"We. How about Harriett?"

"Harriett isn't going to mind."

"You're not--going--to mind.... We shall have to sell this house and live
in a smaller one. And I can't take my business up again."

"My dear, I'm glad and thankful you've done with that dreadful, dangerous
game."

"I'd no business to play it.... But, after holding myself in all those
years, there was a sort of fascination."

One of the creditors, Mr. Hichens, gave him work in his office. He was now
Mr. Hichens's clerk. He went to Mr. Hichens as he had gone to his own
great business, upright and alert, handsome in his dark-gray overcoat with
the black velvet collar, faintly amused at himself. You would never have
known that anything had happened.


Strange that at the same time Mr. Hancock should have lost money, a great
deal of money, more money than Papa. He seemed determined that everybody
should know it; you couldn't pass him in the road without knowing. He met
you with his swollen, red face hanging; ashamed and miserable, and angry
as if it had been your fault.

One day Harriett came in to her father and mother with the news. "Did you
know that Mr. Hancock's sold his horses? And he's going to give up the
house."