‘The main facts are, that all the banks in Sydney, beginning with the Eastern, have stopped payment, provisionally at present, pending reconstruction, liquidation, or some other delayed arrangement, the immediate effect of which is, that nobody can get any money just at present.’
‘What—none at all? Whatever shall we do?’
‘I daresay I can manage a small advance. I put thirty thousand pounds into British Consols, as a stand-by in case of accidents. So we can pay the butcher and baker, at any rate.’
‘But the mine hasn’t stopped?’
‘No, thank God! It’s a pity I banked the last month’s dividend, though. It’s going better than ever. So, when next month’s comes in, I can put it into a trust account. Meanwhile I have wired a draft for £500 to Reggie.’
[136]
]‘Poor things! It must have given them a cruel shock.’
‘Yes, indeed; but some of their fellow-passengers must have had a worse one. Hard lines to have to come back when they were half-way home, like the Thompsons and Franklins. Poor Mrs. Franklin! She was only telling me last week what a round of the Continent she and the girls proposed.’
. . . . . . . . .
This cyclonic disturbance abated in time; matters moved on again in their accustomed order. But there were wrecks left behind—mercantile, moral, and political—which no future prosperity could re-establish. Long was it indeed before the fatal year of 18— was even partially restored, much less forgotten. But, as Mrs. Banneret truly said, ‘Money counts as nothing in family history compared with health.’ And this was only a temporary inconvenience, as the Bank of New Holland paid up all liabilities eventually, with interest up to date. Paterfamilias betook himself to one of the banks which had weathered the storm, and found that with the promise of removing the account of the ‘Last Chance’ Gold Mining Company to their long-established corporation, he could have practically all the money he needed. Which was certainly satisfactory. So the Banneret family went on their way rejoicing, and denied themselves, as ‘before the war,’ nothing in reason. The younger boys and girls went to high-class schools, as before; learned all the extras and accomplishments; played football, tennis, hockey, [137] ]and cricket; rowed and yachted in the harbour; took the whole round of exercises in mind and body for which no people in the British Empire are more eager than the youthful Australian.
It was now nearly five years since Arnold Banneret had seen the mine—the centre and source of the family fortunes. He had been kept fully posted up in its progress and development, in the size and splendour of the city which had arisen around Pilot Mount, the grand scheme of water supply which had been successfully completed, the electric lighting of public and private buildings, streets, etc., but he thought it advisable to have personal evidence as to all these wonders and miracles. Besides, he was getting rather tired of the almost too easy and prosperous routine of his daily life. Travel had always been the very breath of his nostrils, the very salt and savour of his life. He would try the tonic again.