“But,” went on the other, “I want to make good, I want to clear up the mess.”
The lawyer sighed. Then he took a small piece of chamois leather from his waistcoat pocket and began to polish his glasses.
“You remember what I told you the day before yesterday,” said he; “have you determined to take my advice? Then you had nothing to offer me but some wild talk about suicide.”
“What advice?”
Collins made an impatient gesture.
“Advice—why to emigrate and try your luck in the Colonies.”
“H’m, h’m,” said Jones. “Yes, I remember, but since then I have been thinking things out. I’m going to stay here and make good.”
Again the lawyer made a gesture of impatience.
“You know your financial position as well as I do,” said he. “How are you to make good, as you express it, against that position? You can’t, you are hopelessly involved, held at every point. A month ago I told you to reduce your establishment and let Carlton House Terrace; you said you would and you didn’t. That hurt me. I would much sooner you had refused the suggestion. Well, the crash if it does not come to-day will come to-morrow. You are overdrawn at Coutts’, you can raise money on nothing, your urgent debts to tradesmen and so forth amount, as you told me the day before yesterday, to over two thousand five hundred pounds. See for yourself how you stand.”
“I say again,” said Jones, “that I am going to make good. All these affairs seem to have gone to pieces because—I have been a fool.”