Noah Skinner. Do
not repeat that after you have been turned into the streets, or you will
be indicted: at present we are confidential. Anything more before you
quit the rotten bank?"
"Yes, sir, plenty. I'll tell you your own history, past, present, and to
come. The road to riches is hard and rugged to the likes of me, but your
good father made it smooth and easy to you, sir. You had only to take the
money of a lot of fools that fancy they can't keep it themselves; invest
it in Consols and Exchequer bills, live on half the profits, put by the
rest, and roll in wealth. But this was too slow and too sure for you: you
must be Rothschild in a day; so you went into blind speculation, and
flung old Mr. Hardie's savings into a well. And now for the last eight
months you have been doctoring the ledger--Hardie winced just
perceptibly--"You have put down our gains in white, our losses in black,
and so you keep feeding your pocket-book and empty our tills; the pear
will soon be ripe, and then you will let it drop, and into the Bankruptcy
Court we go. But, what you forget, fraudulent bankruptcy isn't the
turnpike way of trade: it is a broad road, but a crooked one: skirts the
prison wall, sir, and sights the herring-pond.
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