Chapter 5 MORTOMLEY'S BLUE.

The new year brought with it much glorification of spirit to the manager of St. Vedast Wharf and the two men whose fortunes were, to a certain extent, associated with the temporary success of the General Chemical Company Limited.

Never before had so satisfactory a balance-sheet been presented to the shareholders of that company,-never before had a good dividend been so confidently recommended,-never had accountants audited accounts so entirely satisfactory, or checked securities so stamped with the impress of solvency,-never had the thanks of every one been so due to any body of directors as on that special occasion, and never had any manager, secretary, and the other officers of any company been so efficient, so self-denying, so hard-working, and so utterly conscientious as the manager and other officers connected with that concern which was travelling as fast to ruin as it knew how.

The way in which these things are managed might puzzle even a man experienced in City ways to explain, since each company has its own modes of cooking its accounts and hoodwinking the public. But these things are done,-they were yesterday, they have been to-day, they will be to-morrow; and if you live so long, my dear reader, you will hear more about yesterday's doings, and to-day's, and to-morrow's when, a few years hence, you peruse the case of Blank v. Blank, or Blank v. the Blank Company Limited, or any other improving record of the same sort.

The worst of the whole matter is that our clever financiers always keep a little in advance of the law, as our clever thieves always keep a little in advance of our safemakers. The gentlemen of a hundred schemes complacently fleece their victims, and Parliament-wise after-says in solemn convocation that the British sheep shall never be shorn in such and such a way again with impunity.

Nevertheless, though not in the same way, the sheep is shorn daily, and the shearer escapes scot-free with the wool. Always lagging behind the wit of the culprit comes the wit of the law. It is only the poor wretches who have no brains to enable them to take a higher flight than picking pockets that really suffer.

"You are a hardened ruffian," says the judge, looking through his spectacles at the pickpocket who has been convicted about a dozen times previously, "and I mean to send you for five years where you can pick no more pockets," which indeed the hardened ruffian-stripping off all the false clothing philanthropists love to deck him with-deserves most thoroughly. But, then, what about the hardened ruffians who are never convicted, who float their bubble companies and rob the widow and the orphan as coolly as Bill Sykes, only with smiling faces and well-clothed persons?

It is unfair, no doubt, these should escape as they do scot-free, and yet I must confess time has destroyed much of my sympathy with the widow and the orphan who entrust their substance to strangers and believe in the possible solvency-for such as them-of twenty per cent. One is growing particularly tired of that countryman, so familiar to Londoners, who loses his money because two total strangers ask if he has faith enough to trust one or the other with a ten-pound-note, and it is difficult to help feeling that a sound flogging judiciously administered to one of these yokels who take up so much of a magistrate's time, would impress the rural mind throughout England much more effectually than any number of remarks from his Worship or leaders in the daily papers.

As one grows older, one's intolerance towards dupes is only equalled by one's intolerance towards bores. A man begins by pitying a dupe and ends by hating him; and the reason is that a dupe has so enormous a capacity for giving trouble and so great a propensity for getting into it.

At that especial half-yearly meeting, however, of which mention has been made, there were very few dupes connected with the General Chemical Company, Limited. All the new shareholders indeed, and a very small proportion of the old might, it is true, have faith in the concern, but as a rule the directors and the shareholders, the accountants and the officials, knew the whole affair was a farce, got up for the purpose of inducing the general public to invest their money in a concern with which those privileged to peep behind the scenes were most heartily disgusted.

Like many other debts of lesser magnitude, Mortomley's had not yet been entered as bad. His account was kept open, in order that the ample dividend promised by Mr. Swanland at the meeting of creditors might be duly entered to his credit. Meanwhile his unpaid acceptances were still skilfully manipulated as securities, thus:-On one side the books, that everything might be done strictly and in order, appeared the entry, "Bills returned, so much, interest thereon, so much," very little interest being charged, the reader may be certain; and on the other, "Bills retained, so much," which really made the bankrupt's apparent debt to the concern when a balance was struck something merely nominal.

On the same principle, when a dividend of six per cent. for the half year was recommended, as the profit, admirable in itself, had the slight disadvantage of existing in paper instead of hard cash, the amount required was paid out of capital-"loaned out of capital," as Mr. Forde cleverly defined the transaction; and next day the shares were quoted in the 'Times' at a premium, and those most interested in the concern shook hands and congratulated themselves that the meeting had gone off so well.

In fact, the worse trade chanced to be at St. Vedast Wharf, the more it behoved those connected with the establishment to put the best face on affairs, and, to their credit be it spoken, they did. Indeed, but for the revelations of clerks and the sour looks of certain bankers when the Chemical Company was mentioned, even City folks would have had but a very vague idea of the struggle St. Vedast Wharf had to maintain in order to keep itself above water. Poor Mr. Forde knew most about that struggle, and so did those unfortunates who were desperately holding on by the piles of the rotten structure in order to escape drowning; but, though none of them realized the fact, it was just as true that St. Vedast Wharf could not go on keeping up false appearances for ever-as Mortomley had found it, that to carry on a business with men in possession was not a game capable of indefinite prolongation.

As Mr. Kleinwort had prophesied, the colour works at Homewood were eventually stopped with a suddenness for which no one connected either with the manufacturing or liquidating part of the business was at all prepared. All in a hurry Mr. Swanland summoned a meeting of the Committee, and informed them that as he could no longer carry on the works with a reasonable hope of profit, he thought the best thing which could be done would be to sell off the stock, advertise the lease of the premises for sale, and offer the goodwill of the business to competition.

All of which Mr. Forde naturally opposed; but his being the only dissentient voice amongst the members of the Committee, all of whom had long ago become perfectly sick of Mortomley's Estate, and Mortomley's affairs, the course recommended by the trustee was decided upon.

"What dividend are you going to give us then?" asked the man who had put so "good a thing" in Mr. Swanland's way.

"Impossible to tell till we see what the stock fetches," was the reply.

"But surely out of the profits of working the business, you can declare a first dividend? My directors would be very much pleased to see something tangible out of the concern," remonstrated Mr. Forde; hearing which the opposition colour maker laughed, and said, "No doubt they would," and Mr. Swanland declared the whole statement about profit and so forth had been an imposition. He would not say any person had wilfully deceived him, but the more he saw of the Homewood works, the more fully he felt satisfied they had never returned anything except a loss.

It was all very well to represent the profit on goods sent out as large-no doubt it was large apparently; but when those goods came to be returned on hand with freight and dock charges, and law charges, and Heaven only knew what besides, the profit became a loss.

That was his, Mr. Swanland's, experience; and, of course, as Mr. Swanland's management could not be supposed other than perfect, his experience was generally accepted as correct. When he said Mortomley could never have made a sixpence out of the concern, creditors shook their heads, and said,

"Ah! that is how our money went," as if legitimate business was some sort of game, at which any man in his senses would continue to play if he were not making a profit out of it.

However, the trustee who understands his business, always hints that his client is either a rogue or a fool. It is safer, perhaps, to imply the latter, because in that case the trustee obtains credit for kindliness of feeling; but there may be occasions on which it is necessary to speak more strongly, and this proved to be one of them.

That unhappy Mortomley had given up everything he possessed on earth, except his own and his wife's wearing apparel, to Mr. Swanland, acting for the debtor and the creditors, and still Mr. Swanland was not satisfied.

Which was particularly hard, seeing the creditors were far from charmed with either Mortomley or his trustee, and that Mortomley, who had once hoped to pay everybody, and retain Homewood, was less charmed still.

Why Mortomley felt dissatisfied has been explained. Why the creditors were dissatisfied can easily be understood, when it is stated that as week after week passed away, their hopes of a dividend grew less and less.

At first, when they repaired to Mr. Swanland's office for information concerning a dividend, they asked "when?" but afterwards they began to ask "what?" And thus, by easy degrees, they were let down to "never," and "nothing."

This was usually the case at Asherill's, except when the risk of a company chanced to be unlimited, and the contributaries solvent, or when a company was limited, and the shares had not been so fully paid up but that the promoters, and the advertising agent, and the liquidator, and the lawyers could afford to leave, perhaps, threepence in the pound for other creditors.

Given a private estate, and it generally came out from Asherill's clear of meat as a picked bone. For this pleasing comparison I am, indeed, indebted to an expression used in Salisbury House.

"We have been rather slack lately," said a clerk jubilantly, "but we have got a meaty bone now."

And why should the young fellow not have been jubilant? Before Calcraft retired from that profession which he so much adorned, he was pleased doubtless to know a man had been sentenced to be hung by the neck till he was dead.

There is a pleasing adaptability about human nature which enables it to forget the possible pain the gratification of its own pleasure may involve to its fellow-creature; and there can be no question but that Mr. Swanland regarded, and perhaps reasonably, the insane struggles of victims, who felt the hooks of liquidation troublesome, as Calcraft might the mad fight of a criminal against the needful pinioning which enabled matters to go off so decently and quietly about eight o'clock on certain Monday mornings in his memory.

Nevertheless, and though he, at all events, must have had his innings out of Mortomley's estate, Mr. Swanland felt disgusted at the result of his own management of the affair.

Not because he had failed to pay the creditors even a farthing in the pound. To do Mr. Swanland strict justice, he looked upon creditors as he looked upon a debtor, namely, as natural enemies. He hated a debtor because the debtor's creditors gave him trouble, and he hated creditors because they gave him trouble; therefore he was, putting so much personal profit in the bankrupt scale, able to hold the beam straight, and declare both bankrupt and creditor to be equally obnoxious.

Mr. Swanland was a just man, and therefore conscientiously he could not declare the beam fell in favour of disliking one more than the other. He disliked them equally, when each had served his purpose, and he wished to throw both aside. The trustee's reason for feeling disgusted with Mortomley's estate was a very simple one. He had not made out of it what he expected. He had netted nothing like the amount he conceived was to be realised with good management.

Not that he feared a loss, bien entendu,-such an error had never yet been written in the books of Salisbury House; but he knew he had done that which touched his professional pride almost as keenly. He had lost profit. He had felt so certain of himself and the employèes, and the works and the customers; he had entertained so genuine a contempt for Mortomley's intellect; such a profound distrust of his capacity to transact the simplest business matter in a business manner; that he really believed when he took the management of the Homewood works upon himself that he had the ball at his feet.

Visions even of paying a dividend may have been vouchsafed to him. Certainly some extraordinary hallucination at one time held him in thrall, for after he had pocketed considerable sums of money, he actually returned much of it freely in the shape of wages to Mortomley's Estate.

There were those who said Mr. Swanland, finding himself doing so glorious a trade, had serious thoughts of buying in the plant at Homewood, with a view of pursuing the amusement of colour-making in his harmless moments. Be this as it may, he really had felt very proud of his success, and readily fell into the habit of speaking of Mortomley as a poor creature who did not understand the slightest detail of his own business.

Probably, his culminating hour of triumph was that which brought to Salisbury House the order for Mortomley's New Blue which Dolly mentioned to Mrs. Werner. He was like a child in his personal glorification.

"If I had only leisure to attend to such matters fully, see what a trade I could build up," he said to the opposition colour-maker; "poor Mortomley never had any transactions with this firm, and ere my management of affairs is three months' old I have this letter."

"But still, you must remember, it was Mortomley who made the colour," remarked his opponent, who felt a certain esprit de corps and longed to do battle for his order when he heard a man, whom amongst his intimate friends he concisely referred to as "that fool of an accountant," undervaluing those productions he personally would have given something considerable to know how to manipulate.

"Oh! anybody can make a colour," observed Mr. Swanland, who had been turning out Brunswick Greens, Prussian Blues, Chrome Reds, and Spanish Browns with a celerity and a success which fairly overpowered his reason.

"Perhaps so," agreed the other, who certainly felt no desire to see Mortomley reinstated at Homewood. "At the same time, it may be well for you to be cautious about that New Blue; Mortomley never sent out much of it, and you might drop a lot of money if anything should happen to go wrong."

"Pooh!" returned Mr. Swanland, "nothing can go wrong-nothing ever has gone wrong."

With reference to which remark, Henry Werner, when the story was repeated to him,-for it was repeated to every one interested in Mortomley's Estate who had sufficient knowledge of the trade to appreciate Mr. Swanland's humorous thoughts on the subject of colour-making-observed that there was an old saying about "a pitcher going once too often to the well."

With respect to Mortomley's Blue, Mr. Swanland certainly had perilled the pitcher containing his profits. To Salisbury House there came an awful experience in the shape of one of the partners in the large firm that had sent the great order which lifted Mr. Swanland to the seventh heaven of self-glorification.

No letter could have sufficed to express the wrath felt by the principals in the house of Miller, Lennox, and Co. when they heard from their correspondents abroad, enclosing a sample of the "Blue" Mr. Swanland had forwarded to them; no manager or clerk could, they knew, be trusted to utter their sentiments in the matter, and accordingly Mr. Miller himself, after having first called at the Thames Street warehouse and been referred thence to Basinghall Street, entered the offices of Messrs. Asherill and Swanland in a white heat.

Never, he declared, never in the forty years he had been in business had so utterly disgraceful a transaction come under his notice.

All in vain Mr. Swanland explained,-all in vain he blustered,-in vain Mr. Asherill entreated Mr. Miller to be reasonable, that gentleman stuck to his point.

"There," he said, laying one packet on the table, "is the blue we ordered,-there is the blue you sent."

"And a very good blue too; I see no difference between them," retorted Mr. Swanland.

"Good God! sir, don't you know the difference between Prussian Blue and Mortomley's Blue? Have you been managing a colour-works even for a month, and mean to say you are unaware that Mortomley's Blue is the very best blue ever made? Why, if we had a clerk who made such a confession I would bundle him neck and crop out of the office."

"You forget, sir, I am not a maker of colours; I am an accountant," suggested Mr. Swanland with dignity.

"Then why don't you stick to your accounts, and leave the making of colours to some one who does understand his trade? I suppose this is a fresh development of that precious egg, the new Bankruptcy Act, laid by a lot of astute scoundrels in the City and hatched by a parcel of old women in the House of Commons. Heaven help Mortomley if he has put his affairs into such hands as yours say I. That stuff," and he contemptuously indicated Mr. Hankins' blue, "is on its way back, and you may make the best of it; one farthing we shall never pay you, and you may consider yourselves fortunate that, in consideration of your gross ignorance, I refrain from instructing our solicitors to proceed against you for damages."

"It is all very well to say you will not pay," Mr. Swanland was beginning, when the other interrupted him with,

"Pay, sir! I will never pay. You may carry the case to the House of Lords if you like,-you may leave the goods at the Docks till the charges amount to treble their original value, and still whistle for your money. All I trust is this may prove a lesson to you not to meddle in affairs of which you evidently understand a little less than my five-year-old grandson."

And having made this statement, he walked out of the office, and in the mental books of Miller, Lennox, and Co. there stands at the present moment a black cross against Mr. Swanland's name. A black cross quite undeserved as regarded the matter of the blue. In his soul Mr. Swanland did believe the order had been executed as given; he had trusted to the integrity of Hankins in making the blue, and to the honour of Messrs. Miller and Lennox about paying for it, and his soul sank within him at sound of Mr. Miller's parting words.

To make matters easier, Mr. Asherill, who had been an interested auditor, remarked in a Commination-service sort of tone, "I advised you to have nothing to do with Mortomley's affairs, but, as usual, you disregarded my advice."

Hearing that, Mr. Swanland turned from the window where in a make-believe convivial fashion he had been conversing with himself and his liver, and said, "Shut up."

"I beg your pardon," remarked Mr. Asherill all in italics, "what did you observe?"

He really thought his ears must have deceived him.

"I did not observe anything; I asked you to shut up unless you could find something pleasanter to say to a fellow worried as I am than 'I told you so.'"

Mr. Asherill had, of course, long ceased playing whist, nevertheless he at that moment marked "one" against that perfect gentleman-his young partner.