He and Elmsdale had been doing business together for years, "everything
he possessed in the world," he stated to an admiring coroner's jury
summoned to sit on Mr. Elmsdale's body and inquire into the cause of
that gentleman's death--"everything he possessed in the world, he owed
to the deceased. Some people spoke hardly of him, but his experience of
Mr. Elmsdale enabled him to say that a kinder-hearted, juster, honester,
or better-principled man never existed. He charged high interest,
certainly, and he expected to be paid his rate; but, then, there was no
deception about the matter: if it was worth a borrower's while to take
money at twenty per cent, why, there was an end of the matter. Business
men are not children," remarked Mr. Harringford, "and ought not to
borrow money at twenty per cent, unless they can make thirty per cent,
out of it." Personally, he had never paid Mr. Elmsdale more than twelve
and a half or fifteen per cent.; but, then, their transactions were on a
large scale. Only the day before Mr. Elmsdale's death--he hesitated a
little over that word, and became, as the reporters said, "affected"--he
had paid him twenty thousand pounds. The deceased told him he had urgent
need of the money, and at considerable inconvenience he raised the
amount.
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