Some of the men were talking in loud whispers about the losses of the company and its evident mismanagement. There appeared to be a general feeling prevailing that it would be an awkward day for the directors. But this was no novelty at that time for directors of many other concerns. Gentlemen who had been working for years up to directorships, and some of whom had thought it necessary to obtain seats in the House of Commons, with a leading idea in this direction, now began to find that there were two sides to the directoral picture. The time had been when a gentleman could materially augment his income by having a seat at various boards of management; the time had been when he not only got thereby a first-rate investment for the nominal sum which gave him the qualification for certain directorates, but when his social and commercial position were largely exalted by these appointments. But directors at this period, with a commercial panic in the City and throughout the kingdom, began to find their seats full of thorns, and pins, and needles, and everything but curled hair and feathers. Shareholders in almost every shaky concern were down upon the directors, and in many instances very properly so; for gentlemen of repute, honourable men hitherto, had been weak enough to append their names to prospectuses and statements which they knew little or nothing about; and in some cases this was knavishly and cruelly done,--knavishly and cruelly, because honest and industrious people were induced to invest hard-earned savings in rotten schemes made to look safe by the names of the gentlemen who figured as directors. Sir This, and the Hon. the Other, Lord That, and Mr. This, M.P. for so-and-so, did not scruple to lend their names to designing villains who plundered the public behind these swellmarks, and in more than one case Sir This and Mr. That did not scruple to go shares in the booty. So you see the times were rather out of joint for directorships, and many eminent City and country gentlemen would have been rejoiced could they all at once have quietly retired from their several boards of management without inquiry or explanation. Mr. Richard Tallant could have told you of several safes where shares and scrip had been lately locked away by strong-backed men with a firm resolution not to look into those safes for many months to come. Some of these shares had been bought at heavy premiums, and now all that remained were the frightful responsibilities which attached to them. But there always had been panics, people said, and there always would be; and there always have been financial wreckers and sharpers to take advantage of monetary storms, and will be until the end. The half-yearly report stated that a loss of 100,000_l._ had fallen upon the Bombay branch; but this was by no means the worst feature in the affair, according to the views of the shareholders. Their shares, 100_l._ paid up, were quoted on the Stock Exchange at 5_l._ 10_s._