An African Millionaire by Grant Allen

How much precisely Charles dropped over the slump in Cloetedorps I never quite knew. But the incident left him dejected, limp, and dispirited.

"Hang it all, Sey," he said to me in the smoking-room, a few evenings later. "This Colonel Clay is enough to vex the patience of Job -- and Job had large losses, too, if I recollect aright, from the Chaldeans and other big operators of the period."