MORTOMLEY'S BLUE.
The new year brought with it much glorification of spirit to the manager
of St. Vedast Wharf and the two men whose fortunes were, to a certain
extent, associated with the temporary success of the General Chemical
Company Limited.
Never before had so satisfactory a balance-sheet been presented to the
shareholders of that company,--never before had a good dividend been so
confidently recommended,--never had accountants audited accounts so
entirely satisfactory, or checked securities so stamped with the impress
of solvency,--never had the thanks of every one been so due to any body
of directors as on that special occasion, and never had any manager,
secretary, and the other officers of any company been so efficient, so
self-denying, so hard-working, and so utterly conscientious as the
manager and other officers connected with that concern which was
travelling as fast to ruin as it knew how.
The way in which these things are managed might puzzle even a man
experienced in City ways to explain, since each company has its own
modes of cooking its accounts and hoodwinking the public. But these
things are done,--they were yesterday, they have been to-day, they will
be to-morrow; and if you live so long, my dear reader, you will hear
more about yesterday's doings, and to-day's, and to-morrow's when, a few
years hence, you peruse the case of Blank _v._ Blank, or Blank _v._ the
Blank Company Limited, or any other improving record of the same sort.
The worst of the whole matter is that our clever financiers always keep
a little in advance of the law, as our clever thieves always keep a
little in advance of our safemakers. The gentlemen of a hundred schemes
complacently fleece their victims, and Parliament--wise after--says in
solemn convocation that the British sheep shall never be shorn in such
and such a way again with impunity.
Nevertheless, though not in the same way, the sheep is shorn daily, and
the shearer escapes scot-free with the wool. Always lagging behind the
wit of the culprit comes the wit of the law. It is only the poor
wretches who have no brains to enable them to take a higher flight than
picking pockets that really suffer.
"You are a hardened ruffian," says the judge, looking through his
spectacles at the pickpocket who has been convicted about a dozen times
previously, "and I mean to send you for five years where you can pick no
more pockets," which indeed the hardened ruffian--stripping off all the
false clothing philanthropists love to deck him with--deserves most
thoroughly. But, then, what about the hardened ruffians who are never
convicted, who float their bubble companies and rob the widow and the
orphan as coolly as Bill Sykes, only with smiling faces and well-clothed
persons?
It is unfair, no doubt, these should escape as they do scot-free, and
yet I must confess time has destroyed much of my sympathy with the widow
and the orphan who entrust their substance to strangers and believe in
the possible solvency--for such as them--of twenty per cent. One is
growing particularly tired of that countryman, so familiar to Londoners,
who loses his money because two total strangers ask if he has faith
enough to trust one or the other with a ten-pound-note, and it is
difficult to help feeling that a sound flogging judiciously administered
to one of these yokels who take up so much of a magistrate's time, would
impress the rural mind throughout England much more effectually than any
number of remarks from his Worship or leaders in the daily papers.
As one grows older, one's intolerance towards dupes is only equalled by
one's intolerance towards bores. A man begins by pitying a dupe and ends
by hating him; and the reason is that a dupe has so enormous a capacity
for giving trouble and so great a propensity for getting into it.
At that especial half-yearly meeting, however, of which mention has been
made, there were very few dupes connected with the General Chemical
Company, Limited. All the new shareholders indeed, and a very small
proportion of the old might, it is true, have faith in the concern, but
as a rule the directors and the shareholders, the accountants and the
officials, knew the whole affair was a farce, got up for the purpose of
inducing the general public to invest their money in a concern with
which those privileged to peep behind the scenes were most heartily
disgusted.
Like many other debts of lesser magnitude, Mortomley's had not yet been
entered as bad. His account was kept open, in order that the ample
dividend promised by Mr. Swanland at the meeting of creditors might be
duly entered to his credit. Meanwhile his unpaid acceptances were still
skilfully manipulated as securities, thus:--On one side the books, that
everything might be done strictly and in order, appeared the entry,
"Bills returned, so much, interest thereon, so much," very little
interest being charged, the reader may be certain; and on the other,
"Bills retained, so much," which really made the bankrupt's apparent
debt to the concern when a balance was struck something merely nominal.
On the same principle, when a dividend of six per cent. for the half
year was recommended, as the profit, admirable in itself, had the slight
disadvantage of existing in paper instead of hard cash, the amount
required was paid out of capital--"loaned out of capital," as Mr. Forde
cleverly defined the transaction; and next day the shares were quoted in
the 'Times' at a premium, and those most interested in the concern shook
hands and congratulated themselves that the meeting had gone off so
well.
In fact, the worse trade chanced to be at St. Vedast Wharf, the more it
behoved those connected with the establishment to put the best face on
affairs, and, to their credit be it spoken, they did. Indeed, but for
the revelations of clerks and the sour looks of certain bankers when the
Chemical Company was mentioned, even City folks would have had but a
very vague idea of the struggle St. Vedast Wharf had to maintain in
order to keep itself above water. Poor Mr. Forde knew most about that
struggle, and so did those unfortunates who were desperately holding on
by the piles of the rotten structure in order to escape drowning; but,
though none of them realized the fact, it was just as true that St.
Vedast Wharf could not go on keeping up false appearances for ever--as
Mortomley had found it, that to carry on a business with men in
possession was not a game capable of indefinite prolongation.
As Mr. Kleinwort had prophesied, the colour works at Homewood were
eventually stopped with a suddenness for which no one connected either
with the manufacturing or liquidating part of the business was at all
prepared. All in a hurry Mr. Swanland summoned a meeting of the
Committee, and informed them that as he could no longer carry on the
works with a reasonable hope of profit, he thought the best thing which
could be done would be to sell off the stock, advertise the lease of the
premises for sale, and offer the goodwill of the business to
competition.
All of which Mr. Forde naturally opposed; but his being the only
dissentient voice amongst the members of the Committee, all of whom had
long ago become perfectly sick of Mortomley's Estate, and Mortomley's
affairs, the course recommended by the trustee was decided upon.
"What dividend are you going to give us then?" asked the man who had put
so "good a thing" in Mr. Swanland's way.
"Impossible to tell till we see what the stock fetches," was the reply.
"But surely out of the profits of working the business, you can declare
a first dividend? My directors would be very much pleased to see
something tangible out of the concern," remonstrated Mr. Forde; hearing
which the opposition colour maker laughed, and said, "No doubt they
would," and Mr. Swanland declared the whole statement about profit and
so forth had been an imposition. He would not say any person had
wilfully deceived him, but the more he saw of the Homewood works, the
more fully he felt satisfied they had never returned anything except a
loss.
It was all very well to represent the profit on goods sent out as
large--no doubt it was large apparently; but when those goods came to be
returned on hand with freight and dock charges, and law charges, and
Heaven only knew what besides, the profit became a loss.
That was his, Mr. Swanland's, experience; and, of course, as Mr.
Swanland's management could not be supposed other than perfect, his
experience was generally accepted as correct. When he said Mortomley
could never have made a sixpence out of the concern, creditors shook
their heads, and said,
"Ah! that is how our money went," as if legitimate business was some
sort of game, at which any man in his senses would continue to play if
he were not making a profit out of it.
However, the trustee who understands his business, always hints that his
client is either a rogue or a fool. It is safer, perhaps, to imply the
latter, because in that case the trustee obtains credit for kindliness
of feeling; but there may be occasions on which it is necessary to speak
more strongly, and this proved to be one of them.
That unhappy Mortomley had given up everything he possessed on earth,
except his own and his wife's wearing apparel, to Mr. Swanland, acting
for the debtor and the creditors, and still Mr. Swanland was not
satisfied.
Which was particularly hard, seeing the creditors were far from charmed
with either Mortomley or his trustee, and that Mortomley, who had once
hoped to pay everybody, and retain Homewood, was less charmed still.
Why Mortomley felt dissatisfied has been explained. Why the creditors
were dissatisfied can easily be understood, when it is stated that as
week after week passed away, their hopes of a dividend grew less and
less.
At first, when they repaired to Mr. Swanland's office for information
concerning a dividend, they asked "when?" but afterwards they began to
ask "what?" And thus, by easy degrees, they were let down to "never,"
and "nothing."
This was usually the case at Asherill's, except when the risk of a
company chanced to be unlimited, and the contributaries solvent, or when
a company was limited, and the shares had not been so fully paid up but
that the promoters, and the advertising agent, and the liquidator, and
the lawyers could afford to leave, perhaps, threepence in the pound for
other creditors.
Given a private estate, and it generally came out from Asherill's clear
of meat as a picked bone. For this pleasing comparison I am, indeed,
indebted to an expression used in Salisbury House.
"We have been rather slack lately," said a clerk jubilantly, "but we
have got a meaty bone now."
And why should the young fellow not have been jubilant? Before Calcraft
retired from that profession which he so much adorned, he was pleased
doubtless to know a man had been sentenced to be hung by the neck till
he was dead.
There is a pleasing adaptability about human nature which enables it to
forget the possible pain the gratification of its own pleasure may
involve to its fellow-creature; and there can be no question but that
Mr. Swanland regarded, and perhaps reasonably, the insane struggles of
victims, who felt the hooks of liquidation troublesome, as Calcraft
might the mad fight of a criminal against the needful pinioning which
enabled matters to go off so decently and quietly about eight o'clock on
certain Monday mornings in his memory.
Nevertheless, and though he, at all events, must have had his innings
out of Mortomley's estate, Mr. Swanland felt disgusted at the result of
his own management of the affair.
Not because he had failed to pay the creditors even a farthing in the
pound. To do Mr. Swanland strict justice, he looked upon creditors as he
looked upon a debtor, namely, as natural enemies. He hated a debtor
because the debtor's creditors gave him trouble, and he hated creditors
because they gave him trouble; therefore he was, putting so much
personal profit in the bankrupt scale, able to hold the beam straight,
and declare both bankrupt and creditor to be equally obnoxious.
Mr. Swanland was a just man, and therefore conscientiously he could not
declare the beam fell in favour of disliking one more than the other. He
disliked them equally, when each had served his purpose, and he wished
to throw both aside. The trustee's reason for feeling disgusted with
Mortomley's estate was a very simple one. He had not made out of it what
he expected. He had netted nothing like the amount he conceived was to
be realised with good management.
Not that he feared a loss, _bien entendu_,--such an error had never yet
been written in the books of Salisbury House; but he knew he had done
that which touched his professional pride almost as keenly. He had lost
profit. He had felt so certain of himself and the _employees_, and the
works and the customers; he had entertained so genuine a contempt for
Mortomley's intellect; such a profound distrust of his capacity to
transact the simplest business matter in a business manner; that he
really believed when he took the management of the Homewood works upon
himself that he had the ball at his feet.
Visions even of paying a dividend may have been vouchsafed to him.
Certainly some extraordinary hallucination at one time held him in
thrall, for after he had pocketed considerable sums of money, he
actually returned much of it freely in the shape of wages to Mortomley's
Estate.
There were those who said Mr. Swanland, finding himself doing so
glorious a trade, had serious thoughts of buying in the plant at
Homewood, with a view of pursuing the amusement of colour-making in his
harmless moments. Be this as it may, he really had felt very proud of
his success, and readily fell into the habit of speaking of Mortomley as
a poor creature who did not understand the slightest detail of his own
business.
Probably, his culminating hour of triumph was that which brought to
Salisbury House the order for Mortomley's New Blue which Dolly mentioned
to Mrs. Werner. He was like a child in his personal glorification.
"If I had only leisure to attend to such matters fully, see what a trade
I could build up," he said to the opposition colour-maker; "poor
Mortomley never had any transactions with this firm, and ere my
management of affairs is three months' old I have this letter."
"But still, you must remember, it was Mortomley who made the colour,"
remarked his opponent, who felt a certain _esprit de corps_ and longed
to do battle for his order when he heard a man, whom amongst his
intimate friends he concisely referred to as "that fool of an
accountant," undervaluing those productions he personally would have
given something considerable to know how to manipulate.
"Oh! anybody can make a colour," observed Mr. Swanland, who had been
turning out Brunswick Greens, Prussian Blues, Chrome Reds, and Spanish
Browns with a celerity and a success which fairly overpowered his
reason.
"Perhaps so," agreed the other, who certainly felt no desire to see
Mortomley reinstated at Homewood. "At the same time, it may be well for
you to be cautious about that New Blue; Mortomley never sent out much of
it, and you might drop a lot of money if anything should happen to go
wrong."
"Pooh!" returned Mr. Swanland, "nothing can go wrong--nothing ever has
gone wrong."
With reference to which remark, Henry Werner, when the story was
repeated to him,--for it was repeated to every one interested in
Mortomley's Estate who had sufficient knowledge of the trade to
appreciate Mr. Swanland's humorous thoughts on the subject of
colour-making--observed that there was an old saying about "a pitcher
going once too often to the well."
With respect to Mortomley's Blue, Mr. Swanland certainly had perilled
the pitcher containing his profits. To Salisbury House there came an
awful experience in the shape of one of the partners in the large firm
that had sent the great order which lifted Mr. Swanland to the seventh
heaven of self-glorification.
No letter could have sufficed to express the wrath felt by the
principals in the house of Miller, Lennox, and Co. when they heard from
their correspondents abroad, enclosing a sample of the "Blue" Mr.
Swanland had forwarded to them; no manager or clerk could, they knew, be
trusted to utter their sentiments in the matter, and accordingly Mr.
Miller himself, after having first called at the Thames Street warehouse
and been referred thence to Basinghall Street, entered the offices of
Messrs. Asherill and Swanland in a white heat.
Never, he declared, never in the forty years he had been in business had
so utterly disgraceful a transaction come under his notice. All in vain
Mr. Swanland explained,--all in vain he blustered,--in vain Mr. Asherill
entreated Mr. Miller to be reasonable, that gentleman stuck to his
point.
"There," he said, laying one packet on the table, "is the blue we
ordered,--there is the blue you sent."
"And a very good blue too; I see no difference between them," retorted
Mr. Swanland.
"Good God! sir, don't you know the difference between Prussian Blue and
Mortomley's Blue? Have you been managing a colour-works even for a
month, and mean to say you are unaware that Mortomley's Blue is the very
best blue ever made? Why, if we had a clerk who made such a confession I
would bundle him neck and crop out of the office."
"You forget, sir, I am not a maker of colours; I am an accountant,"
suggested Mr. Swanland with dignity.
"Then why don't you stick to your accounts, and leave the making of
colours to some one who does understand his trade? I suppose this is a
fresh development of that precious egg, the new Bankruptcy Act, laid by
a lot of astute scoundrels in the City and hatched by a parcel of old
women in the House of Commons. Heaven help Mortomley if he has put his
affairs into such hands as yours say I. That stuff," and he
contemptuously indicated Mr. Hankins' blue, "is on its way back, and you
may make the best of it; one farthing we shall never pay you, and you
may consider yourselves fortunate that, in consideration of your gross
ignorance, I refrain from instructing our solicitors to proceed against
you for damages."
"It is all very well to say you will not pay," Mr. Swanland was
beginning, when the other interrupted him with,
"Pay, sir! I will never pay. You may carry the case to the House of
Lords if you like,--you may leave the goods at the Docks till the
charges amount to treble their original value, and still whistle for
your money. All I trust is this may prove a lesson to you not to meddle
in affairs of which you evidently understand a little less than my
five-year-old grandson."
And having made this statement, he walked out of the office, and in the
mental books of Miller, Lennox, and Co. there stands at the present
moment a black cross against Mr. Swanland's name. A black cross quite
undeserved as regarded the matter of the blue. In his soul Mr. Swanland
did believe the order had been executed as given; he had trusted to the
integrity of Hankins in making the blue, and to the honour of Messrs.
Miller and Lennox about paying for it, and his soul sank within him at
sound of Mr. Miller's parting words.
To make matters easier, Mr. Asherill, who had been an interested
auditor, remarked in a Commination-service sort of tone, "I advised you
to have nothing to do with Mortomley's affairs, but, as usual, you
disregarded my advice."
Hearing that, Mr. Swanland turned from the window where in a
make-believe convivial fashion he had been conversing with himself and
his liver, and said, "Shut up."
"_I beg your pardon_," remarked Mr. Asherill all in italics, "what did
you observe?"
He really thought his ears must have deceived him.
"I did not observe anything; I asked you to shut up unless you could
find something pleasanter to say to a fellow worried as I am than 'I
told you so.'"
Mr. Asherill had, of course, long ceased playing whist, nevertheless he
at that moment marked "one" against that perfect gentleman--his young
partner.