The whole of the savage truth was poured into my ears. A moment later, I heard some one say that the managers of the Bustumup Company had found it convenient to disappear. I was almost a maniac. I cursed my folly because I had not sold my stock when it began to look shaky. The villains who had comforted me and made promises that I should sell at sixty were simply designing knaves, who had fraudulently worked this stock up to sixty, while there was not a penny of real value in it.
The first shock bore heavily upon me, but I soon recovered in some measure from its effect. I went into the street, and inquired for myself, in regard to the coppers. There were two or three substantial companies which were actually producing metal and paying handsome dividends. The other companies were swindles; and Bustumup was the most egregious humbug of the whole. I tried to get an offer for my stock, and found it would not bring a dollar a share. Indeed, it could not be sold at any price. In a word, the five thousand dollars I had borrowed from the bank was a total loss.
I will not attempt to describe the misery into which I was so suddenly plunged. If I had sold my stock a week before, I might have paid my debt and had five thousand dollars left. Now I was a defaulter in the sum of eight thousand dollars. It was horrible to think of. There was no possible way, that I could see, to escape the consequences. What should I do?
I went back to the bank and told Mr. Heavyside that I was better. I resumed my place at the counter, and did my work till the bank closed, sustained by the brandy I had drank. I tried to devise some plan by which I could conceal my deficit for a time. I could think of nothing satisfactory. An examination of the affairs of the bank was sure to betray me. I was tempted to commit suicide, as others have done under the same pressure of guilt.
I thought of my wife, and my eyes filled with tears, as I pictured the fall to which she would be subjected. It was ruin to her as well as to me. What would she do, while I was thinking of her in my narrow cell in the State Prison? The thought was madness to me. I swore that this should never be. She should not be the widow of a living man, who could not support her, who could give her nothing but a legacy of disgrace.
My pride rebelled as I thought of being confined in the prisoners’ dock, with all my former friends and enemies staring at me. I thought of facing my uncle after he had been called upon to pay the bond; of meeting Buckleton, Shaytop, and others to whom I had talked so magnificently. I could not survive the crash. I could not live in dread of the calamity that impended. While I was thinking what to do, my uncle came into the bank. He was a cold-blooded wretch, but he was afraid of me.
He began to talk of coppers, as, of course, I expected he would.