They had the compartment to themselves, and they were
installed therein with every circumstance of luxury. Both were enwrapped
in furs, and a fur rug united their knees in its shelter. Magazines and
newspapers were scattered about to the value of a labourer's hire for a
whole day; and when Denry's eye met the guard's it said "shilling." In
short, nobody could possibly be more superb than they were on that
morning in that compartment.
The journey was the result of peculiar events.
Mr Cotterill had made himself a bankrupt, and cast away the robe of a
Town Councillor. He had submitted to the inquisitiveness of the Official
Receiver, and to the harsh prying of those rampant baying beasts, his
creditors. He had laid bare his books, his correspondence, his lack of
method, his domestic extravagance, and the distressing fact that he had
continued to trade long after he knew himself to be insolvent. He had
for several months, in the interests of the said beasts, carried on his
own business as manager at a nominal salary. And gradually everything
that was his had been sold. And during the final weeks the Cotterill
family had been obliged to quit their dismantled house and exist in
lodgings.
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