“I do not hesitate to say that I am an old friend of the chairman; we are, many of us, old friends of the chairman, and it has been painful to me, and I doubt not to others, to hear an attack made on him.  If he is old in body, he is young in mental vigour and courage.  I wish we were all as young.  We ought to stand by him; I say, we ought to stand by him.” ("Hear, hear!  Hear, hear!”) And the secretary thought:  ’That’s done it!’ And he felt a sudden odd emotion, watching the chairman bobbing his body, like a wooden toy, at old Appleby; and old Appleby bobbing back.  Then, seeing a shareholder close to the door get up, thought:  ’Who’s that?  I know his face—­Ah! yes; Ventnor, the solicitor—­he’s one of the chairman’s creditors that are coming again this afternoon.  What now?’

“I can’t agree that we ought to let sentiment interfere with our judgment in this matter.  The question is simply:  How are our pockets going to be affected?  I came here with some misgivings, but the attitude of the chairman has been such as to remove them; and I shall support the proposition.”  The secretary thought:  ’That’s all right—­only, he said it rather queerly—­rather queerly.’

Then, after a long silence, the chairman, without rising, said: 

“I move the adoption of the report and accounts.”

“I second that.”

“Those in favour signify the same in the usual way.  Contrary?  Carried.”  The secretary noted the dissentients, six in number, and that Mr. Westgate did not vote.

A quarter of an hour later he stood in the body of the emptying room supplying names to one of the gentlemen of the Press.  The passionless fellow said:  “Haythorp, with an ‘a’; oh! an ‘e’; he seems an old man.  Thank you.  I may have the slips?  Would you like to see a proof?  With an ‘a’ you said—­oh! an ‘e.’  Good afternoon!” And the secretary thought:  ’Those fellows, what does go on inside them?  Fancy not knowing the old chairman by now!’...

2

Back in the proper office of “The Island Navigation Company” old Heythorp sat smoking a cigar and smiling like a purring cat.  He was dreaming a little of his triumph, sifting with his old brain, still subtle, the wheat from the chaff of the demurrers:  Westgate—­nothing in that—­professional discontent till they silenced him with a place on the board—­but not while he held the reins!  That chap at the back—­an ill-conditioned fellow!  “Something behind!” Suspicious brute!  There was something—­but—­hang it! they might think themselves lucky to get four ships at that price, and all due to him!  It was on the last speaker that his mind dwelt with a doubt.  That fellow Ventnor, to whom he owed money—­there had been something just a little queer about his tone—­as much as to say, “I smell a rat.”  Well! one would see that at the creditors’ meeting in half an hour.

“Mr. Pillin, sir.”

“Show him in!”

In a fur coat which seemed to extinguish his thin form, Joe Pillin entered.  It was snowing, and the cold had nipped and yellowed his meagre face between its slight grey whiskering.  He said thinly: