THE LIBRARY

 

Mrs. Williams from the library called me one morning.  I'll never forget it.  She wouldn't talk over the phone, but insisted that I drive down to the library.  She had something to show me.  It blew apart Greenburg.  Bankruptcy had forced me to close my business, had cost me my life savings, my friends and my wife.  I had hired Harold as the business accountant and comptroller, and he had embezzled millions of dollars.  He did this after gaining my trust and my employees trust.  He never gained my wife's trust, however.  Harold was from Sylvia, my wife's, old home town.  She told me when I hired him to watch him.  I did, at first, checking the books myself, but as time went on I neglected to check any more.  I trusted him.  When I got to the library and talked to Mrs. Williams I found out something that nearly had me putting a gun to my mouth.  It was bad enough to lose the business, and bad enough to have to fire long time employees, bad enough to lose my wife, but now I find out the worst news possible.   I thought Sylvia left me because of the strss of the bankruptcy and the loss of our way of life.  It was much worse.  

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