Everything
which he had touched had gone wrong, and now, on the eve of his
marriage, young, clear-headed, and energetic, he was actually a bankrupt
had his creditors chosen to make him one. But the Stock Exchange is an
indulgent body. What is the case of one to-day may be that of another
to-morrow, and everyone is interested in seeing that the stricken man is
given time to rise again. So the burden of Worlington Dodds was
lightened for him; many shoulders helped to bear it, and he was able to
go for a little summer tour into Ireland, for the doctors had ordered
him rest and change of air to restore his shaken nervous system. Thus
it was that upon the 15th of July, 1870, he found himself at his
breakfast in the fly-blown coffee-room of the "George Hotel" in the
market square of Dunsloe. It is a dull and depressing coffee-room, and
one which is usually empty, but on this particular day it was as crowded
and noisy as that of any London hotel. Every table was occupied, and a
thick smell of fried bacon and of fish hung in the air. Heavily booted
men clattered in and out, spurs jingled, riding-crops were stacked in
corners, and there was a general atmosphere of horse. The conversation,
too, was of nothing else. From every side Worlington Dodds heard of
yearlings, of windgalls, of roarers, of spavins, of cribsuckers, of a
hundred other terms which were as unintelligible to him as his own
Stock Exchange jargon would have been to the company.
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