Within a month after that first shameful homecoming the firm of Callendar & Leslie went into sequestration.

John felt the humiliation of this downcome in a far keener way than David did.

His own business record was a stainless one; his word was as good as gold on Glasgow Exchange; the house of John Callendar & Co.

was synonymous with commercial integrity.

The prudent burghers who were his nephew's creditors were far from satisfied with the risks David and Robert Leslie had taken, and they did not scruple to call them by words which hurt John Callendar's honor like a sword-thrust.