An agony went across Mr. Hardie's great face, and seemed to furrow as it ran.
“Not but what you are all right, sir,” resumed his little cat-like tormentor, letting him go a little way, to nail him again by-and-bye: “You have cooked the books in time: and Cocker was a fool to you. 'Twill be all down in black and white. Great sacrifices: no reserve: creditors take everything; dividend fourpence in the pound, furniture of house and bank, Mrs. Hardie's portrait, and down to the coalscuttle. Bankrupt saves nothing but his honour, and--the six thousand pounds or so he has stitched into his old great-coat: hands his new one to the official assignees, like an honest man.”
Hardie uttered something between a growl and a moan.
“Now comes the per contra: poor little despised Noah Skinner has kept genuine books while you have been preparing false ones. I took the real figures home every afternoon on loose leaves, and bound 'em: and very curious they will read in court alongside of yours. I did it for amusement o' nights: I'm so solitary, and so fond of figures. I must try and turn them to profit; for I'm out of place now in my old age. Dearee me! how curious that you should go and pick out me of all men to turn into the street--like a dog--like a dog--like a dog.”
Hardie turned his head away; and in that moment of humiliation and abject fear, drank all the bitterness of moral death.
His manhood urged him to defy Skinner and return to the straight path, cost what it might. But how could he? His own books were all falsified. He could place a true _total_ before his creditors by simply adding the contents of his secret hoard to the assets of the Bank; but with this true arithmetical result he could not square his books, except by conjectural and fabricated details, which would be detected, and send him to prison; for who would believe he was lying in figures only to get back to the truth? No, he had entangled himself in his own fraud, and was at the mercy of his servant. He took his line. “Skinner, it was your interest to leave me whilst the bank stood; then you would have got a place directly; but since you take umbrage at my dismissing you for your own good, I must punish you--by keeping you.”