If any person ever questioned the wisdom of Mr. Asherill in taking for his partner that perfect gentleman Mr. Swanland, his doubts must have been dispelled had he chanced to be present at the meeting of creditors—re Archibald Mortomley.
Mr. Asherill himself would have felt proud of his junior, had his principles permitted of his attending on the occasion.
There was a judicial calmness about Mr. Swanland, which produced its effect on even the most refractory member of that motley throng.
It would have been almost as easy for a creditor to question the decision of a Vice-Chancellor, as the statements of that unprejudiced accountant.
If Mr. Swanland did not fling back his coat and unbutton his waistcoat, and tear open his shirt and request those present to look into his heart, and see if falsehood could there find a resting-place, he, at least, posed himself as Justice, and held the scales, I am bound to state, with strict impartiality between debtor and creditor.
His worst enemy could not say he favoured either. If his own brother had gone into liquidation, he would not have turned the beam against the creditors in favour of that misguided man.
Even-handed justice was meted out in Salisbury House. The old fable of the two animals that stole the cheese, and asked a wiser than themselves to decide as to the share to which each was entitled, was put on the boards there, and acted day after day, and with a like result. In their earnest desire to be perfectly impartial towards both sides, Messrs. Asherill and Swanland ate up the cheese themselves.
If this proceeding failed to satisfy either creditor or debtor, it was no fault of theirs.
No one could say they had shown favouritism; and, indeed, it would have been very wicked if any one had, since Mr. Asherill—and inclusively Mr. Swanland—always declared each estate as it came, and was liquidated, left them losers by the transaction. Nevertheless, the villa residences of both gentlemen bore no evidence of poverty; on the contrary—though had either partner taken the trouble to visit the houses of those who were so ill-advised as to go into liquidation instead of bankruptcy, he would have found that the "friendly arrangement" carried on under the paternal eye of Mr. Asherill, or the dispassionate gaze of Mr. Swanland, had not resulted in any increase of luxury for the debtors or their families.
Like his senior, however, Mr. Swanland was utterly indifferent to the ruin of his clients, so long as he compassed his own success.