"Ay--you're a married man now. How's old Morgan? Lord! what fun we had at Shrewsbury when I helped you to your wife!" "So far as I recollect, Mr Cutts, you nearly finished that business. But I want to have a serious talk with you about other matters. What has become of that confounded Slopperton Valley, for which you were engineer?" "Slopperton Valley! Haven't you heard about it? The whole concern was wound up about three weeks ago. Take a glass of wine." "Wound up? Why, this is most extraordinary. I never received any circular!" "I thought as much," said Cutts, very coolly. "That's precisely what I said to old Hasherton, the chairman, the day after the secretary bolted. I told him he should send round notice to the fellows at a distance, warning them not to cash up; but it seems that the list of subscribers had gone amissing, and so the thing was left to rectify itself." "Bolted! You don't mean Mr Glanders, of the respectable firm of Glanders and Co.?" "Of course I do. I wonder you have not heard of it. That comes of living in a confounded country where there are neither breeches nor newspapers--help yourself--and no direct railway communication. Glanders bolted as a matter of course, and I can tell you that I thought myself very lucky in getting hold of as much of the deposits as cleared my preliminary expenses." "Cutts--are you serious?" "Perfectly. But what's the use of making a row about it? You look as grim as if there was verjuice in the sherry. You ought to thank your stars that the thing was put a stop to so soon." "Why--didn't you recommend me to apply for shares?" "Of course I did, and I wonder you don't feel grateful for the advice. Everybody thought they would have come out at a high premium. I would not have taken six pounds for them in the month of September; but this infernal potato business has brought on the panic, and nobody will table a shilling for any kind of new stock. It was a lucky thing for us that we got a kind of hint to draw in our horns in time." "And pray, since the concern is wound up, as you say, how much of our deposit-money will be returned?" "You don't mean to say," said Cutts, with singularly elaborate articulation--"You don't mean to say that you were such an inconceivable ass as to pay up your letter of allotment? Well, I never heard of such a piece of deliberate infatuation! Why, man, a blacksmith with half an eye must have seen that the game was utterly up a week before the calls were due. I don't think there is a single man out of Scotland who would have made such a fool of himself; indeed, so far as I know, nobody cashed up except a dozen old women who knew nothing about the matter, and ten landed proprietors, who expected compensation, and deserved to be done accordingly. You need not look as though you meditated razors. The Biggleswade profits will pay for this more than thirty times over."