Bills were afloat
which he must meet, or stand before the world a detected forger,--bills
drawn upon companies that were shadowy as the regions of their supposed
operations. Bills amounting to five thousand pounds, drawn, upon the
Honduras Mahogany Company, Limited; other bills amounting to upwards of
three thousand pounds, against the Pennsylvanian Anthracite Coal
Corporation, Limited. The sum he might raise on the policies of insurance
would about cover these bills; and, simultaneously with their withdrawal,
fresh bills might be floated, and the horse-leech cry of the brokers for
contango might be satisfied until there came a reaction in the City, and
the turning tide should float him into some harbour of safety. Beyond
this harbour shone a splendid beacon, the dead girl's inheritance--his,
to claim by right of the same will that would give him the sum insured
upon her life.
Without this immediate ready money there was no extraction from the
hideous labyrinth. His position had been already too long sustained by
bills of exchange. There were people in the City who wanted, in vulgar
parlance, to see the colour of his money. He knew this--and knew how
frail the tenure by which he held his position, and how dire the crash
which would hurl him down to ruin.
After the proclamation of his inability to meet his differences--the
Deluge: and, looking gloomily athwart the flood and tempest, he saw
neither ark nor Ararat.
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