Excerpt from The Head of the Firm, Vol. 3 of 3: A Novel Instead, he went in a hansom to Mr. Tovey's bank and 'honoured the nefarious docu ments, ' at the eleventh hour it is true, but still a good fifty mmutes before the stroke of doom. Mr. Tovey, who chanced to be 'hovering ar'ound saw Mr. Desborne return through the Swinging doors, and augured ill from the weary way he walked across the pavement, and his tired look as he directed the cabman where to'drive next; but the bills were all right they were not protested, they paid no fatal, if flying, visit to any notary; they never returned to the drawer with that sig nificant inch of paper attached, the writing on which means ruin or the beginning of ruin, and is plain to the initiated as the legend Daniel interpreted for Belshazzar. There were none of these things, and Mr. T ovey naturally wanted to know why. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.