apparent
than before. "I went as soon as I heard it, last night indeed; but it
was of no use. I had better have stayed away. I don't seem to make much
progress with Craddock, somehow or other. He is such a cross-grained,
contradictory old fellow, I hardly know what to make of him. And to add
to his difficulties, his wife is so prostrated by the blow that she is
confined to her bed. I talked to them and advised them to have patience,
and look for comfort to the Fountain-head; but Craddock almost seemed to
take it ill, and was even more disrespectful in manner than usual."

It was indeed a heavy blow that had fallen upon "Owd Sammy." For a
man to lose his all at his time of life would have been hard enough
anywhere; but it was trebly hard to meet with such a trial in Riggan. To
have money, however small a sum, "laid by i' th' bank," was in Riggan to
be illustrious. The man who had an income of ten shillings a week was
a member of society whose opinion bore weight; the man with twenty was
regarded with private awe and public respect. He was deferred to as a
man of property; his presence was considered to confer something
like honor upon an assembly, or at least to make it respectable. The
Government was supposed to be not entirely oblivious of his existence,
and his remarks upon the affairs of the nation, and the conduct of the
Prime Minister and Cabinet, were regarded as having something more than
local interest. Sammy Craddock had been the man with twenty shillings
income. He had worked hard in his youth and had been too shrewd and
far-sighted to spend hard. His wife had helped him, and a lucky windfall
upon the decease of a parsimonious relative had done the rest. The
weekly deposit in the old stocking hidden under the mattress had become
a bank deposit, and by the time he was incapacitated from active
labor, a decent little income was ready. When the Illsbery Bank stopped
payment, not only his daily bread but his dearly valued importance
was swept away from him at one fell blow. Instead of being a man of
property, with a voice in the affairs of the nation, he was a beggar. He
saw himself set aside among the frequenters of The Crown, his political
opinions ignored, his sarcasms shorn of their point. Knowing his poverty
and misfortune; the men who had stood in awe of him would begin to
suspect him of needing their assistance and would avoid him accordingly.

"It's human natur'," he said. "No one loikes a dog wi' th' mang