The insult did it, I think. It
was a monstrous thing to say. I could have punched his head."
Again old Heythorp nodded; and, looking into the secretary's fine blue
eyes, he repeated: "Bring 'em in."
The lonely minute before the entrance of his creditors passed in the
thought: 'So that's how it struck him! Short shrift I should get if it
came out.'
The gentlemen, who numbered ten this time, bowed to their debtor,
evidently wondering why the deuce they troubled to be polite to an old
man who kept them out of their money. Then, the secretary reappearing
with a cup of China tea, they watched while their debtor drank it. The
feat was tremulous. Would he get through without spilling it all down
his front, or choking? To those unaccustomed to his private life it was
slightly miraculous. He put the cup down empty, tremblingly removed some
yellow drops from the little white tuft below his lip, refit his cigar,
and said:
"No use beating about the bush, gentlemen; I can offer you fourteen
hundred a year so long as I live and hold my directorships, and not a
penny more. If you can't accept that, you must make me bankrupt and get
about sixpence in the pound.
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