Lohr gives Alice the news as gently as he can. Walter is short in his accounts at Lamb and Company, quite a good deal short. Upstairs her mother falls into her arms, wailing 'Poor Walter!' Adams paces, pounding his fist and cursing the boy for not telling him. He did tell you, his wife sobs, and you wouldn't give it to him. Adams shouts that Walter wanted money to run away with, not to pay back. Downstairs he tells Lohr that Lamb has been waiting for this all along, letting Walter walk into a trap because he thinks father and son both cheated him. Adams will pay back every last, dirty penny with a loan on his factory.
The night drags on. Mrs. Adams moans 'Poor Alice!' too, for this to happen on the night of the dinner. Russell may not see the item, she says. At seven Adams sets out for the works without having slept. Alice makes him eat. He asks whether Russell will hear about it. Of course he will, Alice says, but it will not make a difference. The difference was made before, and he knows only about her. Adams walks through the streets with his straw hat in his hand, his face twitching, talking to himself, and stumbles across the baked mud of his lot.
His foreman points across the street. On the rebuilt factory a huge sign announces that, from the fifteenth of next month, the building will be occupied by the J. A. Lamb Liquid Glue Company. Lamb himself steps out of his car and walks over. How's your glue-works? He could not let Adams walk off with it like swallowing a pat of butter. In the shabby little office Adams offers to repay Walter's debt from a loan on the works, then sees that the sign has made any loan impossible. Lamb tells him that men who make money in crooked ways must be far slicker than Adams will ever be. Adams accuses him of keeping Walter on in order to trap him. Lamb shouts that he knew nothing until last night. Wild-eyed and staggering, Adams says he looked up to Lamb all his life, and that Lamb has acted like a mean man. Then he crumples into his chair. Lamb calls for his car, and for the second time brings his old clerk home, stricken.
Coming Up in Chapter 24
At about five that afternoon, the old man comes back to the house. He walks into the living-room without a word and stands frowning, as if deciding something difficult. Then he asks Alice how her father is, and whether, now that he has come round, he has said anything about him.
