“My partner, you see, has been playing the fool. Barlow Brothers, General Stores, Colonial Produce, will be smashed if I can’t raise a few hundreds.” “Your going concern, as you call it, is going to grief. And what will you do?” “You shall just see what I wanted. Barlows’ is a General Store in a rising town. There are great capabilities in Barlow Brothers. I came over here to convert Barlow Brothers into a Limited Liability Company, capital £150,000. Branches everywhere. Our own sugar estates, our own tea and coffee plantations. That was my idea!” “It was a bold idea, at any rate.” “It was. As for Barlows’ General Store, I confess, between ourselves, and considering that you don’t belong to the City, I don’t mind owning up to you that it is little better than a shanty, where I sold sardines and tea-leaves and bacon. But the capabilities, my dear boy--the capabilities!” “And you brought this project to London! Well, there have been greater robberies.” Uncle Fred took another glass of whisky-and-soda. He laughed no more. He even sighed. “I thought London was an enterprising city. It appears not. No promoter will so much as look at the Company. I was willing to let my interest in it go for £40,000. If you’ll believe me, Leonard, they won’t even look at it. A few hundreds would save it, a few thousands would make it a Colossal Success. For want of it we must go to the wall.” “You were hoping to sell a bankrupt business as a flourishing business.” “That is so. But it hasn’t come off.” “Well, what shall you do?” “I shall have to begin again at the bottom. That’s all.” “Oh!” Leonard looked at him doubtfully, for he seemed in no way cast down. “You will go back to Australia, then.” There was some consolation in the thought. “I shall go back. I don’t know my way about in London. I will go back and begin again, just as before, at the bottom rung. I shall have to do odd jobs, I dare say. I may possibly have to become a shepherd, or a night-watchman, or a sandwich-man. What does it matter? I shall only be down among the boys who can’t get any lower. There’s a fine feeling of brotherhood down there, which you swells would never understand.” “Have you no money left at all?” “None. Not more than I carry about with me. A few pounds.” “Then the fine show of prosperity was all a sham?” “All a sham. And it wouldn’t work. Nobody in the City will look at my Company.” “Would it not be better to try for some definite kind of work? You can surely do something. You might write for the papers, with all your experience.”