“ ‘He was as good as his word, and I received a summons from the magistrate that very evening to attend his court the next day.
“ ‘It was unfortunate that during the night another theft took place in the inn where I lay. The bundles of those staying at the place were searched. My own alone contained no valuables of any kind. One would have thought that such a circumstance would have spoken in my favour. It was exactly the other way. It was argued that a man who will stay in an inn without the means of paying must be a thief of some sort and that since the sum stolen was not to be found elsewhere it was probably I, thus manifestly suspect of trickery, who was the culprit. In my fright I attempted to escape. I was caught and roughly handled, with the final result that I appeared in the magistrate’s court covered with blood, my garments torn and in such a posture subjected to a double accusation upon the part of the innkeeper and also upon the part of the foreign merchant who appeared upon the original charge.
“ ‘In such distress I had no avenue of escape save a reference to my honoured firm, the name of which, though distant, was familiar to the court. The magistrate expressed his doubt that I had any connection with such important people, and asked me if I would risk the sending of a messenger to my so-called partners. I said I would do so gladly, but during the two days’ interval of the messenger’s absence I was closely confined in the public prison, where I regret to say the foreign merchant had the heartlessness to come and make faces at me through the bars, and where, having no money to give my gaolers, I was treated with the utmost harshness.
“ ‘My misfortunes were not at an end. As luck would have it the firm to which I belonged and of whose books I had the sole management, undertook a surprise audit on the very day of my departure, and discovered a most serious deficit in one item which the partners, in their ignorance, could not account for. Had I been present I could easily have explained what had happened. It was but an advance which I had made to a customer whose transactions with us were of the highest value. As much in my own interests as in those of my partners I was well justified in risking the money. I had acted foolishly perhaps in refusing to take a receipt or to enter the matter in the books, but the thing was only for a week and after so many years of prosperity I could not dream of so small a thing turning out untowardly. However, there it was. My partners hurriedly sent after me and learned to their dismay that I had left the first inn upon the road without payment, and giving no account of my future movements. They had sent a man post-haste on a swift horse. He had covered the distance to the port in twelve hours, but (as I was now in prison), could discover nothing of me in the town nor find any cargo I had bought or, indeed, any trace of me. He returned to my partners, as they had instructed him, upon another beast as swift (having sold his spent mount) and it was just as they received this grave news of my apparent absconding, just while my partners grew more and more convinced of my supposed guilt, that the messenger from the magistrate arrived and completed the accusation. They answered, not by coming in person, but by sending a letter of the most violent kind, calling me a notorious thief, expressing their pleasure that I had been laid by the heels and begging that, so far as they were concerned, the magistrate would not spare me in any punishment he might see fit to inflict for my other escapades. Meanwhile (they said) they would not trouble him to enter judgment for the sum I had taken, since they had replaced it out of my capital in the firm, which nearly, or exactly, made good the deficit.
“ ‘You may imagine, my lord, the result of all this! The magistrate read the court a sermon on the justice of the law which spared no man for his rank or commerce, and concluded, “You have before you the sad spectacle of a man of substance fallen through temptation into poverty and disgrace.” The foreign merchant contemptuously waived his action, the innkeeper with equal contempt expressed himself satisfied with the punishment I had already undergone, claiming only my clothes by way of payment, giving me these few rags in exchange. With yet another admonition the magistrate dismissed me. I went out from the court a broken man, wandered aimlessly southward, doing a little work here and there upon the farms, and I am now seeking the next village with the object of offering my services.
“ ‘Such, Sir,’ I concluded, ‘is my tale. … Here am I, with every commercial aptitude, and full training in the various transactions of business (but especially in the management of plantations) for no fault of my own unable to exercise these talents, rehabilitate my character, and
