Sir Charles, who had been an astonished spectator of the scene, gave a qualified assent, and by that time Ovington was ready with his note. The Squire pouched it with care, but cut short his thanks. “I’ve told you why I do it,” he said gruffly. “And now I’m tired and I’ll be getting home. Give me your arm, Woosenham. But as we pass I’ve a word to say to that little joker in the bank.” He had his word, and a strange scene it was. The two great men stood within the counter, the old man bending his hawk-like face and sightless eyes on the quailing group beyond it, while the clerks looked on, half in awe and half in amusement. “Fools!” said the Squire in his harshest tone. “Fools, all of ye! Cutting your own throats and tearing the bottom out of your own money-bags! That’s what ye be doing! And you, Tom Jenkins, and you, Owen, that should know better, first among ’em! You haven’t the sense to see a yard before you, but elbow one another into the ditch like a pair of blind horses! You deserve to be ruined, every man of you, and it’s no fault o’ yourn that you’re not! Business men? You call yourselves business men, and run on a bank as if all the money was kept in a box under the counter ready to pay you! Go home! Go home!” poking at them with his stick. “And thank God the banker has more sense than you, and a sight more money than your tuppenny ha’penny accounts run to! Damme, if I were master here, if one single one o’ you should cross my door again! But there, take me out, Woosenham; take me out! Pack o’ fools! Pack o’ dumb fools, they are!”