Set
All Hands To Work To Call Over Every Item." We Set To Work, And I Was
Up The Best Part Of One, And The Whole Of Another, Night.
I was so
anxious that I did not feel to want food; and drink I was unused to.
A
beefsteak and a pint of stout would have saved me from ten years, more
or less, of suffering, weakness, and all kinds of misery. In the early
morning of the day on which we were to begin paying off our
shareholders, the books balanced. We had discovered errors, both to
debit and credit, probably a hundred at least in number.
It was a clear, cold morning. I went out to a little barber's shop and
got shaved. I did not feel in want of food - and took none. At ten
o'clock shareholders began to arrive: got their cheques, and went away
satisfied. One of them, who would gain about 30,000l., actually
gave me a 5l. note for the clerks, which was the only expression
of gratitude of a practical character, so far as I remember, now. About
noon Mr. Henry Houldsworth, the father of the present member for
Manchester, called for his cheque; and, chatting with him at the time,
as I was making the upstroke of the letter H in "Houldsworth," I felt
as if my whole body was forced up into my head, and that was ready to
burst. I raised my head, and this strange feeling went away.
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