Chapter 2 THE MEETING OF CREDITORS.

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.

Heaven forbid I should say that all men of his profession are cast in the same mould, but there can be no question that the new law throws a fearful amount of power into the hands of any one who likes to use it for his own advantage, and places at the same time any trustee who desires to deal leniently with a bankrupt in a position of unpleasant responsibility.

To put the matter plainly, if a trustee has a fancy for the cheese, he can eat it himself, rind and all; but if he thinks this creditor has been hardly done by, or that the debtor is a poor devil, really very much to be pitied, he had better take care how he gives expression to such sentiments.

It is far wiser to adopt Mr. Swanland's r?le, and please nobody, than run the risk of trying to please anybody but himself.

But at a meeting of creditors when his mission was to tell a flattering tale and get the ear of the assemblage, Mr. Swanland was a man of whom his partner felt justly proud.

What could be neater than the way in which he placed the state of affairs, so far as his information went, before the bulls of Bashan with whom he had to deal.

Like oil on the waters came the flow of Mr. Swanland's fluent tongue.

He uttered no disparagement of Mortomley. His position was unfortunate, doubtless, and so was the position of his creditors, but Mr. Swanland was pleased to inform the meeting that he expected the estate to return a very good dividend; a very good dividend indeed.

From what he could hear and from what he had seen, he was justified in saying a large profit could be realized by carrying on the works. There were a fine plant, an extensive connection, and a considerable amount of stock.

It was perhaps unfortunate that Mr. Mortomley had not sooner taken his creditors into his confidence; but, said Mr. Swanland with a touching humility that might have done credit to Mr. Asherill himself, "we are all liable to error."

"Mr. Mortomley acted for the best, no doubt." Here there was a murmur of dissent from the bulk of the audience, "but whether it has proved for the best or not in the past, at all events he has acted wisely in the present by relinquishing everything to his creditors."

Here one sceptical wretch suggested "he hadn't given anything up till he couldn't help hisself."

Which was indeed a statement too perfectly true to be controverted.

Mr. Swanland therefore glossed it over. "No doubt," he said, "Mr. Mortomley would have done better for himself, and-others-had he consulted his friends and creditors at an earlier stage of his embarrassments, but even as matters stood, it afforded him, Mr. Swanland, much gratification to be able to state that no real cause existed for the gloomy view of affairs taken by a few of the gentlemen in the room.

"He begged to be allowed to lay before the meeting a statement of Mr. Mortomley's liabilities and probable assets." Which he did.

It was no part of Mr. Swanland's policy at this period to cover his canvas with dark colours.

Rather he went in for Turneresque effects, and threw a lurid light upon the profits which might be expected from the continuance of the business under proper supervision; from the leasing of Homewood and its grounds to a suitable and responsible tenant; from the sale of the effects; from the collection of the outstanding book debts, and the appropriation of the remaining portion of Mrs. Mortomley's fortune.

When he came to this last part of his story, over which he was rather inclined to slur, as an inexperienced pianist slurs a difficult passage in a new piece of music, the knowing ones amongst the creditors pricked up their ears, and one of them, a gentleman who was quite as sharp in his way as Mr. Gibbons, and a vast deal more honest, said,

"If you tell us, Mr. Swanland, how much the estate can pay in cash now, we had better take that amount than await the result of liquidation; whether it be a shilling, half-a-crown, or five shillings in the pound, I say let us all agree to take whatever the estate can pay, and give the bankrupt his discharge. Then if he is honest he can begin again and pay us all off; and if he is not honest, we shall not be one bit worse off than if we allow the concern to go on and stand by watching the whole estate eaten up by lawyers and accountants."

There was a horrible pause; a pause during which Mr. Forde turned sick with terror and Mr. Swanland white with rage, and more than one non-fluent creditor cleared his throat and wetted his lips preparatory to following the suit of the last speaker, and expressing his own humble opinion about the subject on hand.

That pause was broken by Kleinwort.

"I mean not to be rude," he began in his broken English, which was no better and no worse than on that evil day (for England) when he first landed at Folkestone, "but might I make bold to inquire how large is the little stake of that last speaker so confident, in the estate of our poor sick Mortomley?"

"Our little stake, Mr. Kleinwort," answered the opposing creditor, "is not quite three hundred pounds; but still three hundred pounds is more than I and my partner care to lose totally if we can get anything out of the fire. To the majority of people, this liquidation business is as a new toy. Creditors are delighted with it at first. We have had some experience of its working, however; and when a man goes into bankruptcy we write his account down "doubtful," when he goes into liquidation we write it off "bad."

Then arose a babel of tongues. Mr. Forde, Mr. Kleinwort, Mr. Gibbons, and a host of other creditors, talking all at once, none listening.

To all intents and purposes there was not the slightest necessity for this expression of opinions. Mortomley's affairs had been all settled before the meeting of his creditors was convened. Forde had spoken, and Kleinwort had spoken, and a few other people besides, who amongst them virtually arranged the programme of his business future; and though an Act of Parliament rendered this crush, by intimation, indispensable as a matter of formality, it was, in reality, perfectly useless as a matter of fact.

The only possible pleasure or advantage the most persistent of the smaller creditors could derive from attending the meeting, was the opportunity it afforded him of bemoaning his own hard fortune, and the wickedness of Mortomley in having omitted to settle his little account at all events.

It did not signify in the least that to these lamentations no one listened, unless, indeed, some man gifted with a louder voice and greater powers of endurance than his neighbours compelled the attention of the trustee, who was always able to silence him with some calm and plausible answer,-the indignant creditor had spoken aloud and "given them a piece of his mind straight out,"-while, so far as Mr. Swanland was concerned, his experience had taught him that these ebullitions were all so many safety valves which prevented the possibility of any serious explosion damaging his interests.

At last it became patent even to the representative man who always announces his intention of "attending the meeting personally," of "seeing to his own matters for hisself," and who generally tells the assembled company that all he wants is his money-and his money he will have-that the large creditors were with the trustee; and as the trustee, they considered, must be friendly to Mortomley, there was no use in pushing opposition further.

And indeed there was not. A certain number of creditors who did not "wish to do Mr. Mortomley any harm," who had found Mr. Mortomley a very fair dealing gentleman, and hoped he would get through his trouble all right, had readily agreed to everything Mr. Benning's managing clerk proposed in Mr. Mortomley's interest, and the result was that the amount required and the numbers required to carry a majority had all been made up long before the meeting.

Nevertheless, as he blandly suggested, Mr. Swanland liked to see unanimity amongst the creditors. Kleinwort backing him up with a remark to the effect that "the goods of one was for the goods of all."

"If I get my money," he observed to one splenetic individual, "you get your money. If I get not mine, you get not yours; but look how big is mine besides your little dot; and I am content to wait and believe. Be you content too."

Over the choice of the gentlemen who were to form the committee of management, and who were popularly supposed to be placed on a higher pinnacle of power than that occupied by Mr. Swanland, there proved, however, more difficulty than the trustee bargained for.

Not that it mattered materially to him; but opposition in any shape chafed a temper by no means angelic, induced to a certain degree, perhaps, by a digestion far from good.

And whatever was proposed, Mr. Gibbons and the gentleman who entertained that rabid antipathy against lawyers and accountants set themselves determinedly to oppose; the last individual illustrating his remarks with a candour which, if some people in the City did not fear the strong lights of a court as much as ladies of a certain age dread the unflattering glare of sunshine, would infallibly have produced more than one action for libel.

The only real fun which could be taken out of the meeting arose from this person's comments on the capabilities for evil and impotency for good possessed by the various candidates mentioned, and the assemblage was almost restored to good humour when his plain speaking culminated in a direct attack on Mr. Gibbons concerning the very estate on the management of which that gentleman had prided himself so much when addressing Rupert Halling.

"If I had known Mortomley contemplated any step of this kind," he finished, "I would have taken out a debtor's summons and forced him into the Bankruptcy Court, which he may still live to wish I had done. I hate hole-and-corner work, and all this management of a man's assets and debts in any shabby office on a two-pair back, with some fellow out of a loan-office, or who has been clerk to some disreputable attorney for trustee."

"I apprehend, sir," Mr. Forde was beginning, when Mr. Kleinwort interposed.

"It is of no good use, Forde, talking to this gentleman gifted with so much language. He thinks he is on the floor of your House of Commons, or making his last address to his British public from an Old Bailey dock."

"Bravo! Kleinwort," said Mr. Benning, as a peal of laughter rewarded this utterance.

"German thief," observed his adversary, quite audibly. Then addressing the assemblage, added, "If you are all such idiots as to believe in any statement of accounts dished up at a meeting of creditors such as this; if you refuse to back me up, and are afraid to fight for the recovery of your own money, it is of no use my speaking any longer. I wish you joy, gentlemen, of the dividend you will receive out of this estate."

And with a mocking bow he left the room followed by Rupert Halling, who, slipping his arm through his, walked with him along Cannon Street, saying,

"I wish-I wish we could undo all that has been done in this matter; that my uncle's estate could have been arranged anyhow except in liquidation."

"Well, it cannot now, and there is no use in fretting about the matter," was the reply. "Of course I knew if I talked till Doomsday I could do no good; but I never intend to cease talking till we get some decent sort of Bankruptcy Act. Tell your uncle I bear him no malice, and that I shall be glad to know he has got out of this affair better than I expect. It was not for the sake of the money I spoke, but because I hate to see a good estate eaten up by such fellows as Asherill and Swanland. By the way, that is bad about Mrs. Mortomley's money. How could her husband be such an idiot as not to make her safe!"

"The men who make themselves and families safe are those who let their creditors in," said Rupert sententiously.

"I expect you will find, when Swanland has finished manipulating the estate, that your uncle has let his creditors in to a pretty tune," answered the other.

"At any rate he has given up everything he had on earth," remarked Rupert.

"So far as I am concerned, I would much rather he had kept everything himself than given it to Swanland. I should like to meet that congregation of asses," and he pointed back towards the Cannon Street Hotel, "two years hence, and hear what they think of liquidation by arrangement then."

"I must get back now. I want to hear the resolutions," said Rupert.

"Call at my office as you return and let me know the names of the committee," observed the other; but Rupert had not the slightest idea of doing anything of the kind. He had promised Dolly to see her husband-who was at that moment under the same roof with his creditors, ready to answer any inquiry they might see fit to put-safe home, and he meant to fulfil that promise, though home now meant to his uncle merely that little house at Clapton-though the dear old roof-tree at Whip's Cross might shelter him or his no more for ever.

By the time Rupert re-entered the room, Mr. Swanland had been able to complete the arrangement of Mortomley's affairs to his satisfaction.

The working of the Colour Manufactory was to be continued. A committee of five persons was appointed, and those five persons were Messrs. Forde and Kleinwort; an opposition colour-maker who, having ordered and paid for some carmine which had not been delivered before the final crash, was thus enabled to take out much more than the value of his money, in helping to undermine the Homewood works, and keep Mortomley himself out of the trade; that friendly creditor who knew nothing of the City, or City ways, and was therefore quite as good as no-one; and a certain Mr. Lloyd, who said he had no objection to serve on the committee if by doing so he could in any way serve Mr. Mortomley.

In all questions, save one, the majority was to decide any subject in dispute. That one excepted question was the important item of Mr. Mortomley's discharge.

Excepting the five were of one mind on that point, Mr. Mortomley's discharge could never take place. Unless, indeed, he paid ten shillings in the pound-which seeing the power of paying anything had virtually been taken from him, was, to say the least of the matter, an extremely improbable contingency. The gentleman, however, who wished to serve Mr. Mortomley, and Mr. Gibbons, and Mr. Leigh, and a few others, having taken counsel together, a rider was, with much difficulty, appended to the proceedings in the shape of a resolution to the effect that if the committee failed to agree on the subject of the discharge, it should be competent for the bankrupt to refer the matter to another meeting of his creditors, said meeting to be called at his own expense, which, though plausible enough in theory, was a reality no man in Mortomley's position could ever hope, unless a miracle were effected in his favour, to compass.

Moreover, the question of an allowance to Mr. Mortomley was left to the judgment of the committee, and thus everything having been done quite according to law, Mr. Swanland was installed solemnly as trustee and manager of the Mortomley's Estate, and could, the moment he left that room, snap his fingers at all the credulous folks there assembled, Mr. Forde included in that number-Mr. Forde, who expected to sway him as he had swayed other trustees, and who certainly when he elected that Mr. Asherill's perfect gentleman should fill the post of liquidator, never intended his nominee to draw as hard and fast a line against him as against the other creditors.

Very soon, however, he was destined to be undeceived.

He tried to get Mortomley's bills renewed, but Mr. Swanland refused to give him Mortomley's address, and warned him that if he did succeed in obtaining the bankrupt's signature, the documents would not be worth the paper they were written on.

He sent goods to Homewood, but they were returned on his hands.

"I must buy in the best market," said Mr. Swanland. "I am but the agent for the creditors, you will please recollect, and have no power to show favour to any one."

"What the devil do you mean?" inquired Mr. Forde.

"I must buy good articles at the lowest cost price," was the reply; "and your articles are not good, and they are, further, extremely dear!"

"I rather think you forget yourself, sir," said Mr. Forde in his loftiest manner. "You forget I made you trustee of this estate."

"I do not forget; but the days of Queen Victoria are not those of Elizabeth," was the reply. Mr. Swanland, in his hours of elegant leisure, had occasionally met literary people, and though he distrusted them, stored away their utterances and quotations.

"Can't you talk English," asked Mr. Forde in reply.

"Certainly, though I should not care to talk it quite so plainly as did her Majesty. She said, 'I made you, proud prelate, and by -- I will unmake you!' I say, 'You brought this estate to me, and I intend to wind it up honestly without fear or favour.'"

"Damn you!" said Mr. Forde with a sincerity and vigour the Virgin Queen herself might have envied.

Like Mortomley, whom he had netted, he found himself utterly taken in.

"Would to God!" he remarked, with that reference to a supreme power people are apt to make when they have exhausted the resources of all their own idols and found them really of very little avail, "Would to God! I had left the management of Mortomley's Estate to that fool Mortomley himself and his solicitor. They would have considered ME, and this selfish brute will not."

Which was indeed quite true. A man had always better by far place himself in the hands of a man who is a gentleman, even if he be a fool, than of a man who is a cad, even though he be wise.

Save through misadventure, the gentleman will not throw over even a cad; but the cad waits his opportunity and throws over friend and foe, gentle and simple, with equal impartiality.

Mr. Swanland did at all events, and therein, situated as he chanced to be, he was wise.

For with the best intentions in the world, Mr. Forde had hitherto always managed to bring those trustees who were simple enough or dishonest enough to do his bidding to ultimate grief.

When Mr. Swanland spoke of the Manager of the General Chemical Company as so mentally short-sighted that he could only see to twelve o'clock that day, he described his character to a nicety.

Probably, through no fault of his own in the first instance, Mr. Forde eventually found himself traversing a path which led him at one time along the brink of a precipice, at another across a country intersected by deep ravines and dangerous gulleys, and any man who had fully realised the peril of his position must either have abandoned the idea of going further in despair, or have so utterly lost his head as to have been dashed to pieces long before the period when this story opens.

But Mr. Forde did not realise his position, or the position of the General Chemical Company.

He had faith if he could only hold out long enough relief would come-to him-or to the Company. Naturally he hoped it would come to him first, in which case he confided to a few chosen friends the fact that, if he were to walk out of the place, the directors would have to close the wharf-gates within four-and-twenty hours, but if relief were to pay a preliminary visit to the Company, he knew such a stroke of good fortune must ultimately benefit him.

With all his faith, and he had much, he believed Mr. Asherill's partner if appointed trustee of Mortomley's Estate would be with him hand-and-glove, and when he found Mr. Swanland was not inclined to be hand-and-glove with any man, he bewailed in no measured terms his evil fate to Kleinwort, who only shrugged his shoulders and said,

"You had better much have trusted the sick man and the little lady and the swaggering nephew; you had by far best have had good temper, and not have run to lock them up in liquidation, with your lawyer, your trustee, your committee. That Leigh man might have been turned round a finger-mine-and the little lady and the sick man, had you spoke pleasant, would have gone on trying hard to do their best for another year at least calculation. Those thousands, Forde dear friend, those thousands! Oh! it does break mine heart to call to mind they were so near and are so far! That demon Swanland he will liquidate it all; and we-you Forde and I Kleinwort-we might have dealt with it had I known, had you not spoken so hard to the little woman. I am not much of superstitious, I do hope, dear friend, and yet I feel this will be a bad mistake for us."

Whereupon Mr. Forde bade him hold his tongue if he could not use it to some pleasanter purpose.

But Mr. Kleinwort refused to hold his tongue. "It was not good to lay so many stakes upon that Archibald Mortomley horse," he persisted. "Bah! One that could not, in your charming English, stay, that was a roarer, so short of mercantile breath when you dug your spurs in and flogged him with your heavy whip he dropped down as dead. It was a mistake, and then you made bad worse with the little lady, and for this reason we shall all suffer; we shall all cry and make bitter lamentation."

"Kleinwort, you are enough to drive a fellow mad!" expostulated his so dear Forde.

"Yes, yes, yes. I know all that," said the German. "You never want to hear no speech but what is pleasant and comfortable. You will not listen to warning now, but the bad day may be nearer at hand than you think, when you will say to me, 'You had reason, Kleinwort,'-when you will make remark to others, 'I thought Kleinwort babbled all nonsense, but his words were true words.'"

"Well, whether they prove true or false will not help us in this Mortomley affair now. One good thing is the business being still carried on. That is in our favour."

"You had better make much use of that while you can," was the reply, "for it will not be carried on very long."

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Forde.

"Just the very thing I say-unlike you English, who always mean not what they say. Swanland will stay colour-maker for while there is money to lose and to spend; but you, even you my good Forde, must know he cannot so conduct that affair as to induce those big works to pay anybody but himself."

"I fail to understand you."

"Could you go down and make those works, of which you know nothing, yield big profits?"

"Of course I could," was the confident answer.

"Ah! but you are so clever," said Kleinwort with a sneer, which was lost on his companion. "I did forget you had managed so long and so well the Wharf Vedast. It is not many who could bring such talents as you. Swanland has them not most surely, and so I say the Colour Works will stop one day like-that,"-and Mr. Kleinwort clapped his hands together with a suddenness which made his companion jump.

"But he is making an enormous profit," remarked Mr. Forde.

"Ah! well, we see if we live, if we live not, those who do will see," answered Kleinwort, with philosophical composure, as he parted from his companion.

"I wonder what has come to Kleinwort," thought Mr. Forde; "until lately he was always hopeful, always pleasant. I hope to mercy nothing is going to happen to him." And at the bare idea, self-suggested, the manager turned pale. "Good Heavens! what would become of me in that case?" was the unspoken sentence which flitted through his mind.

But comfort came to him next instant, in the reflection that let Kleinwort's faults be what they might, they did not include any inclination to deceive his friend.

"He would tell me; he would give me fair warning; if there were a leak anywhere, he would not keep the misfortune secret from me," were the assurances with which he restored his own courage. While all the time the little German was mentally considering,

"That orange is about squeezed dry. A short time more and our dear Forde will have no more cause to be anxious about the affairs of Kleinwort. His mind will be set quite at rest. Bah! The easement will come sooner than I intended, but it is a wise man can read the signs of the weather. That new director would spoil our little game if I stopped it not myself. Yes, it is nearly over, and it is well, though I should like to have played on a little more, and kept Forde like the coffin of Mahomet hanging for a time yet longer."