"Calm! calm, Mr Bellamy!" exclaimed the unhappy speaker, renouncing without hesitation all attempts at the _suaviter in modo_, and yet fearful of showing his indignation and of being overheard--"Calm! It is well for you to talk so. Had I been less calm, less easy; had I done my duty--had I been determined seven years ago, this cruel day would never have arrived. You are my witness that it never would." Mr Bellamy rose with much formality from his seat. "Gentlemen," he said, "I cannot submit to dark and plebeian innuendoes. I have come here to-day, at great personal inconvenience, and I am prepared to listen respectfully to any thing which Mr Allcraft thinks it his duty to bring before us. But I must have you remember that a gentleman and a man of honour cannot brook an insult." "I ask your pardon, sir," added Allcraft, in a tone of bitterness--"I meant no insult. Pray be seated. I have the honour to present you with a statement of our affairs. We have claims upon us, amounting to several thousand pounds, which must be met within a week. A third of the sum required will not be at our command. How is it to be obtained? and, if obtained, how is it to repair the inroads which, year after year, have been made upon the house, and how secure it from further spoliation? It is useless and absurd to hide from ourselves any longer the glaring fact that we are on the actual verge of bankruptcy." "Well! I have had nothing to do with that. You can't say it's me," ejaculated Mr Brammel. "You have had the management in your own hands, and so you have nobody but yourself to thank for it. I thought from the beginning how the concern would turn out!" "_Your_ share, sir, in furthering the interests of the bank we will speak of shortly," said Michael, turning to the speaker with contempt. "We have little time for recrimination now." "As for recrimination, Mr Allcraft," interposed Mr Bellamy, "I must be allowed to say, that you betray a very improper spirit in this business--very--very. You are far from being temperate." "Temperate!" "Yes; I said so." "Mr Bellamy," said Allcraft, bursting with rage, "I have been your partner for eight years. I have not for a moment deserted my post, or slackened in my duty. I have given my strength, my health, my peace of mind, to the house. I have drawn less than your clerk from its resources; but I have added to them, wrongfully, cruelly, and unpardonably, from means not my own, which, in common honesty, I ought never to have touched--which"-- "Really, really, Mr Allcraft," said Bellamy, interrupting him, "you have told us every word of this before."