“Good heavens!”

“It is a loan to an anonymous swamp by the Mosquito River.  But Mosquito suggests a bite.  So the vagabonds that brought the proposal over put their heads together as they crossed the Atlantic, and christened the place Poyais; and now fools that are not fools enough to lend sixpence to Zahara, are going to lend 200,000 pounds to rushes and reeds.”

“Why, Richard, what are you talking about?  ’The air is soft and balmy; the climate fructifying; the soil is spontaneous’—­what does that mean? mum! mum!  ‘The water runs over sands of gold.’  Why, it is a description of Paradise.  And, now I think of it, is not all this taken from John Milton?”

“Very likely.  It is written by thieves.”

“It seems there are tortoise-shell, diamonds, pearls—­”

“In the prospectus, but not in the morass.  It is a good, straightforward morass, with no pretensions but to great damp.  But don’t be alarmed, gentlemen, our countrymen’s money will not be swamped there.  It will all be sponged up in Threadneedle Street by the poetic swindlers whose names, or aliases, you hold in your hand.  The Greek, Mexican, and Brazilian loans may be translated from Prospectish into English thus:  At a date when every sovereign will be worth five to us in sustaining shriveling paper and collapsing credit, we are going to chuck a million sovereigns into the Hellespont, five million sovereigns into the Gulf of Mexico, and two millions into the Pacific Ocean.  Against the loans to the old monarchies there is only this objection, that they are unreasonable; will drain out gold when gold will be life-blood; which brings me, by connection, to my third item—­the provincial circulation.  Pray, gentlemen, do you remember the year 1793?”

For some minutes past a dead silence and a deep, absorbed attention had received the young man’s words; but that quiet question was like a great stone descending suddenly on a silent stream.  Such a noise, agitation, and flutter.  The old banker and his clerk both began to speak at once.

“Don’t we?”

“Oh, Lord, Mr. Richard, don’t talk of 1793.”

“What do you know about 1793?  You weren’t born.”

“Oh, Mr. Richard, such a to-do, sir! 1800 firms in the Gazette.  Seventy banks stopped.”

“Nearer a hundred, Mr. Skinner.  Seventy-one stopped in the provinces, and a score in London.”

“Why, sir, Mr. Richard knows everything, whether he was born or not.”

“No, he doesn’t, you old goose; he doesn’t know how you and I sat looking at one another, and pretending to fumble, and counting out slowly, waiting sick at heart for the sack of guineas that was to come down by coach.  If it had not come we should not have broken, but we should have suspended payment for twenty-four hours, and I was young enough then to have cut my throat in the interval.”

“But it came, sir—­it came, and you cried, ’Keep the bank open till midnight!’ and when the blackguards heard that, and saw the sackful of gold, they crept away; they were afraid of offending us.  Nobody came anigh us next day.  Banks smashed all round us like glass bottles, but Hardie & Co. stood, and shall stand for ever and ever.  Amen.”