"We all know that. That's what we're here for," he said.
"You couldn't all know it," I answered, "because none of you knew that I'd got a pound. You can't pay something in the pound unless you've got one. And I thought it might interest the creditors at this meeting to know that I have got one."
They were frightfully interested, naturally, and even Gideon was. I put it into his hand and he looked at it and turned it over and nodded.
"The assets are a pound," said Gideon; "I've no doubt you'll all be glad to hear that."
The chaps evidently felt very different to me when they heard the assets were a pound, because most of them, as they told me afterwards, didn't know there were any assets at all. They got rather excited, in fact, and Fowle even asked if there might be any more assets.
But I said, "No. There is only this pound. When I became bankrupt I determined that I would pay something in the pound, and I wrote to private friends and put the position before them, and they quite agreed with me and sent the pound; and now I am going to pay something in it. I don't quite know what that means, but it is an honourable and proper thing to do; and Gideon does know what it means, and I shall be very much obliged to him if he will say what I am to pay in it."
"It is quite easy," said Gideon. "You have a debt; you can't pay it all, so you pay so much in the pound."
"That's what I'm going to do," I said.
"The question is, how much you're going to pay in the pound," said Forrest, who had made more row than all the rest of the creditors put together, though I only owed him a penny.
"I know that's the question without your telling me," I answered. "Gideon has the pound, and he will say what I am to pay in it."