This jocularity of Denry’s was a symptom that Denry’s spirits were rising.  The bearded youth was seen oftener in the streets behind his mule and his dog.  The adventurer had, indeed, taken to the road again.  After an emaciating period he began once more to stouten.  He was the image of success.  He was the picturesque card, whom everybody knew and everybody had pleasure in greeting.

In some sort he was rather like the flag on the Town Hall.

And then a graver misfortune threatened.

It arose out of the fact that, though Denry was a financial genius, he was in no sense qualified to be a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.  The notion that an excess of prosperity may bring ruin had never presented itself to him, until one day he discovered that out of over two thousand pounds there remained less than six hundred to his credit at the bank.  This was at the stage of the Thrift Club when the founder of the Thrift Club was bound under the rules to give credit.  When the original lady member had paid in her two pounds or so, she was entitled to spend four pounds or so at shops.  She did spend four pounds or so at shops.  And Denry had to pay the shops.  He was thus temporarily nearly two pounds out of pocket, and he had to collect that sum by trifling instalments.  Multiply this case by five hundred, and you will understand the drain on Denry’s capital.  Multiply it by a thousand, and you will understand the very serious peril which overhung Denry.  Multiply it by fifteen hundred and you will understand that Denry had been culpably silly to inaugurate a mighty scheme like the Universal Thrift Club on a paltry capital of two thousand pounds.  He had.  In his simplicity he had regarded two thousand pounds as boundless wealth.

Although new subscriptions poured in, the drain grew more distressing.  Yet he could not persuade himself to refuse new members.  He stiffened his rules, and compelled members to pay at his office instead of on their own doorsteps; he instituted fines for irregularity.  But nothing could stop the progress of the Universal Thrift Club.  And disaster approached.  Denry felt as though he were being pushed nearer and nearer to the edge of a precipice by a tremendous multitude of people.  At length, very much against his inclination, he put up a card in his window that no new members could be accepted until further notice, pending the acquisition of larger offices and other arrangements.  For the shrewd, it was a confession of failure, and he knew it.

Then the rumour began to form, and to thicken, and to spread, that Denry’s famous Universal Thrift Club was unsound at the core, and that the teeth of those who had bitten the apple would be set on edge.

And Denry saw that something great, something decisive, must be done and done with rapidity.

II

His thoughts turned to the Countess of Chell.  The original attempt to engage her moral support in aid of the Thrift Club had ended in a dangerous fiasco.  Denry had been beaten by circumstances.  And though he had emerged from the defeat with credit, he had no taste for defeat.  He disliked defeat even when it was served with jam.  And his indomitable thoughts turned to the Countess again.  He put it to himself in this way, scratching his head: