Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him.

Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted, with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks’ incessant labour.  Yet personally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic; and disliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner, more than ever.  As to the strike, however, they came to a complete understanding.  The Clarion, or rather the Clarion fund, which was doing better and better, held the key of the whole situation.  If that fund could be maintained, the men could hold out.  In view of the possible formation of the syndicate, Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintaining the redoubled importance of securing the men’s terms before the syndicate was launched.  Wharton promised him with glee that he should be supported to the bitter end.

If, that is to say—­a proviso he did not discuss with Craven—­the Clarion itself could be kept going.  In August a large sum, obtained two years before on the security of new “plant,” would fall due.  The time for repayment had already been extended; and Wharton had ascertained that no further extension was possible.

Well! bankruptcy would be a piquant interlude in his various social and political enterprises!  How was it to be avoided?  He had by now plenty of rich friends in the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided, likely to be useful to him at the present moment.  For the amount of money that he required was large—­larger, indeed, than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost nil.

As to friends in the City, indeed, the only excursion of a business kind that he had made into those regions since his election was now adding seriously to his anxieties—­might very well turn out, unless the matter were skilfully managed, to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon.

In the early days of his parliamentary life, when, again, mostly for the Clarion’s sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had become director of what promised to be an important company, through the interest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance, who had taken a liking to the young member.  The company had been largely “boomed,” and there had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares.  Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed both point and finish to some of the early prospectuses.

Then, after six months, he had withdrawn from the Board, under apprehensions that had been gradually realised with alarming accuracy.  Things, indeed, had been going very wrong indeed; there were a number of small investors; and the annual meeting of the company, to be held now in some ten days, promised a storm.  Wharton discovered, partly to his own amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during his directorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at all likely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the past were really sifted.  The ill-luck of it was truly stupendous; for on the whole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become a member; having all through a jealous eye to his political success.