meet these."
"No," the banker said. "We go no farther."
Perhaps the thought that he and Ovington had risen from the ranks together, that for years they had been equals, and that now the one refused his help to the other, rose and mocked the unhappy man. At any rate, his rage flared up anew. He swore violently. "Well, there's more than I will go down, then!" he said. "And more than will suit your book, banker! Wise as you think yourself, there's more bills out than you know of!"
"I am sorry to hear it."
"Ay, and you'll be more sorry by and by!" viciously. "Sorry for yourself and sorry that you did not give me a little more help, d--n you! Are you going to? Best think twice about it before you say no!"
"Not a penny," Ovington rejoined sternly. "After what you have admitted I should be foolish indeed to do so. You've had my last word, Mr. Wolley."
"Then damn your last word and you too!" the clothier retorted, and went out, cursing, into the bank, shouting aloud as he passed through it, that they were a set of bloodsuckers and that he'd have the law of them! Clement from his desk eyed him steadily. Rodd and the clerks looked startled. The customers--there were but two, but they were two too many for such a scene--eyed each other uneasily. A moment, and Clement, after shifting his papers uncertainly, left his desk and went into the parlor.
Ovington and Arthur had not moved. "What's the matter?" Clement asked.
The occurrence had roused him from his apathy. He looked from the one to the other, a challenge in his eyes.
"Only what we've been expecting for some time," his father answered.
"Wolley has asked for further credit and I've had to say, no. I've given him too much rope as it is, and we shall lose by him. He's an ill-conditioned fellow, and he is taking it ill."
"He wants a drubbing," said Clement.
"That is not in our line," Ovington replied mildly. "But," he continued--for he was not sorry to have the chance of taking his son into his confidence--"we are going to have plenty to think of that is in our line. Wolley will fail, and we shall lose by him; and I have no doubt that he is right in saying that he will bring down others. We must look to ourselves and draw in, as I warned Bourdillon some time ago. That noisy fellow may do us harm, and we must be ready to meet it."
Arthur looked thoughtful. "Antwerps have fallen," he said.
"I wish it were only Antwerps!" the banker answered. "You haven't seen the mail? Or Friday's prices? There's a fall in nearly everything.
True," looking from one to the other, "I've expected it--sooner or later; and it has come, or is coming. Yes, Rodd? What is it?"
The cashier had opened the door. "Hamar," he said in a low voice, "wants to know if we will buy him fifty of the railroad shares and advance him the face value on the security of the shares. He'll find the premium himself. He thinks they are cheap after the drop last week."
The banker shook his head. "No," he said. "We can't do it, tell Mr.
Hamar."
"It would support the shares," Arthur suggested.
"With our money. Yes! But we've enough locked up in them already. Tell him, Rodd, that I am sorry, but it is not convenient at present."
"They are still at a premium of thirty shillings," Arthur put in.
"Is the door shut, Rodd?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thirty shillings? And that might run off in a week, Mr. Secretary.
No, the time is come when we must not shilly-shally. I see your view and the refusal may do harm. But we have enough money locked up in the railway, and with the outlook such as it is, I will not increase the note issues. They are already too large, as we may discover. We must say no, Rodd, but tell him to come and see me this evening, and I will explain."