"It's just like him, the old wretch! To think of his removing your deposits, just as you wanted them so much yourself! But why did the clerks at the bank let him have them—they ought to have known that you had all this money to pay, and people cannot well pay debts without money."
"You are telling that, my dear, to one who knows it by experience. That is the very reason why I have failed. I have a great many debts, and I have no money."
"But you have hundreds of lots—give them lots, Henry, and that will settle all your difficulties. You must remember how all our friends have envied us our lots."
"Ay, no fear, but they'll get the lots, my dear—unless, indeed," added the speculator, "I take good care to prevent it. Thank God! I'm not a DECLARED bankrupt. I can yet make my own assignee."
"Well, then, I wouldn't say a word about it—declare nothing, and let 'em find out that you have failed, in the best manner they can. Why tell people your distresses, so that they may pity you. I hate pity, above all things—and especially the pity of my own friends."
"Oh, that will be dreadful!" put in Eudosia. "For Heaven's sake, Pa, don't let any body pity us."
"Very little fear of that, I fancy," muttered the father; "people who shoot up like rockets, in two or three years, seldom lay the foundations of much pity in readiness for their fall."
"Well, I declare, Dosie, this is TOO bad in the old general, after all. I'm sure it MUST be unconstitutional for a president to remove your father's deposits. If I were in your place, Mr. Halfacre, I wouldn't fail just to spite them. You know you always said that a man of energy can do any thing in this country; and I have heard Mr. Munny say that he didn't know a man of greater energy than yourself."
The grin with which the ruined speculator turned on his wife was nearly sardonic.
"Your men of energy are the very fellows TO fail," he said; "however, they shall find if I have had extraordinary energy in running into debt, that I have extraordinary energy, too, in getting out of it. Mrs. Halfacre, we must quit this house this very week, and all this fine furniture must be brought to the hammer. I mean to preserve my character, at least."