He had by this time fought his way as far as the end of Cheapside, and here, where the roar was loudest and the contending currents mingled their striving masses, where the voices of the news-boys were shrillest, and the timid stood daunted, while even strong men paused, measuring the human whirlpool into which they must plunge, Clement’s eye was caught by a side-scene which was passing in the street hard by the Mansion House. Raised above the crowd on the steps of a large building, a haggard man was making an announcement—but in dumb show, for no word could be heard even by those who stood beside him, and his meaning could be deduced only from his gestures of appeal. The lower windows of the house were shuttered, and the upper exhibited many broken panes; but behind these and the cornice of the roof gleamed here and there a pale frightened face, peering down at the proceedings below. From the crowd collected before the haggard man rose a continuous roar of protest, a forest of menacing hands, shrill cries and curses, and now and again a missile, which, falling absurdly short—for in that press no man could swing his arm—still bore witness to the malice that urged it. Nearer to Clement on the skirts of the throng, where they could see little and were perpetually elbowed by impatient passersby, loitered a few who at a first glance seemed to be uninterested—so apathetic were their attitudes, so absent was their gaze. But a second glance disclosed the truth. They were men whom the tidings of ruin, sudden and unforeseen, had stunned. Spiritless and despairing, seeing only the home they had forfeited and the dear ones they had beggared, they stood in the street, blind and deaf to what was passing about them, and only by the mute agony of their eyes betrayed the truth. The sight wrung Clement’s heart with pity, and he seized a news-lad by the arm. “What is that place?” he shouted in his ear. In that babel no man could make himself heard without shouting. The man looked at him suspiciously. “Yar! Yer kidding!” he said. “Yer know as well as me!” Clement shook him in his impatience. “No, I don’t,” he shouted. “I’m a stranger! What is it, man? A bank?” “Where d’yer come from?” the lad retorted, as he twisted himself free. “It’s Everitt’s, that’s what it is! They closed an hour ago! Might as well ha’ never opened!” He went off hurriedly, and Clement went too, plunging into the maelstrom that divided him from Cornhill. But as he buffeted his way through the throng, the faces of the ruined men went with him, coming between him and the street, and with a sinking heart he fancied that he read, written on them, the fate of Ovington’s. CHAPTER XXXV