receiver.” Mr. Bultiwell collapsed like a pricked bladder. He shrivelled in his clothes. There was a whine in his tone as he substituted appeal for argument. “There’s good business to be done here still,” he [Pg 44]pleaded. “Even if the firm lost a little money on those names, there are two of them at least who might weather the storm, with reasonable assistance. Pratt, they tell me you’re pretty well a millionaire. I’m sorry if I was hard on you in the old days. If you won’t take a partnership, will you buy the business?” [Pg 44] Jacob laughed scornfully. “If I were ten times a millionaire,” he said, rising to his feet, “I would never risk a penny of my money to rid you of the millstone you have hung around your neck. It is going to be part of my activity in life, Mr. Bultiwell, to assist nature in dispensing justice. For many years you have ruled the trade in which we were both brought up, and during the whole of that time you have never accomplished a single gracious or kindly action. You have wound up by trying to drag me into a business which is rotten to the core. Your accountants may be technically justified in reckoning that hundred and forty thousand pounds owed you by those six men as good, because they never failed, but you yourself know that they are hopelessly insolvent, and that the moment you stop renewing their bills they will topple down like ninepins.... I would not help you if you were starving. I shall read of your bankruptcy with pleasure. There is, I think, nothing more to be said.” Mr. Bultiwell sat in his chair, dazed, for long after Jacob had left him. His daughter reappeared and [Pg 45]left at once, harshly dismissed. His clerks went out for lunch and returned at the appointed hour. Mr. Bultiwell was seeing ghosts.... [Pg 45] Jacob and his friend dined together that night in a well-known grill-room. Dauncey, to whom, in those days, every man seemed to be a brother and every place he entered a fairy palace, showed signs of distress as he listened to his companion’s story. “Dear friend,” he remonstrated, “of what use in the world is revenge? I do not suggest that you should throw your money away trying to help Bultiwell, but you might at least have left him alone.” Jacob shook his head. The corners of his mouth tightened. He spoke with grave seriousness. “Dick,” he said,
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