“I have held a high place amongst you now for many years; but we have fallen upon bad times. We are in the midst of a financial crisis which is not only breaking banks but friendships; which is not only carrying wreck and ruin to the weak and the false, the fool and the knave, but which is shaking the reputations of men of probity and honour. The suggestion of an honourable proprietor, made this day, that I should resign, was greeted with a sufficient sound of approving voices to determine me in my course, before this attack upon my son. It had been my full intention to resign (cries of “No, no!” and “Yes, yes!”). I have no other alternative.” Here the cries of “No, no!” and “Yes, yes!” broke out afresh, and somebody said, “How do we know he isn’t as bad as his son?” When something like quiet was once more restored, Mr. Tallant said, “I have been your chairman now for nearly five years. I have striven to do my duty to this great corporation. Through misfortunes over which the directors could have but little control, the failure of some great houses in Bombay----” “And your own mismanagement,” said a fierce and irrepressible shareholder, who had five thousand pounds locked up in the concern, and who thought this a sufficient warrant for being angry and insolent. But Mr. Tallant did not appear to hear these galling remarks, howsoever deeply they may have impressed him. “And through the failure of some great houses in Bombay,” he repeated, “our Indian branches have suffered a loss of one hundred thousand pounds.” Loud groans, and other expressions of anger and contempt, greeted this announcement. In the midst of it the chairman, who had taken a cheque-book from his pocket, sat down, and with a trembling hand filled it up, and signed it with his well-known clear bold signature. Raising his hand to command silence, he said, “One hundred thousand pounds represents your losses by these failures--the only losses this corporation have suffered during my presidency. Here is a cheque for the amount, and I shall--never--occupy this chair again.” Mr. Tallant deliberately handed the cheque to the secretary of the company, who sat near him, and taking up his hat proceeded to leave the room. The shareholders and others made way for the fine old English gentleman as he passed, and in a few moments his firm steady footstep could be heard on the staircase. Some minutes elapsed before it occurred to several friends that they ought to follow him. By the time they reached the street Mr. Tallant was nowhere to be seen. He had called a hansom, and ordered the driver to go to the Paddington Railway Station: and he sat there in the waiting-room for nearly an hour. Trains came and went whilst he sat there; people came in and out, happy mothers and children, merry West-countrymen, and London tourists, and sorrowful-looking people also.