I knew well enough, but I did not tell.
"The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon it.

At the end of another nine months the crash came.
"(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going up by leaps and bounds.

My grandmother died worth a million dollars, and left the whole of it to a charity.

Had she known how I had saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful.) "A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my doorstep; and, this time, he brought his families with him.

There were sixteen of them in all.
"What was I to do?
I had brought these people step by step to the verge of starvation.