When Mr. Brown had made this disclosure, whispering all the time as he leaned his head and shoulder on Robinson's upright desk, they both remained silent for a while. "We have been wrong," he had said; "I know we have." And Robinson, as he heard the words, perceived that from the beginning to the end he had been a victim. No wonder that the business should not have answered, when such confessions as these were wrung from the senior partner! But the fact alleged by Mr. Brown in his own excuse was allowed its due weight by Robinson, even at that moment. Mr. Brown had possessed money,—money which might have made his old age comfortable and respectable in obscurity. It was not surprising that he should be anxious to keep in his own hand some small remnant of his own property. But as for Jones! What excuse could be made for Jones! Jones had been a thief; and worse than ordinary thieves, for his thefts were committed on his own friends.
"And he has got the money," said Robinson.
"Oh, yes!" said Mr. Brown, "there's no doubt in life about that."
"Then, by the heaven above us, he shall refund it to the firm from which he has stolen it," shouted Robinson, striking the desk with his fist as he did so.
"Whish, George, whish; Brisket will hear you."
"Who cares? I have been robbed on every side till I care for nothing! What is Brisket to me, or what is your daughter? What is anything?"
"But, George—"
"Is there no honesty left in the world, Mr. Brown? That there is no love I had already learned. Ah me, what an age is this in which we live! Deceit, deceit, deceit;—it is all deceit!"
"The heart of a man is very deceitful," said Mr. Brown. "And a woman's especially."
"Delilah would have been a true wife now-a-days. But never mind. That man is still there, and he must be answered. I have no hundred pounds to give him."