"I can manage that easily enough," was the answer. "Luckily I did not make up my books on Saturday as I generally do. Now, sir, remember you know nothing except that you understood I was short twenty-five pounds for the wages. Leave all the rest to me." "You are sure, Lang, you do not mind interfering in this." Mr. Lang laughed a short laugh, more like a snort than an evidence of merriment. "Mind!" he echoed, "have I not been through the fire myself? but then I knew what was coming and arranged accordingly. Otherwise me and my wife and the children would not have had a bed to lie on. Mind! If the governor or you had only told me things were coming to this pass, we might have had a snug business at work some place else by this time, and snapped our fingers at them all. By Heavens, to think of it!" added Mr. Lang, stopping to look at Homewood. "I wish it had been bankruptcy though, if it must be anything, and then we should have had some chance of speaking out our minds about that rubbish from the General Chemical Company." "I did not know you had ever been bankrupt," said Rupert. "Yes, sir; I had to fail; after the old gentleman's death," with a jerk of his head he indicated that he meant Mr. Mortomley, senior. "I must needs go as working partner into a firm who promised to do wonders for me. When they had picked my skull clean, they wanted to pitch me over, and they did pitch me over, thinking to have all the road to themselves, but that was not good enough for me, not at all," added Mr. Lang sarcastically. "I had a little money and I got a place and I set to work, and I could have done well only there was not an article I dealt in they did not offer at a lower price. "Seeing their game I lowered my prices, then they cut theirs still lower, and so we went on till at last what we charged did not pay men's wages, let alone material and rent and all the rest of it. "I being a practical man, and able to work myself, had a little the advantage of them; and besides I knew what must come, sooner or later, and so managed matters that when the brokers came in at last--and I was sick to death of expecting them before they did come--there was not enough in my house to pay the expenses of levying. "At the works of course everything remained as usual, for there was not an article in them ever likely to be of use to me again. "My old partners and me smashed up about the same time, and they have never done any good since. I met one of them only the other day and he says, "'Lang,' he says, 'I wish we could have agreed and stayed together,' he says, 'we might all have been independent by this time.' "'I wish,' I says, 'you could have acted honourable by me. It might have been better for you in the long run. For myself, I'm pretty comfortable, thank you. I have a good berth at Mortomley's, and needn't lie awake half my nights thinking about the wages for Saturday.'