“Well, Nat got going pretty good there, for a piece. He was working for a stake to marry the A-higher girl like I said, and when a kid’s got his back up to do something big for a girl, there’s times when a team o’ hosses can’t hold him. He was keen enough, too, for a kid. He’d probably come out all right if he hadn’t been sidetracked by marryin’ that dumpy Richards thing. Anyhow, he’d had the business incorporated and hittin’ the high spots and it was making so much money for a spell that lots o’ folks hereabouts bought stock. Bought some myself! But it reached its peak the first year o’ Nat’s marriage. Guess the boy lost heart. Then again, his old man give him trouble. What John didn’t know about business, any kind of business, would fill a dam’ big book. So they pulled and they hauled and they sawed, and with a baby comin’, the boy couldn’t very well break away. Then him and Milly didn’t get along—him bein’ a poet and she bein’ a cow. Taken altogether, the box-works commenced to slide.” “And now it’s reached bankruptcy?” “’Twouldn’t have gone into bankruptcy if old John hadn’t had one last walloper of a fight with his woman, and one mornin’ showed up missin’. The girl Edith—that’s Nat’s sister—she holds out for marryin’ a feller by the name o’ Dubois—French feller from Montreal. Folks objected, her folks. They objected so much she ran off with him one night and the old man couldn’t have the marriage busted ’cause there was a fambly comin’. John’s woman got scrappin’ and blamin’ him for makin’ a mess o’ things generally and so, well—last week he simply pulled his stakes and blowed.” “But why should they put the son in jail?” “Wal, seems Johnathan got the idea from somewheres that because he was president and had started the business, it belonged to him, ‘specially the funds. He forgot there was stockholders been interested. He gets peeved and draws out a rotten lot o’ the company’s workin’ capital. Cripples it so it can’t pay its bills. He takes it with him, and God knows where he’s gone. The bank folks here certainly’d like to. The stockholders get together and bein’ pretty hot under the collar and all, they thinks Nat might blow too, and they claps him in the hoosegow. The bank puts figgerers ont’ the books and they found the shop’s been losing money for most three years—just eatin’ into its capital and eatin’ and eatin’. John’s skippin’ out sorter pulled down the temple. The boy’s helpless, ’cause they set his bail so high there won’t nobody go it, though they do say old Caleb in California, or somewheres, has wired he’d come back and lend a hand to straighten things out. But there ain’t much hope o’ re-openin’ the business. Won’t pay fifteen cents on the dollar. Feel like a fool about it myself. Had in fifty dollars.” “And how does his mother and wife take it?” Madelaine asked. Not that she particularly cared, but she had to say something.