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."
"Who showed the white feather, Mr. Skinner? Who came creeping and
sniveling, and took my hand under the counter, and pressed it to give
me courage, and then was absurd enough to make apologies, as if
sympathy was as common as dirt? Give me your hand directly, you
old--Hallo!"
"God bless you, sir! God bless you! It is all right, sir. The bank is
safe for another fifty years. We have got Master Richard, and he has
got a head. O Gemini, what a head he has got, and the other day
playing marbles!"
"Yes, and we are interrupting him with our nonsense. Go on, Richard."
Richard had secretly but fully appreciated the folly of the
interruption. His was a great mind, and moved in a sort of pecuniary
ether high above the little weaknesses my reader has observed in
Hardie senior and old Skinner. Being, however, equally above the other
little infirmities of fretfulness and fussiness, he waited calmly and
proceeded coolly.
"What was the cause of the distress in 1793?"
"Ah! that was the puzzle--wasn't it, Skinner? We were never so
prosperous as that year. The distress came over us like a
thunder-storm all in a moment. Nobody knows the exact cause."
"I beg your pardon, sir, it is as well known as any point of history
whatever. Some years of prosperity had created a spawn of country
banks, most of them resting on no basis; these had inflated the
circulation with their paper.
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