The manager was called in and attempted to prove the clerk's statement by figures, dates, and extracts from the entries.

Vandover was confused by their noise, and grew angry in his turn; vociferating that he did not propose to be cheated, the others retorted in a rage, the interview ended in a scene.
But in the end they gained their point; they were right, and at length Vandover was brought around to see that he was in the wrong, but he had no ready money, and while he hesitated, unwilling to part with any of his bonds or to put an additional mortgage upon the homestead, the hotel, after two warnings, suddenly seized upon his furniture.

What a misery! In a moment of time it was all taken from him, all the lovely bric-a-brac, all the heavy pieces, all the little articles of _vertu_ which he had bought with such intense delight and amongst which he had lived with such happiness, such contentment, such never-failing pleasure.

Everything went--the Renaissance portraits, the pipe-rack, the chair in which the Old Gentleman had died, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ and, worst of all, the stove, the famous tiled stove, the delightful cheery iron stove with the beautified flamboyant ornaments.

For the first few months after the seizure Vandover was furious with rage and disappointment, persuaded that he could never live anywhere but in just such a room; it was as if he had been uprooted and cast away upon some barren, uncongenial soil.