All but two or three of the smaller creditors showed the utmost kindness, expressing their sympathy and the willingness to give me time to pay my debts. This was all I asked.
The new connection was all that was represented. I liked the business, my particular work was congenial, and so good were the prospects I was as nearly happy as a man of my domestic taste could be when separated from his wife.
Early in 1904 it became necessary for me to spend some time in a city near New York. My wife then gave up the house, stored her furniture, and with the family joined me.
It was here the hardest blow of all was dealt me. One of the small creditors, in an attempt to collect his debt through the office of the district attorney, caused my arrest. This came at a time when my efforts were about to show tangible results, and its publicity severed my business connection. Instead of hastening the payment of his claim, my creditor by his action delayed it. The blow was a crushing one in every way—to my financial prospects and to my mental and physical condition.
CHAPTER XLVIII
A NIGHTMARE
"In the eyes of the law a man is innocent until proven guilty; the world says he is guilty until proven innocent."
I was taken to the district attorney's office, treated with courtesy, and told I would be released on giving five hundred dollars bail. I believed I could do this and was given the day to accomplish it. By telephone and telegraph I tried to find the friends whom I thought would surely stand by me to that extent in this emergency, especially as there was no possible risk of loss. They had but to take the five hundred dollars out of their bank and deposit it in another place quite as secure. Sooner or later it would come back to them.
When the day was ended I was poorer by the amount of the tolls I had paid and had not found the friend. This one would like to do it, but could not; another had gone to luncheon and would call me up on the telephone as soon as he returned—he must be still at luncheon. Every one I tried had some excuse.
To my wife I wrote fully, suggesting to her a number of people to whom she might appeal in her efforts to effect my release. Then I settled down to grim despair.