roses.
“So sorry, dad,” she said, strolling up to the table. “I understood that you were alone. Here are the roses,” she added, laying them upon the table without enthusiasm. “Are you coming up west for luncheon to-day?”
“My dear,” Mr. Bultiwell replied, “I am engaged just now. By the bye, you know Mr. Pratt, don’t you? Pratt, you remember my daughter?”
Jacob, whose memories of that young lady, with her masses of yellow hair and most alluring smile, had kept him in fairyland for three months, and a little lower than hell for the last two years, took fierce command of himself as he rose to his feet and received a very cordial but somewhat forced greeting from this unexpected visitor.
“Of course I know Mr. Pratt,” she answered, “and I hope he hasn’t altogether forgotten me. The last time I saw you, you bicycled over one evening, didn’t you, to see my father’s roses, and we made you play tennis. I remember how cross dad was because you played without shoes.”
“Mr. Pratt is doubtless better provided in these days,” Bultiwell observed with an elephantine smile. “What about running over to see us to-night or to-morrow night in that new car of yours, Pratt, eh?”
“Do come,” the young lady begged, with a very colourable imitation of enthusiasm. “I am longing for some tennis.”
“You are very kind,” Jacob replied. “May I leave it open just for a short time?”
“Certainly, certainly!” Mr. Bultiwell agreed. “Sybil, run along and sit in the waiting-room for a few minutes. I’ll take you up to the Carlton, if I can spare the time. May take Mr. Pratt, perhaps.”
Sybil passed out, flashing a very brilliant if not wholly natural smile into Jacob’s face, as he held open the door. Mr. Bultiwell watched the latter anxiously as he returned slowly to his place. He was not altogether satisfied with the result of his subtle little plot.
“Where were we?” he continued, struggling hard to persevere in that cheerfulness which sat upon him in these days like an ill-fitting garment. “Ah! I know—eighty thousand pounds and an equal partnership. How does that appeal to you, Mr. Pratt?”
“There were one or two points in the balance sheet which struck me,” Jacob confessed, gazing down at his well-creased trousers. “The margin between assets and liabilities, though small, might be considered sufficient, but the liability on bills under discount seemed to me extraordinarily large.”
Mr. Bultiwell’s pencil, which had been straying idly over the blotting pad by his side, stopped. He looked at his visitor with a frown.
“Credits must always be large in our trade,” he said sharply. “You know that, Mr. Pratt.”
“Your credits, however,” Jacob pointed out, “are abnormal. I ventured to take out a list of six names, on each one of whom you have acceptances running to the tune of twenty or thirty thousand pounds.”
“The majority of my customers,” Mr. Bultiwell declared, with a little catch in his breath, “are as safe as the Bank of England.”
Jacob produced a very elegant morocco pocketbook, with gold edges, and studied a slip of paper which he held towards his companion.
“Here is a list of the firms,” he continued. “I have interviewed most of them and made it worth their while to tell me the truth. There isn’t one of them that isn’t hopelessly insolvent. They are being kept on their legs by you and your bankers, simply and solely to bolster up the credit of the House of Bultiwell.”
“Sir!” Mr. Bultiwell thundered.
“I should drop that tone, if I were you,” Jacob advised coldly. “You have been a bully all your life, and a cruel one at that. Lately you have become dishonest. When the firm of Bultiwell is compelled to file its petition in bankruptcy, which I imagine will be a matter of only a few weeks, I do not envy you your examination before the official receiver.”
Mr. Bultiwell collapsed like a pricked bladder. He shrivelled in his clothes. There was a whine in his tone as he substituted appeal for argument.
“There’s good business to be done here still,” he pleaded. “Even if the firm lost a little money on those names, there are two of them at least who might weather the storm, with reasonable assistance. Pratt, they tell me you’re pretty well a millionaire. I’m sorry if I was hard on you in the old days. If you won’t take a partnership, will you buy the business?”
Jacob laughed scornfully.
“If I were ten times a millionaire,” he said, rising to his feet, “I would never risk a penny of my money to rid you of the millstone you have hung around your neck. It is going to be part of my activity in life, Mr. Bultiwell, to assist nature in dispensing justice. For many years you have ruled the trade in which we were both brought up, and during the whole of that time you have never accomplished a single gracious or kindly action. You have wound up by trying to drag me into a business which is rotten to the core. Your accountants may be technically justified in reckoning that hundred and forty thousand pounds owed you by those six men as good, because they never failed, but you yourself know that they are hopelessly insolvent, and that the moment you stop renewing their bills they will topple down like ninepins.... I would not help you if you were starving. I shall read of your bankruptcy with pleasure. There is, I think, nothing more to be said.”
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