CHAPTER XVI THROUGH TO FREEDOM
I suppose that there are few things more demoralising to an assimilative mind than the association with places of a demoralising tendency. Which I do not intend as a profound remark, but as the fruit of actual experience. At any rate I know that when I first entered the Bankruptcy Court, I felt a profound pity for the listless, hopeless, slouching-looking figures I saw haunting its purlieus. But when I went up this morning, for my preliminary examination, I felt as listless, hopeless, and slouching as any of them—I had enlisted in the great army of the insolvent, and no matter how void of offence my conscience might be, in that I had not wilfully or in extravagance defrauded any man, the taint of debt, the virus of unutterable meanness which makes the Chinese commit suicide, bowed my head, rounded my shoulders, and robbed me of my self-respect.
I only had to wait about two hours this morning before my turn came on. When it did, and I was summoned to stand before an inquisitor, I received a sudden shock. For, behold, the dread Rhadamanthus to whom I must unveil my most secret sorrows and troubles was a young man whom I had often seen coming up Victoria Street with a similar individual, and had loathed from the depths of my soul. His garb was immaculate as regards the latest fashion, his collar as high as human endurance would permit, his trousers creased in exactly the right line, turned up to exactly the proper height; he slouched at exactly the angle prescribed by his class (or the class to which he wished to appear to belong), and, crowning iniquity, he wore a monocle in his left eye. Altogether a "Johnny" of the Johnniest. And he was my inquisitor!
He took several huge sheets of paper (printed forms of course), and began what I saw was a stereotyped set of questions with a bored air and yet an unpersonal way with him, almost as if he were addressing a penny-in-the-slot machine, which was rather helpful. I was a long time before him, and I answered his questions to the best of my ability, but often I fear with a desire to get the examination over rather than with any keen attention to accuracy. It was a curious business altogether, perfunctory in the extreme, and I had then no idea what my answers would be used for. I learned later.
When released I sought my faithful friend, who advised me to get home with all speed, for that an official appraiser would call upon me that afternoon, and it would be well that I should meet him. So I returned with haste, reaching home a long time before the individual indicated. I must say I awaited him with considerable trepidation, for I gathered that he would be of much the same character as several of the same class I had sorrowfully made acquaintance with before.
This is not the least of the sorrows which beset the poor, the manner in which their goods are distrained upon for a small debt, and furniture honestly worth twenty times the sum due is taken, and I was going to say sold—but it is never sold then, it is given away to a gang of heartless rogues, who make it their business to fatten upon the robbery of the poor within the law. In my case, however, there was no fear that they would take more than I owed. My furniture had cost me well over £100, and the two counters in the shop would easily have sold second-hand for £10, but I doubt if the whole of my chattels put together could, even if sold in a shop to the public, have been made to realise more than £30. It was not good furniture when I bought it, and though some of it was not now very old, it stood revealed as what it was, shoddy-built, of unseasoned wood, varnished instead of polished, upholstered with American cloth or sham velvet, and stuffed with unclassable rubbish.
My visitor arrived at about three o'clock, and to my relief he was quite a respectable and civil man. He quietly announced his errand as if it was a duty he was sorry to perform, and therefore I hastened to assure him that I could readily dissociate a man from his employment. Thus his work went on very smoothly, and was exceedingly soon over. Then he closed his book and turning to me said, "You haven't got much." I smiled wanly, and made no reply for obvious reasons. Then he went on to inform me that although he was an appraiser of the Court his inventory was only taken for the official purpose of checking the accounts of the firm to whom they would presently assign the task of dealing with it. And bade me a courteous good day, leaving me wishing that the whole degrading business was over.
Still I must say in strict justice that so far as it had gone, and remembering the immense number of formalities to be gone through, there had been scarcely any delay, but that I think was largely due to my personal interest in the matter and the energy I put into it. And now I was, all unknowing, come nearly to the end of the miserable business as far as my comfort and relief was concerned. I had one more quiet Sunday at the shop, spent in the usual way, and on Monday morning there arrived a man like a jovial costermonger of the better class out for a holiday—one of those men who are born comedians, whom to look at is to laugh, unless one is so sour or so sad that laughter is an impossibility. My very heart warmed to him, and when I found that he represented the firm of auctioneers, who were to deal with my chattels, I felt quite relieved, though I could not then have known any reason why I should be.
He was exceedingly abrupt and swift in all his movements, so that before I had realised that he had been through one room, he was beckoning me into the shop with a comic forefinger and an air of mystery. When I came up to him smiling in spite of myself, he said in a hoarse whisper, "Now, look y'ere, Guvnor, 'ow much yer goin' ter bid fer this little lot?" and he bent his brows upon me in a funny frown. I stared at him blankly, and then stammered out, "I—I don't know what you mean." "Ow, you don't, don't yer. Well, I'll 'splaint yer. If I sen's one of our vans daown 'ere, and clears your sticks aht, we cawn't tike the trouble t' sell'em orf bit by bit. 'Taint likely. Theyn't worf it. Nah, wot we sh'll do is ter sen rahnd t'one of ahr small Jew 'angers on, an' sye, 'Nah then, Moses or Abrams or Jyecob, as the kise mye be, wot yer givin' t' clear aht this little lot.' An' it's six ter four that we tikes 'is fust orfer, 'cause it don't matter t' us a bit on a little job like that, we gets the same commishun. Now, I mean that ter prevent that there kerlamity 'appenin' t'yer, you mike a bid for 'em yerself, an' you tike it strite from me that if your bid is anythin' over rubbish price ahr Guvnor 'll jump at it, syevin the trouble er tikin' it awye too an' all."