"Your lunch is served, sir."
Joe Pillin started violently, and rose.
"Well, good-bye, Sylvanus-good-bye! I don't suppose I shall be back till
the summer, if I ever come back!" He sank his voice: "I shall rely on
you. You won't let them, will you?"
Old Heythorp lifted his hand, and Joe Pillin put into that swollen
shaking paw his pale and spindly fingers. "I wish I had your pluck," he
said sadly. "Good-bye, Sylvanus," and turning, he passed out.
Old Heythorp thought: 'Poor shaky chap. All to pieces at the first
shot!' And, going to his lunch, ate more heavily than usual.
2
Mr. Ventnor, on reaching his office and opening his letters, found, as
he had anticipated, one from "that old rascal." Its contents excited in
him the need to know his own mind. Fortunately this was not complicated
by a sense of dignity--he only had to consider the position with an eye
on not being made to look a fool. The point was simply whether he set
more store by his money than by his desire for--er--Justice. If not, he
had merely to convene the special meeting, and lay before it the plain
fact that Mr. Joseph Pillin, selling his ships for sixty thousand
pounds, had just made a settlement of six thousand pounds on a lady
whom he did not know, a daughter, ward, or what-not--of the purchasing
company's chairman, who had said, moreover, at the general meeting,
that he stood or fell by the transaction; he had merely to do this,
and demand that an explanation be required from the old man of such a
startling coincidence.
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