"What has happened?" asked Mr. Perry again.
"Arst 'im. 'E'll tell you," said Eppstein.
"I would rather you did," I said. "You can put it more lucidly."
"Well, they've been rocky for a long time," explained Eppstein, "but they bulled them up, and never let on that they'd come to the end of their lode. But this afternoon the news come that there's been no gold for a long time, and they've been paying interest out of capital. And that ain't all. There's never been more than five shillings a share paid on them. They're calling up another five shillings at the end of a month, and they'll call up the rest at three months' intervals, and then they'll wind up. 'Oward, I don't bear no malice—you've got the bulge on all of us this time—and I should like to shake 'ands with you."
I shook hands with him, my brain in a tumult, then with his wife, and finally with Mr. Perry, who had by this time taken in the full meaning of Eppstein's announcement, which was a good deal more than I had.
It was Hobson who brought home to me the appalling reality.
"He came to me," he said accusingly, "and offered to take twenty or thirty thousand pounds from me as a free gift. He led me up to offering him all my holding in Mount Lebanons. If I had kept them I should have stood to lose over £140,000 now, and should have been entitled to pay up another £26,000 in calls—nearly £170,000 in all. And now he has lost all that, and I say it isn't fair. He has swindled me."
There followed an altercation between him and Eppstein and Mr. Perry. Mr. Perry rebuked him for the unfounded accusations he had made against me, and Eppstein told him that he was the swindler if he expected to lose it both ways. But still, he kept on repeating his reproaches, and finally I took a bold resolution, and generously offered to let him have his shares back again.
But neither Eppstein nor Mr. Perry would hear of this, and I was not in a position to press it. After all, Hobson had already lost the full value of his shares, and could only stand to gain by the amount he would have had to pay up on the calls.