That was the last Tim heard of his old
patron, till the papers printed the staggering news of his arrest. A few
weeks later, Tim one day received a message bidding him come to see his
former master in the Tombs.
The disgraced capitalist's trial was then in its early stages, but he
entertained not the smallest hope of acquittal. Broken and embittered,
he confided to his faithful servant that, soon after the break-up of
his establishment, he had quietly married a wife; that some weeks
earlier she had presented him with a son; and that she now lay at the
point of death with but remote chances of recovery. To supply her with
money was impossible, for his creditors, he said, had not only swooped
down like buzzards upon the remnant of his fortune, but were now
watching his every move under the suspicion that he had managed to keep
something back. All his friends had deserted him as though he were a
leper, for his had been the unpardonable sin of being found out. In all
the world there was no equal of whom he was not too proud to ask a
favor.
In short, he was about to depart for a long sojourn in prison, leaving
behind a motherless, friendless, and penniless infant son.
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