deed, Mrs. Chump, indeed!" They rose, as she rose,
and stood about her, motioning a beseeching emphasis with their hands.
Not visible for one second was the intense indignation at their fate
which Wilfrid, spying keenly into them, perceived. This taught him that
the occasion was as grave as could be. In spite of the oily words his
father threw from time to time abruptly on the tumult, he guessed what
had happened.

Briefly, Mrs. Chump, aided by Braintop, her squire, had at last hunted
Mr. Pericles down, and the wrathful Greek had called her a beggar. With
devilish malice he had reproached her for speculating in such and such
Bonds, and sending ventures to this and that hemisphere, laughing
infernally as he watched her growing amazement. "Ye're jokin', Mr.
Paricles," she tried to say and think; but the very naming of poverty had
given her shivers. She told him how she had come to him because of Mr.
Pole's reproach, which accused her of causing the rupture. Mr. Pericles
twisted the waxy points of his moustache. "I shall advise you, go home,"
he said; "go to a lawyer: say, 'I will see my affairs, how zey stand.' Ze
man will find Pole is ruined. It may be--I do not know--Pole has left a
little of your money; yes, ma'am, it may be."

The end of the interview saw Mrs. Chump flying past Mr. Pericles to where
Braintop stood awaiting her with a meditative speculation on that
official promotion which in his attention to the lady he anticipated. It
need scarcely be remarked that he was astonished to receive a
scent-bottle on the spot, as the only reward his meritorious service was
probably destined ever to meet with. Breathless in her panic, Mrs. Chump
assured him she was a howling beggar, and the smell of a scent was like a
crool blow to her; above all, the smell of Alderman's Bouquet, which
Chump--"tell'n a lie, ye know, Mr. Braintop, said was after him. And I,
smell'n at 't over 'n Ireland--a raw garl I was--I just thought 'm a
prince, the little sly fella! And oh! I'm a beggar, I am!" With which,
she shouted in the street, and put Braintop to such confusion that he
hailed a cab recklessly, declaring to her she had no time to lose, if she
wished to catch the train. Mrs. Chump requested the cabman that as a man
possessed of a feeling heart for the interests of a helpless woman, he
would drive fast; and, at the station, disputed his charge on the ground
of the knowledge already imparted to him of her precarious financial
state.