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But now came a change, a bitter revulsion, over this tossed mind: hope
and patience failed at last, and his virtue, being a thing of habit and
traditions rather than of the soul, wore out; nay more, this man, who had
sacrificed so nobly to commercial integrity, was filled with hate of his
idol and contempt of himself. "Idiot!" said he, "to throw away a fortune
fighting for honour--a greater bubble than that which has ruined
me--instead of breaking like a man, with a hidden purse, and starting
fair again, as sensible traders do."
No honest man in the country that year repented of his vices so sincerely
as Richard Hardie loathed his virtue. And he did not confine his
penitence to sentiment: he began to spend his days at the bank poring
over the books, and to lay out his arithmetical genius in a subtle
process, that should enable him by degrees to withdraw a few thousands
from human eyes for his future use, despite the feeble safeguards of the
existing law. In other words, Richard Hardie, like thousands before him,
was fabricating and maturing a false balance-sheet.


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