Hard Cash | Page 3

of implied warranties or the
exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above
disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have
other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, officers,
members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2]
alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book
or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all
other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word processing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*

contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the gross
profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to
calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is
due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation" the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax
return. Please contact us beforehand to let us know your plans and to
work out the details.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, public
domain etexts, and royalty free copyright licenses. If you are interested
in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please
contact Michael Hart at: [email protected]
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END*

[Prepared by James Rusk, [email protected]. Italics are indicated by

underscores. The pound sign is indicated by L. No attempt has been
made to transcribe Greek text or sheet music. Accent marks in foreign
words are ignored.]
Hard Cash
by Charles Reade
PREFACE
"HARD CASH," like "The Cloister and the Hearth," is a matter-of-fact
Romance--that is, a fiction built on truths; and these truths have been
gathered by long, severe, systematic labour, from a multitude of
volumes, pamphlets, journals, reports, blue-books, manuscript
narratives, letters, and living people, whom I have sought out,
examined, and cross-examined, to get at the truth on each main topic I
have striven to handle.
The madhouse scenes have been picked out by certain disinterested
gentlemen, who keep private asylums, and periodicals to puff them;
and have been met with bold denials of public facts, and with timid
personalities, and a little easy cant about Sensation* Novelists; but in
reality those passages have been written on the same system as the
nautical, legal, and other scenes: the best evidence has been ransacked;
and a large portion of this evidence I shall be happy to show at my
house to any brother writer who is disinterested, and really cares
enough for truth and humanity to walk or ride a mile in pursuit of them.
CHARLES READE.
6 BOLTON ROW, MAYFAIR, December 5, 1868.
*This slang term is not quite accurate as applied to me. Without
sensation there can be no interest: but my plan is to mix a little
character and a little philosophy with the sensational element.

HARD CASH
PROLOGUE
IN a snowy villa, with a sloping lawn, just outside the great commercial
seaport, Barkington, there lived a few years ago a happy family. A lady,
middle-aged, but still charming; two young friends of hers; and a
periodical visitor.
The lady was Mrs. Dodd; her occasional visitor was her husband; her
friends were her son Edward, aged twenty, and her daughter Julia,
nineteen, the fruit of a misalliance.

Mrs. Dodd was originally Miss Fountain, a