But while
he was at Calcutta, the greatest firm there suspended payment carrying
astonishment and dismay into a hundred families. At such moments the
press and the fireside ring for a little while with the common-sense
cry,* "Good interest means bad security." As for Dodd, who till then had
revered all these great houses with nautical or childlike confidence, a
blind terror took the place of blind trust in him; he felt guilty towards
his children for risking their money (he had got to believe it was
theirs, not his), and vowed, if he could only get hold of it once more,
he would never trust a penny of it out of his own hands again, except,
perhaps, to the Bank of England. But should he ever get it? It was a
large sum. He went to Messrs. Anderson & Anderson, and drew for his
fourteen thousand pounds. To his dismay, but hardly to his surprise, the
clerks looked at one another, and sent the cheque into some inner
department. Dodd was kept waiting. His heart sank with him: there was a
hitch.
*The Duke of Wellington (the iron one) is the author of this saying.
Meantime came a Government officer, and paid in an enormous sum in notes
and mercantile bills, principally the latter.
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