In half an hour Jacob Winter left the office with two thousand, five hundred dollars. Mr. Bentham recommended him to accept it as the best settlement possible.
Ezra breathed a sigh of relief. He would still have four thousand dollars of his dishonest accumulations.
But he reckoned without his host.
As the party were leaving the office one of Ezra’s customers saw them and his suspicions were excited. He made some inquiries and it led to his obtaining an order of arrest, so that Ezra, instead of sailing for Europe on Saturday, passed that day in a police station.
He managed to escape trial and conviction by agreeing to surrender his ill-gotten gains, and then disappeared from the scene. He is understood to be in Montreal, but his days of prosperity are gone by.
Jacob Winter went back to Wrayburn, but his system had received a shock, and in about a year he died. His property went to relatives, his wife at Ben’s request declining to accept anything beyond the two thousand dollars which she had when she married him.
Ben went back to New York, and after a year spent in study accepted a position in a large commercial house, in which he may some time own an interest.
Mr. Sylvanus Snodgrass is still electrifying the readers of the Weekly Bugle by his startling romances. Mr. Cornelius Clyde, the poet, still sticks to his business as a barber, as he finds that his poetry brings him fame, but not money. Gloriana Podd’s name still appears in the Poet’s Corner of weekly papers and magazines.
Ben, remembering his friends, has obtained a good position for Albert Graham, and his cousin Adelbert frequently visits him.
Last year Ben went to England and visited his friend, Cyril Bentley, at Bentley Hall. But he is a true American, and much as he may like individual Englishmen he will never become an Anglicized American.