“It is necessary that you be told, and I was going to speak this evening, but it is very hard. Queenie, when I kissed the children and looked at you all so happy, I felt like a... murderer.”
“Have you..
“No, on my word of honour, I have done nothing wrong, that I can say; neither you nor the little ones have any cause to be ashamed of me.”
“If you had, I would have stood by your side, Herbert, but I knew disgrace would never come by you; then what is it? If it's only the loss of some money, why, I know half a dozen economies.”
“It's far worse than that, wife, I fear. This will be our last Christmas in our dear little home, and it's all my blame, and I feel... the basest of men. As if you had trusted me when I had deceived you all.
“You are the best wife ever man had.... I feel better, and I'll explain it all to you. It is not very difficult; it is so easy to be ruined.
“You know we are brokers, and our business is to buy or sell cotton for other people, and we are responsible for them, so that if they cannot pay the losses, we have to find the money.
“Two of our firms, which have been very kind to us, were sure cotton would go up—and so it ought to have done, and will in the end—and they bought so many bales through us.
“Well, a big house, which can do pretty much as it likes, seized the opportunity of a fraud to rush in and upset the market, so our friends and many others have to face declines they cannot meet So unless our poor little firm can pay £10,000 at least on Monday, we must stop, and... all our hard work to build up an honourable name is lost.
“We can scrape £4,000, and my partner and I have £1,000 private means to put in, and... that's all. £5,000 short