“Because it is believed that the capital of the company has been
appropriated to other purposes, and lost in speculations on ‘Change.”
The poor old dealer was suffering intensely, and showed it.
“Ah, madam, perfectly as I am convinced of Count Ville-Handry’s
uprightness and integrity, I also know that he was utterly ignorant of
business. What did he understand of these speculations into which he was
drawn? Nothing. It is a difficult and often a dangerous thing to manage
large capitals. They have no doubt deceived him, cheated him, misled
him, and driven him at last to the verge of bankruptcy.”
“Who?”
Papa Ravinet trembled on his chair, and, raising his hands to the
ceiling, exclaimed,--
“Who? You ask who? Why, those who had an interest in it, the wretches by
whom he was surrounded,--Sarah, Sir Thorn”--