“There has,” was the reply of Mr. Hastings, given in a sharp, distinct tone. “I paid it in myself, and hold the receipt.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the clerk dubiously; “I had your account under my eye this morning, sir, and saw nothing of it. But there’s no fear, Mr. Hastings, as I hope and trust,” he added, confidentially. “We have telegraphed for remittances, and expect a messenger down with them before the day’s out.”
“You are closing the Bank,” remarked Mr. Hastings in answering argument.
“We are obliged to do that. We had not an inexhaustible fountain of funds here: and you see how people have been thronging in. On Monday morning I hope the Bank will be open again; and in a condition to restore full confidence.”
Mr. Hastings felt a slight ray of reassurance. But he would have felt a greater had the nine thousand pounds been handed to him, there and then. He said so: in fact, he pressed the matter. How ineffectually, the next words of the clerk told him.
“We have paid away all we had, Mr. Hastings,” he whispered. “There’s not a farthing left in the coffers.”
“You have paid the accounts of applicants in full, I presume?”
“Yes: up to the time that the funds, in hand, lasted to do it.”
“Was that just?—to the body of creditors?” asked the Rector in a severe tone.
“Where was the help for it?—unless we had stopped when the run began?”