I really cannot say how deeply touched I was by this man's gentle kindness, and the more because of its contrast with my treatment by the well-paid official, and I made a mental vow that if ever I were able to repay him, I would be as lavish in doing so as my circumstances would permit. Then I told him that I could not be so brutally independent as to throw his kindness back at him, and I would accept his help with gratitude. He nodded gravely, took the papers from me, drew his fountain pen from his pocket, and sat down to work.
Now for anything I know it may be necessary to make the formulæ of bankruptcy proceedings as difficult, technical, and prolix as possible, not being an expert I dare not offer an opinion, but I do know that this expert who had now come to my assistance, although working with great skill and rapidity, took several hours to prepare the documents demanded, and then much of what was put down was fiction, had to be, since I had kept no books, and even though my memory was phenomenally good, it was far from equal to the demands now made upon it. But at last the dread business was complete, we took those forms to another official who merely glanced through them, secured them together with green cord, and handed us a piece of parchment (I believe) which we had to write certain matters upon, and then take to another part of the building to be stamped.
Up till now I had only paid £5, but now I was to disburse another £5 for the privilege of becoming a bankrupt, the first £5 having been as security for costs. So we handed the mystic document we bore to a man who looked like a superior workman, who took it from us, and held out his hand for my £5. When I had paid him, he took a stamp from a drawer, and after pumice-stoning the parchment in a certain place, and doing something else to the back of the stamp, carried the latter over to where a glue-pot stood simmering on a gas ring. Here he anointed the stamp, placed it on the document, put the latter in a press, and then obliterated the stamp in two or three other ways. I never saw so much work upon a stamp before. But then, to be sure, it was a stamp representing £5 sterling.
This operation was almost the last for the day, which was now wearing to a close. My good friend, Mr Hardhat, merely took the last document to another part of the building while I waited for him. When he returned he told me that my preliminary examination was fixed for the second day afterwards at eleven in the morning, and that until then nothing further could be done. But he also assured me that I was now ipso facto bankrupt, and that I was on no account to pay anybody anything on account of debt, for that would be a misdemeanour. If any of my creditors took action, with the exception of the landlord, who might distrain for his overdue rent, I had only to show them a certain slip of paper I possessed, and that would, in sea-metaphor, choke their luffs.
I thanked him, and made for home, determined to devote the next day to some good hard work at the bench, framing up such pictures and texts as I had in stock, so as to use up the remainder of my moulding, backboard, glass, etc. And then I should perhaps be able to make a forced sale, and raise some ready money. With these thoughts in my mind, I turned the corner of Ashbourne Grove into Lordship Lane, and not looking where I was going, I ran into a man whom I at once recognised as the lessee of my former shop and my present first floor front room. We greeted one another heartily, and he said, "Let's see, I owe you a week's rent, here it is," and he placed three and sixpence in my hand. He went on, "I shan't want you to store that furniture for more than a week or two longer, for I am very nearly through my difficulties, and I am thinking of taking a nice little business in Dalston." As soon as he had said this, I remarked gravely, "I don't want to frighten you, but if you'll take my advice you'll shift those sticks out of where they are now with the least possible delay. I told you when you put them there that I was in Queer Street, and to-day I have been adjudicated bankrupt. Now, you know what that means."
He stared at me wildly for a moment, as if he had seen a ghost, and then cried, "Merciful heavens, I must hurry up." Off he rushed down the lane, leaving me laughing to think of my experience of the lame leading the blind. But I was very glad of his three and six all the same, and not having eaten all day save for a crust of bread and cheese at noon, I determined that something hot for supper should be forthcoming. Procuring the materials for this meal took me some little time, and when I arrived at the shop, my poor little tenant drew up at the door with a coal-trolly, which he had hired somewhere on the spur of the moment. I at once opened the side door for him and it was really a sight to see how he toiled to get his household goods out, especially in contrast with the calm deliberateness of the coal-heaver.
When it was all on the trolly, he gave a great sigh of relief, and came into the shop mopping his streaming head. "Well, old chap," he gasped, "that's as narrow a squeak as I want; and I can't blame anybody but myself, for I ought to have let you know where to find me. However, it's all right now, and I only hope you'll get through your trouble as I've done. Good-bye." And he went out of my life.
I worked very hard the next day for two reasons, first, I did want to get as much stuff ready for sale as possible, my sense of absolute honesty having already become considerably blunted by contact with that temple of fraud in Carey Street; and secondly, because I did not want to brood over the terrible possibility of my landlord coming in by deputy and seizing all my poor belongings—for in my simplicity I still looked upon them as mine, totally oblivious of the fact that, in the eyes of the law, I now possessed absolutely nothing except necessary clothing and bedding, tools and cooking utensils. Now and then the thought would obtrude itself that after all these years of toil and stress, I had brought, vulgarly speaking, my pigs to a pretty fine market, but my sense of relief from the misery I had so long endured outweighed any other consideration, and I was not at all melancholy.
My day's work was a fruitful one, for I managed to knock up quite a number of little frames for which, if low in price, I was fairly sure of a ready sale for that reason. And I also put the last touches on my tidying up, as well as getting ready such small goods as I knew I should be allowed to retain. I also secured a place of refuge—a house to move into—from a local house agent, secured it too without the slightest concealment from him of all my circumstances. But then he was a good fellow, and never backward in doing a good turn if he could. Thus at the end of the day I felt ready for the crisis of to-morrow. Hitherto there had only been verbiage writing and payment of fees; to-morrow, Mr Hardhat informed me, would see definite action being taken. But of that I will write in the next chapter.