“Will, my boy! He’s got £6,000 a year, and he spends nothing and he gives nothing. All that money, with something he had from his mother, has been rolling up and rolling up. How much is it? A million? Two millions? And here am I hard up for want of a few pounds, and you, a Fraud and an Impostor, working like a nigger, and all that money waiting to be spent as it should be spent. It’s maddening, Chris--it’s maddening.” “So it is, so it is. But nothing can be done. Well, you were on the highroad to D.T., and, instead of seeing rats, you heard a voice calumniating your brother, and you came home; and you put your vast concern in your pocket--the waistcoat pocket held it all, no doubt.” “What the devil does it matter which pocket held it?” Christopher leaned back and joined the tips of his fingers. “I wasn’t going to spoil your game, Fred, though that devil of a voice did speak such utterances. But I knew all along. I smelt a fake, so to speak. You a man of business? You the head of a great Colonial Enterprise? No, no; it was too thin, my brother--too thin. Not but what you looked the part--I will say that.” “Upon my word, I thought it was going to come off. I got hold of a company promoter. He said he’s steered craft more crazy than mine into Port. Talked of a valuation: talked of assigning 50,000 shares to me as owner of the Colonial business----” “Well, but, Fred, come to the facts; sooner or later the facts would have to be faced, you know. What was the Colonial business?” “It was a going concern fast enough when I left it. Whether it’s going now I don’t know. A lovely shanty by the roadside, stocked with a large assortment of sardines, Day and Martin, tea, flour, and sugar. What more do you want? The thing I traded on was not the shanty, but the possible ‘development.’” “The development of the shanty. Excellent!” “The development, I say, out of this humble roadside beginning. I made great use of the humble beginning: I thought they would accept the first steps of the development. I proposed a vast company with stores all over Australia for the sale of everything. Barlow Brothers were to serve the Australian Continent. We were to have our sugar estates in the Mauritius: our coffee estates in Ceylon: our tea estates in Assam: our flour-mills everywhere: our vineyards in France and Germany----” “I see--I see. Quite enough, Fred; the scheme does you great honour. So you went into the City with it.” “I did. I’ve wasted buckets full of champagne over it, and whisky enough to float a first-class yacht. And what’s the result?” “I see. And you’ve come to an end.” “That is so. The very end. Look!” He pulled out his watch-chain. There was no watch at the end of it. “The watch has gone in,” he said. “The chain will go next. And there’s the hotel bill.” “Rather a heavy bill, I should imagine.” “I’ve done myself well, Christopher.” “And how are you going to pay that bill? And what are you going to do afterwards?”