"Do you mean to say that your cashier embezzled many thousand pounds every year?"
"I am afraid that such was the fact."
The barrister asked no farther questions.
Another opposing counsel interrogated the bankrupt relative to his affairs; but Tomlinson's replies were given in a manner which afforded no scope for suspicion.
Ah! none divined how much it cost that unhappy man thus to heap shame and infamy upon the head of a faithful old clerk, who had never wronged him of a shilling!
The case terminated by the declaration of the commissioner that the bankrupt had passed his second examination.
Tomlinson was glad to escape from the frightful ordeal to which his feelings had been subjected for two mortal hours; and, while he hurried home to conceal his emotions from every eye, and meditate upon his condition in private, Mr. Greenwood busied himself in obtaining signatures for his certificate. This was an easy matter to a man of the financier's powers of persuasion; and that very afternoon the names of four-fifths of the bankrupt's creditors were attached to the parchment which was to relieve him of all past embarrassments.
When Greenwood took the certificate to Tomlinson in the evening, he said, "My dear fellow, you will soon be a new man. In one-and-twenty days this document will have passed the Lord Chancellor and the Court of Review, and be duly registered in Basinghall Street. I will then lend you a thousand pounds, at only twenty per cent., to start you as a stock-broker. You see how well I have managed your business. You have passed through the Court—and you have kept your furniture."
"Which I would have given up to my creditors, had you permitted me," said Tomlinson sorrowfully.
"Nonsense, my dear fellow! Never give away what you can keep by a little manœuvring. Your landlord can now withdraw his friendly seizure, and all will be well."