"The claims lodged against you, Bannister, amount to exactly one pound twelve shillings and eightpence; but I think you told me that the tuck-woman was also a creditor. If so, she ought to be here."
"THE TOTAL LIABILITIES ARE EXACTLY TWO POUNDS," SAID GIDEON.
"I have spoken to her," I said, "and she says that I owe her seven shillings and fourpence. That is the figure. I told her that I was going to have a meeting of creditors, and she said I was beginning early and that she wished she could let me off, but that she had an invalid husband and twenty small children at home—or some such number."
"Then the debt ranks good," said Gideon. So he added the seven and fourpence to the one pound twelve shillings and eightpence.
"The total liabilities are exactly two pounds," said Gideon. "Now, Bannister, as the debts are admitted to be two pounds, the next question is, what are the assets? I may tell you kids," he continued, turning to Corkey minimus, and Fairlawn and Frost, who were the smallest of the creditors in size and age, "that the word 'assets,' which you very likely do not know, means what Bannister has got to pay you with. You have made him a bankrupt and he owes you two pounds; so now the simple question is how much can he pay of that money? Of course he can't pay it all—else he wouldn't be a bankrupt—but he is going to pay according to his assets. Now, Bannister," he concluded, turning to me, "you'd better tell the meeting what your assets are. Does everybody understand?"
Everybody understood, or said they did, except Frost, and he kept on saying over and over again, like a parrot, "Fivepence and a lead pencil, five-pence and a lead pencil," till Gideon at last had to tell him to shut up and not interfere with the meeting.
Then I spoke. I said, in finite a quiet sort of way, as if it was an everyday thing—
"I have decided to pay something in the pound, Gideon."
But Gideon was rather impatient.