MR BURDEN OFFERING TO SUBSCRIBE WHATEVER MAY BE NECESSARY
The interest flagged. Lord Benthorpe had repeated the same sentence two or three times; Mr Harbury had not spoken for close upon eight minutes, when Mr Barnett closed the scene. He got up with the air of a man, heavy with creative power, one who has accomplished a long and finally successful task; Mr Harbury got up like an athlete ready for new labours, standing erect and supple. Lord Benthorpe got up, as politicians do, wearily, and by sections of his frame; and Mr Burden got up, as do merchants, with some fuss, rubbing his hands, and pulling occasionally at his coat.
It was not his habit to leave a business interview without some final phrase. He would have thought it discourteous. He stood, therefore, a little pompously, and, looking at Mr Barnett, addressed him in the plural, and said:
“Remember, gentlemen, I shall be very happy, if there is any occasion, to post you my cheque to-night for a larger....”
But Mr Harbury put up his hand with authority, and interfered:
“Do not mention it, Mr Burden; the suggestion was mine, but I think Mr Barnett has thoroughly proved to us that the sum proposed is sufficient.”
Then he let his hand drop again, and Mr Burden bowed, and they all went out of the room.
So it was that, two days afterwards, Mr Burden paid not forty, nor even thirty, but only twenty-five thousand pounds.
CHAPTER VIII
The Rev. Charles Gapworthy, B.A., sometime fellow and chaplain of St Lazarus Hys Hostel, Bermondsey, S.E., tells us in his “Political Economy for Schools” (chap. ii. “Capital,” p. 28) that “economic force resides ultimately, not in material accumulation, but in a certain bold prevision of the mind.” The truth is but one more example of the power residing in what we denominate, in this country, the “Christian virtue of Hope.”