I repeat, for the twentieth time, that Mr Barnett’s knowledge of men had never failed him. He must not be judged on this exceptional case, nor condemned because he underestimated the follies that men like Mr Burden can commit, when their state of mind is such as was then Mr Burden’s state of mind. For, a passion like a fighting passion possessed Mr Burden, and rioted through his aged and enfeebled body, forcing its organs beyond their power, and straining the material framework of his life. In that passion he had forgotten decent conduct; he had forgotten investments and all that investments should mean to a just and reasonable man. He repeated without moving: “What can I do?” He said it two or three times in a low voice. He remembered a furious letter to the Press which he had not posted: he remembered his fear lest the Press should refuse to print it. He remembered his sufferings as the syndicate was preparing, he remembered his yielding, and what that yielding had cost him in the soul. He remembered above all Mr Abbott, Charles Abbott, his friend—and, remembering these things, he lost all control. He snatched up his hat from the ground, and thrust it far back upon his head at random: he sprang upright: he held his chair tilted back with one hand; with the other he grasped his umbrella in a kind of swagger, tip to ground, as though it had been the scabbard of a sword. He seemed vigorous, or perhaps distraught: intoxicated with the words that rose in him. Mr Harbury, whose judgment I will always trust in such matters, and who was once not unacquainted with the management of the stage, has told me that never in his life, not even in the Levant, had he seen so dramatic a passage of anger as was that of this old Englishman in the toils: all his respectable English dress was at random; his sober English gestures became those of a man who fights or labours; and it is a detail worthy of notice, that the bone stud at his throat broke as he started up, and that his collar went flying loose at random. He shouted at them: “What can I do? Oh, I can do a great deal, I can! You, Barnett, and you, Harbury, and all of you! All!” Perhaps he actually felt the presence of a crowd: the massed forces of this new world surging against him; he spoke as though to numbers. [Illustration: MR BURDEN IN HIS LAST UNFORTUNATE FIT OF PASSION (FROM A SKETCH VERY KINDLY PROVIDED BY MR HARBURY)] “I can smash it! I can smash you, and your precious shareholders ... and, and the Duke ... and the whole thing! I can go and say why I went! Eh? Oh! good Lord! and I shall print it.... If they won’t print it in your cursed papers, I’ll placard it; I’ll cover the town with it; I’ll put your names up high—all your names—your names that you hide, and the names that you have had and lost ... swindlers and thieves and scum!”