ently lost. He had mistaken
the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so
extensive that settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he
was obliged to sell off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before
at figures higher by many shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had
never seen; it had not even been moved from the ricks in which it lay
stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily.

In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the market-place.
Farfrae knew of his dealings (though he did not guess their intended
bearing on himself) and commiserated him; for since their exchange
of words in the South Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms.
Henchard for the moment appeared to resent the sympathy; but he suddenly
took a careless turn.

"Ho, no, no!--nothing serious, man!" he cried with fierce gaiety. "These
things always happen, don't they? I know it has been said that figures
have touched me tight lately; but is that anything rare? The case is not
so bad as folk make out perhaps. And dammy, a man must be a fool to mind
the common hazards of trade!"

But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which
had never before sent him there--and to sit a long time in the partners'
room with a constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon after that much
real property as well as vast stores of produce, which had stood
in Henchard's name in the town and neighbourhood, was actually the
possession of his bankers.

Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp. The gloomy
transactions just completed within had added fever to the original sting
of Farfrae's sympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied might be a
satire disguised so that Jopp met with anything but a bland reception.
The latter was in the act of taking off his hat to wipe his forehead,
and saying, "A fine hot day," to an acquaintance.

"You can wipe and wipe, and say, 'A fine hot day,' can ye!" cried
Henchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between himself and the
bank wall. "If it hadn't been for your blasted advice it might have been
a fine day enough! Why did ye let me go on, hey?--when a word of doubt
from you or anybody would have made me think twice! For you can never be
sure of weather till 'tis past."

"My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best."

"A useful fellow! And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the
better!" Henchard continued his address to Jopp