John Girdlestone shook his head despondingly. "How am I to get a man of any standing to do such a piece of business?" he said. "Nothing easier," answered Ezra, with a cynical laugh. "I could pick out a score of impecunious fellows from the clubs who would be only too glad to earn a hundred or two in any way you can mention. All their talk about honour and so forth is very pretty and edifying, but it's not meant for every day use. Of course we should have to pay him." "Them, you mean?" "No, we should only want one man." "How about our purchaser at the diamond fields?" "You don't mean to say," Ezra said roughly, "that you would be so absurd as to trust any man with our money. Why, I wouldn't let the Archbishop of Canterbury out of my sight with forty thousand pounds of mine. No, I shall go myself to the diamond fields--that is, if I can trust you here alone." "That is unkind, Ezra," said his father. "Your idea is an excellent one. I should have proposed it myself but for the discomforts and hardships of such a journey." "There's no use doing things by halves," the young man remarked. "As to our other agent, I have the very man--Major Tobias Clutterbuck. He is a shrewd, clever fellow, and he's always hard up. Last week he wanted to borrow a tenner from me. The job would be a godsend to him, and his social rank would be a great help to our plan. I'll answer for his jumping at the idea." "Sound him on the subject, then." "I will." "I am glad," said the old merchant, "that you and I have had this conversation, Ezra. The fact of my having speculated without your knowledge, and deceived you by a false ledger, has often weighed heavily upon my conscience, I assure you. It is a relief to me to have told you all." "Drop the subject, then," Ezra said curtly. "I must put up with it, for I have no redress. The thing is done and nothing can undo it; but I consider that you have willfully wasted the money." "Believe me, I have tried to act for the best. The good name of our firm is everything to me. I have spent my whole life in building it up, and if the day should come when it must go, I trust that I may have gone myself. There is nothing which I would not do to preserve it." "I see they want our premiums," Ezra said, glancing at the open letter upon the table. "How is it that none of those ships go down? That would give us help." "Hush! hush!" John Girdlestone cried imploringly. "Speak in a whisper when you talk of such things." "I can't understand you," said Ezra petulantly. "You persistently over-insure your ships, year after year. Look at the _Leopard_; it is put at more than twice what she was worth as new. And the _Black Eagle_, I dare say, is about the same. Yet you never have an accident with them, while your two new uninsured clippers run each other down."