Nellie was not in view.

Denry went in and shut the door.

“Sit down,” said Cotterill.

And it was just as if he had said:  “Now, you’re a fairly bright sort of youth, and you haven’t done so badly in life; and as a reward I mean to admit you to the privilege of hearing about our ill-luck, which for some mysterious reason reflects more credit on me than your good luck reflects on you, young man.”

And he stroked his straggling grey beard.

“I’m going to file my petition to-morrow,” said he, and gave a short laugh.

“Really!” said Denry, who could think of nothing else to say.  His name was not Capron-Smith.

“Yes; they won’t leave me any alternative,” said Mr Cotterill.

Then he gave a brief history of his late commercial career to the young man.  And he seemed to figure it as a sort of tug-of-war between his creditors and his debtors, he himself being the rope.  He seemed to imply that he had always done his sincere best to attain the greatest good of the greatest number, but that those wrong-headed creditors had consistently thwarted him.

However, he bore them no grudge.  It was the fortune of the tug-of-war.  He pretended, with shabby magnificence of spirit, that a bankruptcy at the age of near sixty, in a community where one has cut a figure, is a mere passing episode.

“Are you surprised?” he asked foolishly, with a sheepish smile.

Denry took vengeance for all the patronage that he had received during a decade.

“No!” he said.  “Are you?”

Instead of kicking Denry out of the house for an impudent young jackanapes, Mr Cotterill simply resumed his sheepish smile.

Denry had been surprised for a moment, but he had quickly recovered.  Cotterill’s downfall was one of those events which any person of acute intelligence can foretell after they have happened.  Cotterill had run the risks of the speculative builder, built and mortgaged, built and mortgaged, sold at a profit, sold without profit, sold at a loss, and failed to sell; given bills, second mortgages, and third mortgages; and because he was a builder and could do nothing but build, he had continued to build in defiance of Bursley’s lack of enthusiasm for his erections.  If rich gold deposits had been discovered in Bursley Municipal Park, Cotterill would have owned a mining camp and amassed immense wealth; but unfortunately gold deposits were not discovered in the Park.  Nobody knew his position; nobody ever does know the position of a speculative builder.  He did not know it himself.  There had been rumours, but they had been contradicted in an adequate way.  His recent refusal of the mayoral chain, due to lack of spare coin, had been attributed to prudence.  His domestic existence had always been conducted on the same moderately lavish scale.  He had always paid the baker, the butcher, the tailor, the dressmaker.

And now he was to file his petition in bankruptcy, and to-morrow the entire town would have “been seeing it coming” for years.