Henry Dunbar is coming home in a few days, we may as well know the real
truth. We shall better understand what sort of a man our new chief is."

"To be sure, sir, to be sure," returned the old clerk. "It's
five-and-thirty years ago,--five-and-thirty years ago this month, since
it all happened. If I hadn't good cause to remember the date because of
my own troubles, I should remember it for another reason, for it was the
Waterloo year, and city people had been losing and making money like
wildfire. It was in the year '15, sir, and our house had done wonders on
'Change. Mr. Henry Dunbar was a very handsome young man in those
days--very handsome, very aristocratic-looking, rather haughty in his
manners to strangers, but affable and free-spoken to those who happened
to take his fancy. He was very extravagant in all his ways; generous and
open-handed with money; but passionate and self-willed. It's scarcely
strange he should have been so, for he was an only child; he had neither
brother nor sister to interfere with him; and his uncle Hugh, who was
then close upon fifty, was a confirmed bachelor,--so Henry considered
himself heir to an enormous fortune."

"And he began his career by squandering every farthing he could get, I
suppose?" said Mr. Balderby.

"He did, sir. His father was very liberal to him; but give him what he
would, Mr. Percival Dunbar could never give his son enough to keep him
free of gambling debts and losses on the turf. Mr. Henry's regiment was
quartered at Knightsbridge, and the young man was very often at this
office, in and out, in and out, sometimes twice and three times a week;
and I expect that every time he came, he came to get money, or to ask
for it. It was in coming here he met my brother, who was a handsome
lad--ay, as handsome and as gentlemanly a lad as the young cornet