"Tell him to step this way."
The clerk withdrew; and the old cashier entered the room, the door of which he carefully closed.
"Good morning, Michael," said the banker. "What news?"
"Worse and worse," answered the old man, with a species of savage grunt. "We have had a sad time of it for the last three months."
"For the last seven or eight years, you may say," observed Tomlinson, with a sigh; and then his countenance suddenly wore an expression of ineffable despair—as evanescent as it was poignant.
"At first the work was easy enough," said Michael: "a little combination and tact enabled us to struggle on; but latterly the concern has fallen into so desperate a condition, that I really fear when I come in the morning that it will never last through the day."
"My God! my God! what a life!" exclaimed Tomlinson. "And there are hundreds and thousands who pass up the street every day, and who say within themselves. 'How I wish I was James Tomlinson!' Heavens! I would that I were a beggar in the street—a sweeper of a crossing—a pauper in a workhouse——"
"Come—this is folly," interrupted the old cashier impatiently. "We must go on to the end."
"What is the state of your book this morning?" demanded the banker, putting the question with evident alarm—almost amounting to horror.
"Three thousand four hundred pounds, eighteen shillings, in specie—sixteen hundred and thirty-five in notes," answered the cashier.