‘It seems a bad time for starting any one on business, wi’ prices and taxes and bread so dear; but John and I are getting into years, and we’ve no children to follow us:  yet we would fain draw out of some of our worldly affairs.  We would like to give up the shop, and stick to banking, to which there seemeth a plain path.  But first there is the stock and goodwill of the shop to be disposed on.’

A dead pause.  This opening was not favourable to the hopes of the two moneyless young men who had been hoping to succeed their masters by the more gradual process of partnership.  But it was only the kind of speech that had been agreed upon by the two brothers with a view of impressing on Hepburn and Coulson the great and unusual responsibility of the situation into which the Fosters wished them to enter.  In some ways the talk of many was much less simple and straightforward in those days than it is now.  The study of effect shown in the London diners-out of the last generation, who prepared their conversation beforehand, was not without its parallel in humbler spheres, and for different objects than self-display.  The brothers Foster had all but rehearsed the speeches they were about to make this evening.  They were aware of the youth of the parties to whom they were going to make a most favourable proposal; and they dreaded that if that proposal was too lightly made, it would be too lightly considered, and the duties involved in it too carelessly entered upon.  So the role of one brother was to suggest, that of the other to repress.  The young men, too, had their reserves.  They foresaw, and had long foreseen, what was coming that evening.  They were impatient to hear it in distinct words; and yet they had to wait, as if unconscious, during all the long preamble.  Do age and youth never play the same parts now?  To return.  John Foster replied to his brother: 

’The stock and goodwill!  That would take much wealth.  And there will be fixtures to be considered.  Philip, canst thee tell me the exact amount of stock in the shop at present?’

It had only just been taken; Philip had it at his fingers’ ends.  ’One thousand nine hundred and forty-one pounds, thirteen shillings and twopence.’

Coulson looked at him in a little dismay, and could not repress a sigh.  The figures put into words and spoken aloud seemed to indicate so much larger an amount of money than when quickly written down in numerals.  But Philip read the countenances, nay, by some process of which he was not himself aware, he read the minds of the brothers, and felt no dismay at what he saw there.

‘And the fixtures?’ asked John Foster.

’The appraiser valued them at four hundred and thirty-five pounds three and sixpence when father died.  We have added to them since, but we will reckon them at that.  How much does that make with the value of the stock?’

’Two thousand one hundred and seventy-six pounds, sixteen shillings and eightpence,’ said Philip.