Still murmuring to himself, Mr. Lindsay slowly walked out of the counting-room.

It was not strange, that, under the pressure of his own calamity, Mr. Lindsay had no thought for the losses of others.  He forgot that Monroe was really in a far worse position, since, if the ten thousand dollars were lost, it was his all.  Neither did Monroe, at first, reflect upon his own impending misfortune; he had been so intent upon preserving the credit of the house, that his own interest had been lost sight of.

Presently the notary came with the inevitable demand.  He was a cheerful fellow in his sorry business, blithe as an old stager of an undertaker at a first-class funeral.  He chatted about the crisis, and, as a matter of course, brought all the latest news from State Street.  Monroe listened to one piece of news, but had ears for no more.  “Sandford and Fayerweather had failed, and the old Vortex, which they had managed, was dead broke, cleaned out.”

Mr. Lindsay was not the only heart-stricken man who left the counting-room that day.

CHAPTER XVI.

Monroe was walking sorrowfully homeward, when he met Easelmann near the corner of Summer Street.  He was in no humor for conversation, but he could not civilly avoid the painter, who evidently was waiting to speak to him.

“Glad to see one man that isn’t a capitalist.  You and I, Monroe, are independent of banks and brokers.”

Monroe faintly smiled.

“This is a deadly time here in Boston,—­a horrible stagnation.  Every man avoids his neighbor as though he had the plague; and we have no Boccaccio to tell us stories while the dead-carts go by.”

“The dead-cart went through our street to-day.”

“You don’t tell me!  Who is the lucky corpse that is out of his misery?”

“Mr. Lindsay.  Our house is shut up, and I am a vagrant.”

“A pair of us!  For the last month I have performed the Wandering Jew all by myself.  Now I have company.  What shall we do to be jolly?”

“Jolly!”—­with a tone of melancholy surprise.

“When should a man be jolly, if he can’t when he’s nothing to do?  I am the slave of gold, you understand.  If any rich magician rubs his double-eagles before me, woe is me, if I don’t paint!  When the magicians send their eagles on other errands, I am free from their drudgery.  Meanwhile, I live on air, flattened out and packed away, like a Mexican horned-frog, or a dreaming toad, in a fissure of a preadamite rock.”

“I am sorry I haven’t your art of making misfortune comfortable.”

“Misfortune?  My philosophical friend, there isn’t any such thing.  The true man is superior to circumstances or accidents. (Some old fellow, I believe, has said that; somebody always says my good things before me; but no matter.) Nothing can happen amiss to the wise and good.”

“Then I am neither wise nor good, for I have lost my all, and it comes confoundedly amiss to me.”