At length the financial orator, after raising his hand for silence, said deliberately, “the gentleman to whom I refer is Mr. Richard Tallant;” and then there went a whisper all about the room--“The chairman’s son!” In the public mind the name of Tallant had been so generally associated with everything that was honourable and true until now, that it seemed as if the bank was really broken indeed. London men looked silently and inquiringly at each other. Country shareholders, who had never previously attended these half-yearly meetings, looked on in amazement, and wondered what would be the next turn in the mysterious wheel of fortune. All this occurred in much less time than it occupies you to read what we have written by way of narrative. Not many moments elapsed before the chairman rose. He beckoned the speaker who had denounced his son, and the gentleman came up and began expressing regret at being compelled to take a course which must be so painful to the chairman. “Nay, nay, make no apologies, sir; you have simply discharged your duty,” said Mr. Tallant. “What proofs have you?” The honourable proprietor handed to the chairman a bundle of papers. Having carefully examined these through his eye-glass, and apologised for detaining the meeting, Mr. Tallant, in a voice which fully indicated the mental agony of the speaker, said--“Gentlemen, you will readily understand what a blow this is to me. When I rose to order it was not for a moment with any idea of screening my son----” “Query,” said a wretched shareholder, who was hissed, and hustled, too, in a moment. “It has been my pride,” said the chairman, heedless of the interruption, “throughout my long business career, to make the name of Tallant one of strength in this great metropolis, and a name which should be synonymous with wealth and with honour. My ambition was unbounded, you may say, but surely it was a laudable ambition. I say surely it was, more now by way of question than by way of assertion; perhaps the standard which I set up was too high. But until to-day I seem to have reached the acme of all my pride and hope; for never before, I believe, has a word been even whispered against the honour, and integrity, and soundness of a Tallant.” Cries of “Hear, hear!” and a weak attempt at cheering, greeted the fine old man, as he looked round the room with something like an air of triumph in his misery.