The Hub Wine Company, camouflaging the saloon business of two foolish young idiots, passed through its phases towards the inevitable collapse. Business declined; credit grew difficult; prompt payment for supplies more difficult still. We closed the Dining Room, then the House of Commons. The Banquets ceased. Selling out at “top price” became a dream, loss of all my capital a fact. Those were funereal days. To me it was a six months’ horror. The impulsive purchase was paid for dearly. It was not only the declining business, the approaching loss of my small capital, the prospect of presently working for some farmer at a dollar a day and green tea--it was not these things I chiefly felt. It was, rather, the fact that I had taken a step downhill, betrayed some imagined ideal in me, shown myself willing to “sell my soul” for filthy lucre. The price, though not paid in lucre, was certainly paid in mental anguish, and the letters from home, though patient, generously forgiving, even understanding, increased this tenfold.... My own nature, meanwhile, wholly apart from any other influence, sought what relief it could. My heart had never really been in the venture, my body now kept out of it as much as possible. The loathing I had felt for the place from the very beginning was quite apart from any question of success or failure. I hated the very atmosphere, the faces of the staff, the sound of voices as I approached the swinging doors. While attending strictly to business, never shortening my hours on duty by five minutes, and eagerly helping Kay in our efforts to get in another partner with money, my relief when once outside the actual building was immense. We had engaged a new manager, whose popularity in the town--he was a great cricketer--brought considerable fresh custom, but whose chief value in my eyes lay in the fact that I need not be present quite as much as before. Collins, who weighed twenty stone, was a character. Known for some reason as “the Duke,” he had no other title to nobility. He helped trade for a few brief weeks, but also helped himself at the same time, and his exit, not unlike that of Jimmy--who was “fired” for the same reason--was attended by threats of a slander suit, which also, like Jimmy’s, was set down in the Greek kalends. CHAPTER VIII