Hunted Down by Charles Dickens This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read and recorded by SGA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hunted Down Most of us see romances in life. In my capacity of a chief manager of a life insurance office, I think I have within the last 30 years seen more romances than the generality of men, however unpromising the opportunity may at first sight seem. As I have retired and live at my ease, I possess the means that I used to want of considering what I have seen at Leisure. My experiences have a more remarkable aspect, so reviewed, than they had when they were in progress. I have come home from the play now, and can recall the scenes of the drama upon which curtain has fallen, free from the glare, bewilderment and bustle of the theatre. Let me recall one of these romances of the real world. There is nothing truer than the physiognomy taken in connection with manner. The art of reading that book of which eternal wisdom obliges every human creature to present his or her own page with individual character written on it is a difficult one, perhaps, and is little studied. It may require some natural aptitude, and it must require, for everything does, some patience and some pains. That these are not usually given to it, the number of people accept a few stock commonplace expressions of the face as the whole list of characteristics to seek, nor know the refinements that are truest. At you, for instance, give a great deal of time and attention to the reading of music, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, if you please, and do not qualify yourself to read the face of the master or mistress looking over your shoulder teaching it to you. I assume to be five hundred times more probable than improbable. Perhaps a little self-sufficiency may be at the bottom of this. Facial expression requires no study from you. You think it comes by nature to you to know enough about it, and you are not to be taken in. I confess, for my part, that I have been taken in over and over again. I have been taken in by acquaintances, and I have been taken in, of course, by friends, far offener by friends than by any other class or persons. How came I be so deceived? Had I quite misread their faces? No. Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and the manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away. The partition which separated by own office from our general outer office in the city was of thick plate glass. I could see through it what passed in the outer office without hearing a word. I had it put in place of a wall that had been there for years, ever since the house was built. It is no matter whether I did or did not make the change in order that I might derive my first impression of strangers who came to us on business from their faces alone without being influenced by anything they said.  It was through my glass partition that I first saw the gentleman whose story I am going to tell. He had come in without my observing it and had put his hat and his umbrella on the broad counter and was bending over to take some papers from one of the clerks. He was about 40 or so, dark, exceedingly well dressed in black, being in mourning, and the hand he extended with a polite air had a particularly well fitting black kid club upon it. His hair was elaborately brushed and oiled, was spotted straight up the middle and he presented this parting to the clerk exactly to my thinking. As if he had said in so many words, you must take me if you please my friend just as I show myself. Come straight up here, follow the gravel path, keep up the grass, I allow no trespassing. I conceived a very great aversion to that man the moment I thus saw him. He had asked for some of our printed forms and the clerk was giving them to him and explaining them and obliged an agreeable smile was on his face and his eyes met those of the clerk with a sprightly look. I have known a vast quantity of nonsense being talked about, bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week if there is anything to be got by it. I saw in the corner of his eyelash that he became aware of my looking at him. Immediately he turned the parting in his head towards the glass partition as if he said to me with a sweet smile. Straight up here if you please, off the grass in a few moments he had put on his hat and taken up his umbrella and was gone. I beckoned the clerk into my room and asked who was that? He had a gentleman's guard in his hand, Mr. Julius Slington Middle Temple, a badister, Mr. Adams. I think not, sir. I should have thought him a clergyman but for his having no reverent here, said I. Probably from his appearance, Mr. Adams replied, he is weeding for orders.  What did he want, Mr. Adams? Merely a form of proposal, sir, and a form of reference. Recommended here, did he say? Yes. He said he was recommended here by a friend of yours. He noticed you, but said that as he had not the pleasure of your personal acquaintance he would not trouble you. Did you know my name? Oh yes, sir, he said. There is Mr. Samson, I see. A well-spoken gentleman, apparently. Remarkably so, sir. Insinuating manners, apparently. Very much so indeed, sir. Ha! said I. I was nothing at present, Mr. Adams. Within a fortnight of that day I went to dine with a friend of mine, a merchant, a man of taste, who buys pictures and books, and the first man I saw among the company was Mr. Julius Slainton.  But still, I thought, requiring everybody to come at him by the prepared way he offered and by no other. I noticed him ask my friend to introduce him to Mr. Samson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slainton was very happy to see me. Not too happy. There was no overdoing of the matter. Happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning way. I thought you had met, our host observed. No, said Mr. Slainton. I did look in at Mr. Samson's office on your recommendation, but I really did not feel justified in troubling Mr. Samson himself on a point in the everyday routine of an ordinary clerk. I said I should have been glad to show him any attention on our friend's introduction. I'm sure of that, said he, and I much obliged. At another time, perhaps, I may be less delicate. Only, however, if I had real business for I know, Mr. Samson, how precious your business time is and what a vast number of impertinent people there are in the world. I acknowledged his consideration with a slight bow. You were thinking, said I, of affecting a policy on your life. Oh, dear no! I'm afraid I'm not so prudent as you pay me the compliment of supposing me to be, Mr. Samson. I'm merely inquired for a friend. But you know what friends are in such matters. Nothing may ever come of it. I have the great reluctance to trouble men of business with inquiries for friends, knowing the probabilities to be a thousand to one that the friends will never follow them up. People are so fickle, so selfish, so inconsiderate. Don't you in your business find them so everyday, Mr. Samson?  I hear, Mr. Samson, he resumed presently, for our friend had a new cook and dinner was not so punctual as usual, that his profession has recently suffered a great loss. In money, said I, he laughed at my ready association of loss with money and replied, no, in talent and vigor. Not at once following out his illusion, I considered for a moment. Has it sustained the loss of that kind, said I. I was not aware of it. Understand me, Mr. Samson, I don't imagine that you have retired. It's not so bad as that, but Mr. Meltham. Oh, to be sure, said I. Yes, Mr. Meltham, the young actuary of the inestimable. Just so, he returned in a consoling way. He's a great loss. He was at once the most profound, the most original and the most energetic man I've ever known connected with life assurance. I spoke strongly, for I had a highest esteem and admiration for Meltham and my gentleman had indefinitely conveyed to me some suspicion that he wanted to sneer at him. He recalled me to my guard by presenting that trim pathway up his head with its infernal, not on the grass, if you please, to gravel. You knew him, Mr. Slington? Only by reputation. To have known him as an acquaintance or as a friend is an honour I should have sought if he had remained in society, though I might never have had the good fortune to attain it, being a man of far inferior mark. He was scarcely above thirty, I suppose. About thirty? Ah, he signed in his former consoling way. What creatures we are to break up, Mr. Samson, and become incapable of business at that time of life? Any reason assigned for the melancholy fact? Humph, thought I, as I looked at him.  What reason have you heard assigned, Mr. Slington? I asked point blank. Most likely a false one. You know what rumour is, Mr. Samson. I never repeat what I hear. It is the only way of batting the nails and shaving the head of rumour. But when you ask me what reason I have heard assigned for Mr. Meltham's passing away from among men, it is another thing. I am not gratifying idle gossip then. I was told, Mr. Samson, that Mr. Meltham had relinquished all his advocations and all its prospects, because he was in fact brokenhearted. A disappointed attachment I heard, though it hardly seems probable in the case of a man so distinguished and so attractive. Attractions and distinctions are no armour against death, said I. Oh, she died? Pray pardon me. I did not hear that. That indeed makes me very, very sad. Poor Mr. Meltham. She died. Ah, dear me. Lamentable, lamentable. I still thought his pity was not quite genuine, and I still suspected an unaccountable sneer under all this, until he said, as we were parted, like the other knots of talkers, by the announcement of dinner, Mr. Samson, you are surprised to see me so moved on behalf of a man whom I have never known. I am not so disinterested as you may suppose. I have suffered, and recently too, from death myself. I have lost one of my two charming nieces, who were my constant companions. She died young, barely three and twenty, and even her remaining sister is far from strong. The world is grave. He said this with deep feeling, and I feel reproached for the coldness of my manner. Coldness and distrust have been engendered in me I knew from my bad experiences. They were not natural to me, and I often thought how much I had lost in life, losing trustfulness, and how little I have gained, gaining hard caution. The state of mind being habitual to me, I troubled myself more about this conversation than I might have troubled myself about a greater matter. I listened to his talk at dinner, and observed how readily other men responded to it, and with what graceful instinct he adapted his subjects to the knowledge and habits of those he talked with. As in talking with me, he had easily started the subject I might have supposed to understand best, and to be the most interested in. So in talking with others, he guided himself by the same rule. The company was a varied character, but he was not at fault, that I could discover with any member of it. He knew just as much of each man's pursuit as made him agreeable to that man in reference to it, and searched as little as made it natural in him to seek the modesty for information when the theme was broached. As he talked and talked, but really not too much, for the rest of us seemed to force it upon him, I became quite angry with myself. I took his face to pieces in my mind, like a watch, and examined it in detail. I could not say much against any of his features separately, I could say even less against them than they were put together. Then is it not monstrous, I asked myself, that because a man happens to part his hair straight up the middle of his head, I should permit myself to suspect and even to detest him. I may stop to remark that this was no proof of my sense. An observer of men who finds himself steadily repelled by some apparent trifling thing in a stranger is right to give it great weight. It may be the clue to the whole mystery. A hair or two will show where the lion is hidden, and a very little key will open a very heavy door. I took part in the conversation with him after a time, and we got on remarkably well. In the drawing room, I asked the host how long he had known Mr. Slington. He answered not many months. He had met him at the house of a celebrated painter then present, who had known him well when he was travelling with his nieces in Italy for their help. His plans in life being broken by the death of one of them. He was reading with the intention of going back to college as a matter of form, taking his degree, and going into orders. I could not but argue with myself that here was a true explanation of his interest in poor Malcolm, and that I had been almost brutal in my distrust on that simple head. On the very next day, but one I was sitting behind my glass partition as before, when he came into the outer office as before. The moment I saw him again without hearing him, I hated him worse than ever. It was only for a moment that I had this opportunity, for he waved his tight-fitting black glove the instant I looked at him and came straight in. Mr. Samson, good day! I presume you see my fine permission to intrude upon you. I don't keep my word in being justified by business. For my business here, if I may so abuse the word, is of the slightest nature. I asked was it anything I could assist him in. I thank you, no. I merely call to inquire outside whether my dilate-free friend had been so false to himself as to be practical and sensible. But of course, he has done nothing. I gave him your papers with my own hand, and he was hot upon the intention, but of course, he has done nothing. Apart from the general human disinclination to do anything that ought to be done, I dare say that is a specialty about assuring one's life. You find it like will-making.  Up here, if you please. Straight up here, Mr. Samson. Neither to the right, nor to the left. I almost fancied I could hear him breathe those words as he sat smiling at me with that intolerable parting exactly opposite the bridge of my nose. There is such a feeling sometimes, no doubt, I replied, but I don't think it obtains to any great extent. Well, he said with a shrug and a smile. I wish some good angel would influence my friend in the right direction. I rashly promised his mother and sister in Norfolk to see it done, and he promised them that he would do it. But I suppose he never will. He spoke for a minute or two on different topics and went away. I had scarcely unlocked the drawers of my writing table next morning when he reappeared. I noticed he came straight to the door in the glass partition and did not pause a single moment outside. Can you spare me two minutes, my dear Mr. Samson? By all means. Much obliged, laying his hat and umbrella on the table. I came early not to interrupt you. The fact is, I am taken by surprise in the reference to this proposal my friend has made. Has he made one? said I. Yes, he answered, deliberately looking at me. And then a bright idea seemed to strike him, or he only tells me he has. Perhaps that may be a new way of evading the matter. By Jupiter, I never thought of that. Mr. Adams was opening the morning's letters in the outer office. What is his name, Mr. Slinkton? I asked. What is the name, Mr. Slinkton? I asked. Beckwith. I looked out at the door and requested Mr. Adams if there were a proposal in that name to bring it in. He had already laid it out of his hand on the counter. It was easily selected from the rest and he gave it to me. Alfred Beckwith, proposal to effect the policy with us for £2,000, dated yesterday. From Middle Temple, I see, Mr. Slinkton. Yes, he lives on the same staircase with me. His door is opposite. I never thought he would make me his reference though. It seems natural enough that he would. It seems natural enough that he should. Quite so, Mr. Samson. But I never thought of it. Let me see. He took the printed paper from his pocket. How am I to answer all these questions? According to the truth, of course, said I. Oh, of course, he answered, looking up from the paper with a smile. I meant there were so many, but you do right to be particular. It stands to reason that you must be particular. Will you allow me to use your pen and ink? Certainly. And your desk? Certainly. He had been hovering about between his hat and his umbrella for a place to write.  Before answering each question, he ran it over aloud and discussed it. How long had he known Mr. Alfred Beckwith? That he had to calculate by years upon his fingers. What were his habits? No difficulty about them, temperate in the last degree and took a little too much exercise, if any. All the answers were satisfactory. When he had written them all, he looked them over and finally signed them in a very pretty hand. He supposed he had now done with the business. I told him he was not likely to be troubled any further. Should he leave the papers there? If he pleased, much obliged. Good morning. I had one other visitor before him, not at the office, but at my own home. That visitor had come to my bedside when it was not yet daylight and had been seen by no one else but my faithful, confidential servant. A second reference paper, for we required always to, was sent down into Norfolk and was duly received back by post. This likewise was satisfactorily answered in every respect. Our firms were all complied with. We accepted the proposal and the premium for one year was paid. For six or seven months I saw no more of Mr. Slington. He called once at my house when I was not at home and he once asked me to dine with him in the temple, but I was engaged. His friend's assurance was affected in March. Late in September or early in October, I was down at Scarborough for a breath of sea air when I met him on the beach. It was a hot evening. He came toward me with his hat in his hand and there was a walk I felt so strongly disinclined to take in perfect order again, exactly in front of the bridge of my nose. He was not alone but had a young lady on his arm. She was dressed in moaning and I looked at her with great interest. She had the appearance of being extremely delicate and her face was remarkably pale and melancholy, but she was very pretty. He introduced her as his niece, Miss Niner. Are you strolling Mr. Samson? Is it possible you can be idle? It was possible and I was strolling. Shall we stroll together? With pleasure. The young lady walked between us and we walked on the cool sea sand in the direction of Philly. There have been wheels here, said Mr. Slington, and now I look again the wheels of a hand carriage. Margaret, my love, your shadow without doubt. Miss Niner's shadow, I repeated looking down on the sand. Not that one, Mr. Slington returned laughing. Margaret, my dear, tell Mr. Samson. Indeed, said the young lady, turning to me, there is nothing to tell except that I constantly see the same invalid old gentleman at all times. Wherever I go, I have mentioned it to my uncle and he calls the gentleman my shadow. Does he live in Scarborough, I asked. He is staying here. Do you live in Scarborough? No, I am staying here. My uncle has placed me with a family here for my help. And your shadow, said I, smiling. My shadow, she answered, smiling too, is, like myself, not very robust, I fear, for I lose my shadow sometimes as my shadow loses me at other times. You both seem liable to confinement to the house. I have not seen my shadow for days and days, but it does oddly happen occasionally that wherever I go for many days together, this gentleman goes. We have come together on the most unfrequented nooks on this shore. Is this he? said I, pointing before us. The wheels had swept down the water's edge and describing a great loop on the sand and turning. Bringing the hoop back towards us and spinning it out as it came was a hand carriage drawn by a man. Yes, said Miss Niner. This really is my shadow, uncle. As the carriage approached us and we approached the carriage, I saw within it an old man whose head was sunk on his breast and who was enveloped in a variety of wrappers. He was drawn by a very quiet but very keen-looking man with iron-gray hair and who was slightly lame. They had passed us when the carriage stopped and the old gentleman within, putting out his arm, called to me by my name. I went back and was absent from Mr. Slington and his niece for about five minutes. When I rejoined them, Mr. Slington was the first to speak. Indeed, he said to me in a raised voice before I came up with him, it is well you have not been longer or my niece might have died of curiosity to know who her shadow is, Mr. Samson. An old East India director said, I, an intimate friend of our friends, at whose house I first had the pleasure of meeting you. A certain major banks, you have heard of him? Never. Very rich Miss Niner, but very old and very crippled. An amiable man, sensible, much interested in you, he has just been expatiating on the affection that he has observed to exist between you and your uncle. Mr.  Our affection was always a strong one for we have had but few near ties. We have still fewer now. We have associations to bring us together that are not of this world, Margaret. To her uncle, Muhammad the young lady, and turned her face aside to hide her tears. My niece and I had such remembrances and regrets in common, Mr. Samson. He feelingly pursued that it would be strange indeed if the relations between us were cold or indifferent. If I remember a conversation we have had together, you will understand the reference I make. Cheer up, dear Margaret. Don't droop, don't droop. My Margaret, I cannot bear to see you droop. The poor young lady was very much affected but controlled herself. His feelings too were very acute. In a word, he found himself under such a great need of a restorative that he presently went away to take a bath of seawater.  She did, poor thing. With all her confiding heart, she praised him to me for his care of her dead sister and for his untiring devotion in her last illness. The sister had wasted away very slowly and wild and terrible fantasies had come over her to at the end. But he had never been impatient with her or at a loss, had always been gentle, watchful and self-possessed. The sister had known him as she had known him to the best of men, the kindest of men and yet a man of such admirable strength of character as to be a very tower for the support of their weak natures while their poor lives endured. I shall leave him, Mr. Samson, very soon, said the young lady. I know my life is drawing to an end and, when I am gone, I hope he will marry and be happy. I am sure he has lived single so long only for my sake and for my poor, poor sisters. The little hand carriage had made another great loop on the damp sand and was coming back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure of eight, half a mile long.  Time presses. You hear the gentle murmur of that, see? She looked at me with utmost wonder and alarm, saying, Yes. And you know what a voice is in it when the storm comes. Yes. A light and peaceful little light is before us and you know what an awful sight of power without pity it might be this very night. Yes. But if you have never heard or seen it or heard of it in its cruelty, could you believe that it beats every inanimate thing in its way to pieces without mercy and destroys life without remorse? You terrify me, sir, by these questions.  If you were here alone and hemmed in by the rising tide on the floor to fifty feet above your head, you could not be in greater danger than the danger you are now to be saved from.  As I am before, heaven and the judge of all mankind, your friend and your dear sister's friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Naina, without one moment's loss of time to come to this gentleman with me. If the little carriage had been less near to us, I doubt if I could have got her away. But it was so near that we were there before she had recovered the hurry of being urged from the rock. I did not remain there with her two minutes. Certainly within five, I had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her from the point we had sat on to which I had returned. Half supported and half carried up, some rude steps notched in the cliff by the figure of an active man. With that figure beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere. I sat alone on the rock awaiting Mr. Slington's return. The twilight was deepening and the shadows were heavy when he came round the point, with his hat hanging at his buttonhole smoothing his wet hair with one of his hands and picking up the old path with the other and a pocket comb. My niece not here, Mr. Samson, he said looking around. Miss Naina seemed to feel a little chill in the air after the sun was down and has gone home. He looked surprised and asked him to do anything without him, even to originate, so slight to proceeding. I persuaded Miss Naina, I explained. Ah, said he. She is easily persuaded for her good. Thank you, Mr. Samson. She is better within doors. The bathing place was further than I thought to say the truth. Miss Naina is very delicate, I observed. He shook his head, drew a deep sigh. Very, very, very. You may recollect me saying so. The time that has since intervened has not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that fell upon her sister so early in life seems in my anxious eyes to gather over her, ever darker, ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret, but we must hope. The hand carriage was spinning away before us at most in decorous space for an invalid vehicle and was making most irregular curves upon the sand. Mr. Slington, noticing it, after he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said, If I may judge from appearances, your friend will be absurd, Mr. Samson. It looks probable, certainly, said I. The servant must be drunk. The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk sometimes, said I. The Major draws very light, Mr. Samson. The Major does draw light, said I. By this time the carriage, much to my relief, was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a little, side by side over the sand in silence. After a short while, he said, in a voice still affected by the emotion that his niece's state of health had awakened to him. Do you stay here long, Mr. Samson? Oh, I know. I'm going away tonight. So soon. But business always holds you in request. Men like Mr. Samson are too important to others to be spared to their own need of relaxation and enjoyment. I don't know about that, said I. However, I am going back. To London. To London. I shall be there, too, soon after you. I knew that as well as he did. But I did not tell him so. Any more than I told him what defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my pocket as I walked by his side. Any more than I told him why I did not walk on the seaside of him with the night closing in. We left the beach and our ways diverged. We exchanged good night and had parted indeed when he said returning. Mr. Samson, may I ask poor Melton, whom we spoke of, dead yet? Not when I last heard of him, but too broken a man to live long and hopelessly lost to his old calling. Dear, dear, dear, said he with great feeling. Sad, sad, sad. The world is grave. And so went his way. It was not his fault if the world were not a grave. But I did not call that observation after him. Any more than that I had mentioned those other things just now enumerated. He went his way and I went mine with all expedition. This happened as I have said either to the end of September or beginning of October. The next I saw him and the last time was late in November. I had a very particular engagement to breakfast in the temple. It was a bitter northeasterly morning and the sleet and slush lay inches deep in the streets. I could get no conveyance and was soon wed to the knees. But I should have been true to that appointment, though I had to wait to it up to my neck in the same impediments. The appointment took me to the chambers in the temple. They were at the top of the lonely corner house overlooking the river. The name, Mr. Alfred Beckwith, was painted on the outer door. On the door opposite on the same landing the name Mr. Julius Slington. The doors of both sets of chambers stood open so that anything said aloud in one set could be heard in the other. I had never been in those chambers before. They were dismal, close, unwholesome and oppressive. The furniture, originally good and not yet old, was faded and dirty. The rooms were in great disorder. There was a strong, prevailing smell of opium, brandy and tobacco. The grates and fire irons were splashed all over with unsightly blotches of rust and on a sofa by the fire in the room where breakfast had been prepared lay the host, Mr. Beckwith. A man with all appearances of the worst kind of drunkard lay far advanced upon his shameful way to death. Slington has not come yet, said this creature, staggering up when I went in. I'll call him. Hello, Julius Caesar. Come and drink. As he hoarsely roared this out he beat the poker and tongued together in a mad way as if that were his usual manner of summoning his associate. The voice Mr. Slington was heard through the clatter from the opposite side of the staircase, and he came in. He had not expected the pleasure of meeting me. I have seen several artful men brought to a stag, but I never saw a man so aghast as he was when his eyes rested on mine. Julius Caesar, cried Beckwith, staggering between us, Mr. Samson, Mr. Samson, Julius Caesar, Julius, Mr. Samson Mr. Samson is a friend of my soul. Julius keeps me piled with liquor morning, noon and night. Julius is a real benefactor. Julius threw the tea and coffee out of the window when I used to have any. Julius empties all the water jugs of their content and fills them with spirits. Julius winds me up and keeps me going. Boil the brandy, Julius. There was a rusty and furious saucepan in the ashes. The ashes looked like the accumulation of weeks, and Beckwith, rolling and staggering between us as he were going to plunge headlong into the fire, got the saucepan out, and tried to force it into Slington's hand. Boil the brandy, Julius Caesar. Come, do your usual office. Boil the brandy. He became so fierce in his gesticulation with the saucepan that I expected to see him lay open Slington's head with it. I therefore put out my hand to check him. He reeled back to the sofa, sat there panting, shaking and red-eyed, in his rags of a dressing gown, looking at us both. I noticed then that there was nothing to drink on the table but brandy, and nothing to eat but salted herrings and a hot, sickly, highly peppered stew. At all events, Mr. Samson, said Slington, offering me the smooth gravel path for the last time. I thank you for interfering between me and this unfortunate man's violence. However you came here, Mr. Samson, or with whatever motive you came here, at least I thank you for that. Boil the brandy, muttered Beckwith. Without gratifying his desire to know how I came there, I said quietly, how is your niece, Mr. Slington? He looked hard at me and I looked hard at him. I am sorry to say, Mr. Samson, that my niece has proved treacherous and ungrateful to her best friend. She left me without a word of notice or explanation. She was misled, no doubt, by some designing rascal. Perhaps you may have heard of it. I did hear that she was misled by a designing rascal. In fact, I have proof of it. Are you sure of that? said he. Quiet. Boil the brandy, muttered Beckwith. Company to breakfast, Julius Caesar, do your usual office. Provide the usual breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Boil the brandy. The eyes of Slington looked from him to me and he said, after a moment's consideration, Mr. Samson, you're a man of the world and so am I. I will be plain with you. Oh, no, you won't, said I, shaking my head. I tell you, sir, I will be plain with you. And I tell you, you will not, said I. I know all about you. You, plain with anyone? Nonsense. Nonsense. I plainly tell you, Mr. Samson, he went on, with a manner almost composed, that I understand your object. You want to save your funds and escape from your liabilities. These are old tricks of the trade with you office gentlemen. But you will not do it, sir. You will not succeed. You have not an easy adversary to play against when you play against me. We shall have to inquire in due time when and how Mr. Beckwith fell into his present habits. With that remark, sir, I put this poor creature and his incoherent wanderings of speech aside and wish you a good morning and a better case next time. When he was saying this, Beckwith filled the half-pined glass with brandy.  At the sound of the breakage, a fourth person came into the room closing the door and stood at it. He was a very quiet but very keen-looking man with iron gray hair and slightly lame.  He was a long time about it and I saw that in doing of it a tremendous change came over him occasioned by the change in Beckwith who ceased to pant and tremble, sat upright and never took his eyes off him. I never in my life saw a face in which aberrance and determination was so forcefully painted as in Beckwith's then. Look at me, you villain, said Beckwith, and see me as I really am. I took these rooms to make them a trap for you. I came into them as a drunkard to bait the trap for you. You fell into the trap and you will never leave it alive. On the morning when you last went to see Mr. Samson's office I had seen him first. Your plot had been known to both of us all along and you have been counter-plotted all along. What? Have you been cajoled into putting the prize of two-thousand pounds in your power? I was to be done to death with Brandy and Brandy not proving quick enough with something quicker. Have I never seen you when you thought my sense is gone pouring your little bottle into my glass? Why you murderer and forger alone here with you in the dead of night as I have so often been? I have had my hand upon the trigger of a pistol twenty times to blow your brains out. The sudden starting up the thing that he had supposed to be his imbecile victim into a determined man with a settled resolution to hunt him down and be the death of him mercilessly expressed from head to foot was in the first shock too much for him. Without any figure of speech he staggered under it. But there is no greater mistake than to suppose that a man who is a calculating criminal is in any phase of his guilt otherwise then true to himself and perfectly consistent with his whole character. Such a man commits murder and murder is the natural culmination of his course. Such a man has to outface murder and will do it with hardyhood and effrontery. It is the sort of fashion to express surprise that any notorious criminal having such a crime upon his conscience can so brave it out. Do you think that he had it in his conscience at all or had a conscience to have it upon? He would ever have committed the crime? Perfectly consistent with himself as I believe all such monsters to be the slington recovered himself and showed a defiance that was sufficiently cold and quiet. He was white he was haggard and he was changed but only as a sharper who had played for a great steak and had been outpitted and had lost the game.  When I took these rooms to throw myself in your way and lead you on the scheme that I knew my appearance and supposed character and habits and such a devil how did I know that?  Slington took out a snap box took a pinch of snap and laughed but see here said back with never looking away never raising his voice never relaxing his face never unclenching his hand see what a dull wolf you have been after all the infatuated drunkard who never drank a fiftieth part of liquor you plied him with but poured it away here, there, everywhere almost before your eyes who brought over the fellow you set to watch him and to ply him by outbidding you in his bribe before he had been at his work three days with whom you have observed no caution yet who was so bent on bidding the earth of you as a wild beast that he would have defeated you if you had been ever so prudent that drunkard whom you have many a time left on the floor of this room and who has even let you go out of it alive and undeceived when you had turned him over with your foot has almost as often on the same night within an hour within a few minutes watched you awake had his hand at your pillow when you were asleep turned over your papers taken samples from your bottles and packets of powder changed their content rifled every secret in your life he had had another pinch of snuff in his hand but had gradually let it drop between his fingers to the floor and he now smoothened it out with his foot looking down at it the while that drunkard said back with who had free access to your rooms at all times that he might drink the strong drinks that you left in his way and be sooner ended holding no more terms with you that he would hold with a tiger has had his master key for all your locks his tests for all your poisons his clue to your cipher writing he can tell you as well as you can tell him how long it took to complete the deed what doses there were what intervals what signs of gradual decay upon mind and body what distempered fancies were produced what observable changes what physical pain he can tell you as well as you can tell him that all this was recorded day by day as a lesson of experience for future service he can tell you better than you can tell him where that journal is at this moment slinked and stopped the action of his foot and looked at back with no said the latter as if answering a question from him not in the drawer of the writing desk that opens with the spring it is not there and it never will be there again then you are a thief said slinkton without any change whatever in the inflexible purpose which it was quite terrific even to me to contemplate and from the power of which I had always felt convinced it was impossible for this wretch to escape back with the return and I am your nieces shadow too with an implication slinkton put his hand to his head tore out some hair and flung it to the ground it was the end of the smooth walk he destroyed it in the action and will soon be seen that his use for it was passed back with went on whenever you left here I left here although I understood that you found it necessary to pause in the completion of that purpose to avert suspicion still I watched you close with that poor confiding girl when I had the diary I could read it word by word it was only about the night before your last visit to Scarborough you remember the night you slept with a small flat vial tied to your wrist I sent to Mr. Samson who was kept out of view this is Mr. Samson's trusty servant standing by the door v3 saved your niece among us slinkton looked at us all took an uncertain step or two in the place where he had stood returned to it and glanced about him in a very curious way as one of the meaner reptiles might looking for a hole to hide in I noticed at the same time that a singular change took place in the figure of the man as if it collapsed within his clothes and they consequently became ill-shaven and ill-fitting you shall know said Beckwith for I hope the knowledge will be bitter and terrible to you why you have been pursued by one man and why when the whole interest that Mr. Samson represents would have expended any money in hunting you down you have been tracked to death at a single individual's charge I hear you have had the name of Malthum on your lips sometimes I saw in addition to those other changes a sudden stoppage came upon his breathing when you send the sweet girl whom you murdered you know with what artfully made out surroundings and probabilities you sent her to Malthum's office before taking her abroad to originate the transaction that doomed her to the grave it fell to Malthum's lot to see her and to speak with her it did not fall to his lot to save her though I knew he would freely give up his own life to have done it I admired her I would say he loved her deeply if I thought it possible that you could understand the word when she was sacrificed he was thoroughly assured of your guilt having lost her he had but one object left in life and that was to avenge her and destroy you I saw the villain's nostril rise and fall convulsively but I saw no moving at his mouth that man Malthum Beckwith steadily pursued was as absolutely certain that you could never elude him in this world if he devoted himself to a destruction with his utmost fidelity and earnestness and if he divided the sacred duty with no other duty in life as he was certain that in achieving it he would be a poor instrument in the hand of Providence and would do well before heaven in striking you from among living men I am that man and I thank God that I have done my work if Slington had been running for his life from swift-footed savages a dozen miles he could not have shown more empathetic signs of being oppressed at heart and libering for breath than he showed now when he looked at the pursuer who had so relentlessly hunted him down you never saw me under my right name before you see me under my right name now you shall see me once again in the body when you are tried for your life you shall see me once again in the spirit when the cord is around your neck and the crowds are crying against you when Malthum had spoken these last words the miscreant suddenly turned his face away and seemed to strike his mouth with his open hand at the same instant in new and powerful order and almost at the same time he broke into a crooked run leap-start I have no name for the spasm and fell with a dull weight that shook the heavy old doors and windows in their frames that was a fitting end of him when we saw that he was dead we drew away from the room and Malthum giving me his hand said with a weary air I have no more work on earth my friend but I shall see her again elsewhere it was in vain that I tried to rally him he might have saved her he said he had not saved her and he reproached himself he had lost her and he was broken hearted the purpose that has sustained me over Samson and there is nothing now to hold to life I am not fit for life I am weak and spiritless and I have no object my day is done in truth I could hardly have believed that a broken man who then spoke to me was the man who had so strongly and so differently impressed me when his purpose was before him I used such entries with him as I could but he still said and always said in a patient undemonstrative way nothing could avail him he died early in the next spring he was buried by the side of the poor young lady for whom he had cherished those tender and unhappy regrets and he left all he had to his sister she lived to be a happy wife and mother she married my sister's son who succeeded poor Melton she is living now and her children ride about the garden on my walking stick and go to see her End of Hunted Down by Charles Dickens


Hi everyone, Joe for JasperJasperace.com doing the Magic Raptors Nuggets Grizzlies Random number block randomized for flawless basketball picker team number four coming up in another video big. Thanks to this group for making it happen. I accidentally redid the the second filler break made the same number but Anthony and Joel you got the one where it actually says random R&B in the title And this one actually says RT Anyway, all the videos are up There are the names there are the numbers good luck. Let's roll it randomized names the numbers three and a two five times each one two three four and five Got Anthony down to Matthew three and a two five times for the numbers one two three four and five Got zero down to one All right, Anthony with zero and six Robert with five Matthew with eight Chris with three Matthew with two Joel with nine Andy with four Matthew with seven and one Let's order these numerically and Coming up in the next video will be the break itself Jasper's case breaks.com. Bye. Bye


addition of Kondo Insider. As we've said many times, more than 30 percent of our population lives in an association. And this show is specifically engineered to teach board members and owners alike on the various responsibilities and discuss issues facing the association. However, before I begin the show, I do want to say that, you know, we're very privileged every year to be on Think Tech Hawaii. It's a new show. It's a great program to think tech does for our industry and we want to send special birthday congratulations to its CEO, Jay Fidel. It's his birthday today and we want to say he told me to say it's a 16th birthday, but I sometimes get ages and IQs mixed up. So we'll let that go that way. But happy birthday, Jay Fidel. And thank you for all you do for our industry. Today we're going to talk about an issue that often gets confused. They're called minutes of an association. I don't know whether or not called hours. I've never seen an association meeting take minutes. But either way, I've invited to come back today a good friend of mine, Steve Glanstein, a professional registered parliamentarian. And I want to welcome Steve again to the show. Thank you very much, Richard. It's a pleasure to see you again and be here on the show. In 30 seconds or less, tell us a little about your background, what a professional registered parliamentarian is. Well, I got into this field as a condominium owner in 1983. Got nationally certified and loved the profession so much that I ended up doing meetings professionally for not just condominiums, community associations, but even churches and dog clubs and unions. And I've been doing it ever since, retired from the computer field several years ago. And I do this full time. I go to lots of meetings and I help them out as a parliamentarian or as a chair. So you're telling me there's more than one or two meetings a year that need a professional parliamentarian? Yes, I do about 100 meetings a year, about 32 of them in March, more than one a day sometimes. Well, I think there's about 700 condominiums plus in the association show that that shows pretty much a five or six percent of the associations during a year. Want someone to professionally assist to make sure the meeting is done properly and the record is clear. Yes, most of them run very well without having parliamentarians and lawyers there. The great majority of them are very peaceful meetings. They complain about not having enough board members or not having board members to step up to the plate. Most of them run peacefully. I get just a small percentage of them. Yeah, and I'm going to assume of the ones you get. A lot of them are just, they want assistance. There's not really a problem as far as the meeting itself, such as a removal or one of these things. Probably a lot of the meetings are fairly ordinary in the sense they just want to have the protection of a skilled professional like yourself assisting with the meeting. Yes, you got to remember, these are non-paid board members and they really do want to make sure the meeting is kept on track, run properly, and that there's any legal channel challenge later. It's been run as professionally as possible and they can defend the association's actions, what they've done at the meeting. So very few of my meetings actually turn in three removals. Well, one of the things that I've noticed, particularly in my obligations in the management field, is that there's a lot of misunderstanding about what minutes are, what they should be, what they should contain. And some people even don't look at them as necessary really that important. What are minutes? First, let's get down to the basics. Well, minutes are the official actions of an organization. They're not a record of what people said. They're not how people felt about issues. They're the official actions. This is distinguished from minutes in a municipal or state agency. It's very different. Minutes of a non-profit corporation, a condominium community association, they are very different. Robert's Rules Minutes, they are the official actions that were taken in the name of the organization. So what do you put in minutes? Well, you put in the official actions. From that flows the name of the person proposing a motion. If the motion is adopted, you put in the results of the voting on it because the voting was official action numbers. You put in when the meeting started, if there was a quorum, you put in who was chairing the meeting, who was the secretary, who was doing the minutes. Those are the types of things. If somebody has a procedural objection, that would become part of the minutes. And the chair's ruling would become part of the minutes because that's official action of the organization. So if the organization has committees, or the committee reports, let's say written committee reports, are they a part of the minutes? No. If you include a committee report as a part of the minutes, it leads to the implication that that entire report was endorsed by the organization, including how they went about and did their work, including their results. And there's an inherent danger in that because endorsing a report from a committee and not knowing everything they did could lead to trouble later. So in the committee report, usually what a group will do is they will adopt the recommendations of the committee. They will adopt the motions presented from a committee, not how the committee went about and did their work. So you don't approve a committee report, you might approve the recommendations from the committee. Because the other thing I often hear is a motion, I'll make it up, I move to paint the building pink. And then you get into the discussion, no, I like blue better. No, I want yellow. It should be pink and blue. And the narrative is not included in the minutes, correct? That's correct. You don't include the narrative. And is there reasons why? Yes, there are. Because the narrative becomes what somebody thinks is the most important part of the debate. It's not a full transcript. It may not even pick up what people are saying outside of the individual debate speaker. And as a result, you run the risk of having these minutes include somebody's opinion and being taken out of context and used against the group later. And sometimes boards get sued. So it could have legal ramifications if you have kind of a summarized version that didn't include anything. Some smart lawyer might take some sentence or some paragraph and kind of hone in on that when that really doesn't represent the entire record. Actually, that happened many years ago on the big on where where a friend of mine, a colleague of mine actually lost the case. He's an attorney. I'm not an attorney. He's an attorney and he lost the case because of spurious items that were put in the minutes. So the general recommendation is strict to stick to the motion and record that motion and record only the actions necessary. The actions necessary. It's clearly spelled out in Roberts. It's even better spelled out in an article that the real estate commission has published that I wrote in June 2015. So one more question on this area on the agenda. So we have on the agenda discussion of painting the building pink and they decide to defer to the next meeting. So it's not a newsletter. Would that be included in the minutes? Okay, they decided to defer it to the next meeting that is official action of the board at that meeting or committee. If they decide to defer it from one meeting to another, they've taken official action. Even though they haven't approved the motion to paint the building pink, they've continued it to another meeting. So that should go in the minutes. So in some ways, the minute can be a record of the past minutes and what you need to put on the next meeting because they defer it. They know that it needs to go under unfinished business under the next meeting agenda. And so it's kind of a way of maintaining the record, not only what you decided, but kind of these motions or decisions where they say defer or maybe indefinitely defer. These are all included in the minutes. Yes. That would be included in the minutes if they indefinitely deferred is a special motion called postpone indefinitely, which indefinitely defers. And that would be in the minute showing that the motion to paint the building pink was postponed indefinitely. And in the statute when it comes to condominiums, you would have to say how the individual directors voted. So let's take a quick discussion of that because you have regular sector. Let me ask it this way. Is there a difference in the minutes of a board meeting and an annual meeting? Yes, there is. There is a difference. The difference is an important one because the board meeting, the board is acting for the entire association. They are charged with the responsibility of taking care of the association. They have a fiduciary duty individual board members do have an official duty to the association. So their minutes have more requirements under the statute than association meeting minutes. What's normally in an association meeting? Association meeting minutes for an annual meeting. Usually about all you have is calling the meeting to order. They approve the minutes of another meeting or they announce that the board approved the minutes. That would go in. Perhaps they have the percentage present at the meeting. They have the results of the election. They have a tax resolution in order to avoid any payment of taxes. And then they adjourn. And that's pretty much it for an association meeting minutes. They technically don't do the type of work that a board of directors does. But there could be situations like in new business where the owner proffered in a bylaw or declaration amendment. Right. So let's use that as an example with you. If an owner makes a bylaw amendment, well first of all you want to make sure that that amendment is clearly spelled out in writing so you don't accidentally adopt an amendment that makes no sense. So the name of the owner would be there. You don't need the name of the seconder. The exact text of the bylaw amendment would be there. And because it is a bylaw amendment and it has a voting requirement that's a percentage, you would usually count it. So the count on the vote for the bylaw amendment would also be there, including an indication so whether it was adopted or rejected. On the other hand, boards can't make bylaw amendments or declaration amendments without prior notice to the homeowner. So this would be from an individual owner, not from the board or correct or someone else. If I remember correctly. Yes, you remember correct. Yeah. Especially for condominiums, if the board proposes that they need to make sure it goes into the notice. And just so everybody understands there are, you know, we're governed by the governing documents of the association. There are governing documents out there that have other annual requirements, like approving the management company or approving the auditor. Those might be under a new business as well. It's a normal course of business. Yeah. For example, some bylaws will say that the management contract must be approved on an annual basis and they require a very high vote, a majority of the common interest to approve it. However, however, if that is presented at the meeting, the results of the voting need to be in the minutes, including the motion itself. So obviously, minutes are really, really important to have an accurate legal factual record of what's going on in the association. Definitely. And it's important also recognize that minutes can not only be subpoenaed, but when future perspective buyers look to buy property, they're going to want to see those minutes. So if those minutes of things about some person was assaulted in the parking lot or they put in lots of things like that or owners forum issues, then that can have an effect on an association and quite a negative one. Well, the other thing is we kind of digressed out in the end and we need to get that clear. We were talking about board meetings and there is something called an executive session. What is an executive session? Well, an executive session is a type of session. It's confidential. Board members are not allowed to disclose what happens in executive sessions. And even if there's non board members there by exception or by rule, they're not allowed to disclose it. What happens in executive session is a separate set of minutes and it's only supposed to be approved in executive session, not in regular session. So generally speaking, you say you would recommend that an executive session that minutes be taken. Oh, absolutely. Especially if you have situations in executive session where they agree to settle a case for a certain amount. If there's no record of it and the board has litigation a couple years later, where's the record that it was approved? That the settlement was approved. So they need to have an executive session set of minutes. They need to follow the statute with executive session and follow Roberts. Should they have any legal issues? They need to get to their attorney with the executive session minutes and determine how they want to manage it. So I know the state law for a regular portion of the meeting requires the individual vote of each director to be recorded. And the state law in executive sessions does not require the individual votes. Do you recommend they record individual votes in executive session? That's more of an organizational issue. I believe that if they do, then it's consistent because it's possible that those executive session minutes might be released to the public. The board does have the option to release the executive session minutes. And when the need for security or secrecy is no longer there, there's no reason why they can't approve them for release. So it should technically, it would be a good operating practice to have it in there regardless, even though the statute itself does not mandate it. Well, the current statute certainly says the board must announce their purpose of going in an executive session for a board before doing so. So they really can't just call an executive session. They have to do it from a regular meeting to comply with the statute. But then the statute also says that when they finish the executive session, they have to announce any actions they took that doesn't jeopardize the association. They may have some settlement discussions. You wouldn't want that to be public. Correct. Things like settlement discussions or settlement decisions, they may never see the light of day. However, things like giving a bonus to the employees, the fact that they approved it might be fine. But the discussion itself is remains an executive session. So even if they've authorized the minutes to be released, the actual discussion should never come out of executive session unless the board specifically authorizes it. I've got hours more questions for minutes, but we're going to take a short break for a minute and you'll be right back at Kondo Insider. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, Citizen Journalism from Hawaii, finding the intersection of our sense of place and our place in the world right here at home. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland here on Think Tech Hawaii every Friday at 3 p.m. We address issues and importance for those of us who live here on the most isolated landmass on the planet. Please come join me Fridays at 3 p.m. Mahalo. Hello, this is Martin Despeng. I want to get you get excited about my new show, which is Humane Architecture for Hawaii and beyond. We're going to broadcast on Tuesdays 5 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Welcome back to Kondo Insider where with Steve Glanstein, professional registered parliamentarian talking for the last 15 minutes about association minutes. So I guess minutes are really longer than or it's multi minutes more than minutes for whatever it may be. But anyway, we talk about executive sessions and boards going into executive sessions and and the issues with regard to announcing what you did and all these kinds of things and in general terms, do associations ever go into executive sessions? You know, I've done over 1500 meetings between 15 and 1600 meetings and out of all those meetings, I've only had one meeting that went into executive session as an association and they went into it for a specific purpose to discuss a very sensitive matter and they wanted to make sure that that matter did not have any any disclosure outside of the association meeting. And so they went into executive session, they did what they had to and then they came out and they took some action. And probably in those cases, would that something you should ask your lawyer, whether it makes sense or good, because there's all sorts of legal issues out there or something the board should feel comfortable. You know, it seems to me that the thing to get out of the coconut wireless faster than we want them, no matter what you say to people, but it should probably be taken very carefully before you go into an executive session. And especially not so much with association because it's very rare, but with a board meeting, they need to follow the statute. For example, a board meeting that decides to elect officers should not be going into executive session to elect their president and vice president, secretary and treasurer. But if they're going to go into executive session for personnel matters or if they've been threatened with a lawsuit, they want to discuss that matter, then clearly that's something that would be appropriate for executive session. Do you think it's reasonable to go into executive session with, I'm going to say an owner or maybe even an association employee to resolve maybe a dispute on a house fine or a rule or a delinquency that might be embarrassing and hard to have a conversation in front of all the owners? Do you think that's reasonable? It depends on the situation. I'll give you an example. An owner alleges that they were assaulted by an employee of the association. They might ask that the board go into executive session so they can discuss a matter related to personnel or at least transmit to the board a matter related to personnel without anybody else hearing, especially if the owner is embarrassed about what happened and the board might go into executive session just to have the owner explain what happened and then excuse the owner so the board can consider what to do. So that's an actual case where executive session would be appropriate. And that's reasonable in your opinion. Yes, sometimes they'll go into executive session and I will be there as a parliamentarian to make sure the procedure is done right. However, I would ask the board to make sure they give specific permission for me to be there. You know, one of the things in the legislature this year and I don't have the exact bill before me that one of the bills suggests that associations in general be prohibited from going into executive session ever and all those have to be held in public. What's your thought about that? I think that that's going to have some very seriously negative consequences. For example, let's say that a board is completely prohibited from executive session. Then they'll adopt a motion authorizing the president to settle a multi-million dollar lawsuit. There won't be any executive session.  So I think the unfortunate side is that when you draw a brush like this and you say no executive session, you create an environment where boards are going to do things to try to get the association's business done and some of those effects could actually be worse than having an executive session. Well, someone asked me about it. I said, look, our city council or the police commission just went into executive session and discussed a settlement with regard to the police chief's contract. Then I've seen the city council go into executive session. I've seen lots of private or public organizations, city council itself, go into executive session. So I don't think we should restrict boards. I think it's an educational matter for boards to know how to do an executive session legally and properly to protect the association, but not use it as a mechanism to avoid public debate, which has been accused of the tourism association. Yeah. And that does concern me because I've seen that in the in the neighborhood commission, neighborhood board structure before where the executive session was used quite frequently. But a board, you need the education and they need to really be grounded that the executive session is not for something that you're uncomfortable with. It's for something that is permitted by statute. It may be uncomfortable to conduct a meeting that's open, but you've got to recognize that you are limited by statute to executive session for just certain specific items. And you may not agree with me, but I've always tried to council boards when you go to executive session, just don't say we're going in executive session to discuss legal and personal matters. It's kind of like a catch off. Go in and say we're going into the session session to discuss the lawsuit by ABC against the association and discuss a personal matter with regard to our resident manager or the garden or whatever it may be, at least try to be a little more transparent on the general topic without giving away any of the secret sauce. Yeah, and that's more of a property management organizational perspective than a parliamentary one. I think you're making that based on your experience with lots of boards and lots of associations and that's fine. Well, owners right or wrong or indifferent always assume the worst and the conspiracy theory. So the more transparent boards can be without jeopardizing the association and be more definitive of what they're going to discuss without getting into the details. So the owners know we're going in to talk about delinquency of an owner. All the conspiracy is something else that they may be upset about kind of goes away and. Sure, except that you don't want to go into executive session due to the delinquency of John Doe of X thousands of dollars. You wouldn't want to have that much detail to go into executive session. You probably would go into executive session just to discuss the outstanding delinquencies. Well, a lot of times as you suggested earlier, they go into executive session to discuss settlement of a lawsuit. They may be making a low ball offer, but saying what we'd go higher if necessary. And you wouldn't want that publicly disclosed because it destroys your bargaining position and trying to settle a lawsuit. So it's a balance between what you can say and can't say. Yes. And absolutely. I had one association where they removed a director for breach of fiduciary duty because she disclosed an ADA settlement contents from executive session that was supposed to be secret. So the owners got together. They had a special meeting and she was removed for breach of fiduciary. So it's really important that board members take executive session seriously and not abuse it. This may be a legal question, but it's certainly worth an opinion. So if the board settles a lawsuit and the settlement has a confidentiality provision in it, what is the board's obligation to disclose? Well, it's definitely a legal question and they certainly should have legal counsel before they start talking at a regular board meeting about the details of the settlement because they could conceivably jeopardize that entire settlement if they're violating its terms. So it's really important that a board get legal help when they're dealing with these legal issues before they start making public statements. I know in a kind of IONAM which had a construction defect litigation, they didn't enter into a settlement agreement. And for owners to get a copy of the settlement agreement, they had to sign a nondisclosure because they had a confidentiality provision. So to get a copy as an owner, the board was willing to give it to you, but you had to sign a nondisclosure agreement that you know is confidential. And I guess that puts certain liability on you if you violate that written agreement. So there are ways to get information to owners that is confidential. But like you said, the best thing to do is to make sure you get a lawyer to guide you through that process because you could disrupt the entire settlement, which may be good for you, by the improper disclosure. Well, it could be worth to expose associations to liability, board members to personal liability, and there's insurance issues associated with it. So they have to really proceed carefully. One more thing, and I have a couple more questions about the legislature. Sometimes, and I basically say you should hold a board meeting to make decisions. But we all realize there's time when there's an emergency. I know I had a project that had gas leak, and they choked the gas off, but then people had no heating. And so the board wanted to approve a contract real quick for the existing plumber who knew the building backwards and forwards. It was over $10,000. And so they did an email survey here saying, look, we've got to get this done. No one has any gas. No one has any heat. And again, I'm going to repeat that under most circumstances, you should hold a board meeting. But there are going to be emergencies. After a hurricane, for example, how does that handle in a minute? Because you really didn't hold a board meeting. And you made an emergency decision outside of a board meeting. How do you handle that in minutes? Well, that decision made outside of the board meeting is a private decision. That's not an official act of the board. So what they need to do is call a regular board meeting or a special meeting for the purpose of ratifying those actions that were taken outside of the meeting. And the proper procedure at that meeting is I move to ratify the following action. And then they just vote on it. But between the time they've taken that position, that decision, to the time they ratified there's a specific risk because it's not the official action of the board or for that matter of the association. Well, I can see a 5-4 vote to do something. And then they come back into the meeting and they already signed a contract and did the work. And then one guy says, well, you know, I'm thinking about this. I would have voted differently now. I mean, it puts risk, but also, you know, certainly the board and the president signed the contract based on his belief that it was a 5-4 agreement. So I guess it's a sticky wicket for lack of a better word. It actually is. And that's where that's why it's very dangerous to have decisions made outside of a properly called board meeting. Now today with technology, 5-14B, the chapter on the condominium property act, it allows for them to do some telephonic meetings. You know, if they get them all together, many bylaws say all the directors together at one time, they can wave notice by their presence. So there are some mechanisms that the statute has helped a little bit. Well, I'm glad you brought that up. It takes me back to the legislature. And if I understand the statute correctly today, you have to get three days notice to all board members to have a board meeting. And or I should say, you have simultaneous notice. A simultaneous notice. So that helps us in emergency situations. We have emergency gas leak. I'm notifying everybody, making sure you notify every director. And you hold a telephonic meeting too, which is an official meeting. One of the proposals before the legislature today is to A, make it seven days with no exception. I mean, there is no emergency meeting that the agenda has to be published and can't be deviated upon when you have your meeting. And that all the material the board gets must be available for examination by the owners or owners given a copy or the owners given a chance to submit their own documentation. Thoughts? Well, I hope that the gas leak is not dangerous to owners, considering how cold it's been if it's a recent gas leak. That's that could be pretty dangerous here. That ignores the reality of getting information available to board. Sometimes the information is being collected at a last minute moment, last minute, and it's not available to a day before. It puts it quite a burden in terms of management. And what that is basically doing is handicapping boards enough so that the deliberation process, the process of taking care of association business, is going to be handicapped once again. Now, there's no reason that I can see why they can't make these documents available to owners if they're non-confidential. Things like that. They can follow the statute as far as that. That goes. But this is not a pay board. They have work to do. And by making it absolute, when it comes to documents, agenda, and things like that, especially for regular meetings, you really do run the risk of damaging associations, in my opinion. Well, sadly, we run out of time because there's a lot more before the legislature on the debate of private housing versus government housing with regard to who's responsible for what. Now, I want to thank you for being here today. And we appreciate your counsel all the time with regard to parliamentary procedures and the good work you do in the industry. And I thank all of our listeners for watching Kondo Insider. We have an exciting show next week on various legal issues, again, paralleling with what's before the legislature. And we hope you come back and watch us again Aloha from Kondo Insider.


Hello, beautiful souls! Welcome back to Art of Awakening. My name is Ona, and this is the video, it will be a weekly reading for the energies of the week of the first week of September 2022, which is basically September 4th through the 10th. But if you come here later after the fact, don't worry because you'll you'll you'll have come here for a reason and there's some message here for you. All right, so this... I'm not going to do a card reading this time. I'm just going to relay a message that it was given to me when I tuned into the Akash, and I'm just kind of asking about, you know, what's the message for this week? So I'm just gonna read to you what they told me, and by day I mean my own spiritual guides, my Akashic guides. All right, so they said the message, see everything that you see, is but a reflection of the emotional state of the world. To change the world, influence the emotions. It is as simple as that. You cannot control the emotions. They are a response mechanism and innate. However, you can direct them and transmute them. This requires practice. And then they gave me an exercise, which I've been doing for the last day or so, and I'm going to... I'm intending to do this for this entire week. If you want to join me, that would be awesome. I would love to hear your experience. So if you try this, come back to this video and type your experience into the comments section below. I'd love to hear. So here's the exercise they gave me. They say, this week choose an emotion and meditate on that emotion daily. You can set aside a specific time for this or better yet approach your entire day as a prayerful meditation. Keep bringing your emotional point of focus back to that emotion. If you choose joy, make joy your Drishti. Alright, so just a couple of little comments. If you don't know what Drishti is, it's a yoga term and it means focused gaze. So in a lot of many yoga practices, they'll have you focus your gaze sometimes on the third eye, maybe the tip of the nose, or another spot. If you've ever done tree posing yoga and the instructor tells you to choose a point to focus on, that's a Drishti point. And the point of a Drishti is to actually to help to focus the mind and to still the mind. But in this case, they're actually advising rather than as a mental practice, using it as an emotional practice. And I don't know if it was tongue-in-cheek for them to call it a Drishti, but it really is. It's applying that whole concept of focus into the emotional body.  I mean this was way back for me in another lifetime, but I met this woman who told me that she was choosing happiness, that you could choose happiness. And at that point in my life, I had a lot of challenges going on and I just could not wrap my mind around that. That seemed to me the biggest chunk of baloney I had ever heard was that you could actually choose your emotions and choose to be happy, you know, if if you weren't happy. So if it just seems like over the top, wherever you're at to choose joy, I totally get it. But I feel like it, you know, I know that it is absolutely possible to choose your emotions, although it does take a lot of practice. So when they're saying, you know, to choose an emotion to meditate on that, I think this is a very, very deep yoga practice. But if you choose to do this, I'm even just after a couple of days of doing this. I've chosen bliss as mine. It's amazing. It's significant. I can feel like, because it what it does is it forces you to really be aware of the state of your emotional body. And as I've been doing this over the last couple days, I've been realizing it's like, wow, it is so easy for the emotions to slip down. There, I had this person at tree, so I could, so it's super, super easy for the emotions to kind of start to slip down.  All right. And so then finally, I asked for an image. They suggested the color yellow, colors yellow and gold. And so as I was starting to paint, I'm going to show you the painting here, the little goldfinch. So as I was starting to paint with these colors, I really was thinking it just the goldfinch really came to mind. And so that's what I did. And the goldfinch was just this really fun little painting to do. But I thought, well, you know, that goldfinch has got to have some meaning for right now. And so I looked up a tablet and it's just got some interesting things for this little tiny songbird. First of all, of course, the beautiful gold and yellow, it elicits the color of the sun, right, that whole solar energy, which is so powerful. And of course, we've just come off of the Lionsgate last month and moving into, you know, the darker point part of the year. So goldfinch has this beautiful yellow color. And it also nests in the middle of the summer instead of in the spring. So it's a little bit later to nest and it lines the nest. And the reason it nests so late is that it lines the nest with little threads of thistle down, which don't, you know, they don't mature until middle of the summer. And so part of what goldfinch is saying to me right now is just the beauty of maturity, the beauty of, you know, having patience and waiting and life's wisdom, right? And not just that it nests later, but the little strands of thistle down that it uses in its nest are reminiscent of the graying hair, right? So respecting of the elder's enjoyment of the elder phase of life, or, you know, we all go through cycles of, you know, initiating and maturing and then, you know, going into that mature and then down into the ending phases of whatever cycle we're in. So it's kind of enjoying that more autumn kind of phase of life or even winter. And so this is sort of a reminder to, as we move into the winter season, to bring the joy that we have and to bring light into that winter season, right? We are light bringers. When we work with goldfinch energy or when we learn to master our emotions, right, to command the emotions. And I want to just maybe elaborate just a little bit about what they said about you can't control the emotions, but you can direct them, okay? And I think that's super important to honor our emotions, right? Because we could just take and suppress them, but that tends to be not a very healing thing. But, you know, it is important to allow the emotions, you know, to recognize them. Sometimes we just need to let them flow a little bit, but then to work on bringing them back, right? Because we have to recognize we are not the emotions. We are not the emotional state that we're in. The emotional state is a response. And we are the awareness, right? So it's important to notice the response and to honor it and acknowledge it. But then it's the response, you know, to what happens to us that we're in control of. And it's through the emotions that we can do that, right? So, you know, if you notice your emotions going in a certain direction, you know, you can start to bring them back. And if something as high vibrational as joy or bliss is difficult, you know, choose one that feels approachable, but is still more in the direction of where you want to go. I feel like gratitude is always like, to me, that's my go-to emotion. And especially if things are super challenging, it's gratitude is incredibly high vibrational emotion. And yet it's it's fairly accessible. Even if we are undergoing challenges, we can usually appreciate gratitude and at least, you know, get there to a certain extent. Alright, so I hope that you have a wonderful week. Just a couple of things. I've got my first Souls of Fire video coming up. This is on Wednesday. This is for purpose driven entrepreneurs. And it'll be I'm thinking five o'clock Eastern every Wednesday. And also, I'll be hosting as a spirit animal workshop pretty soon in the month of September. So watch for that. Enjoy your week. And remember, you were born to be free.


Well, I think that covers most of the things we want to say about smartphone use and human health. Turning to the last part of the presentation, let me go over the key points. In our presentation, we have discussed the point of fall and against the statement. The frequent use of smartphone is harmful to human health. My partner Robert talked about the point that supports the statement. Mobile phones may damage body structures and smartphone apps may lead to misunderstanding of health issues. I then explored the point against the statement. Smartphones help in monitoring health and smartphones promote behavioural and psychological health. Taking all the points into consideration, it appears that the positive side of using smartphones awaits the negative side. We do think that smartphones should be used in moderation. But all in all, we support the use of using smartphones and disagree with the argument that smartphones are harmful to human health. As a device, it can actually improve our health in different aspects. Okay, that's all for our presentation. Thank you for listening and I hope you found it interesting. You can find more details in our reference list. And now, we would like to open it for discussion.


The Bitcoin halving is almost here. We asked market analysts and representatives of mining companies to give us their perspective on the impact of this milestone event. So no time to waste, let's jump right in. Let's start with miners. Miners are those most affected by the Bitcoin halving. Their revenue, called mining rewards, will be slashed in half from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Currently, you have a daily miner revenue in the entire world of around 64 million dollars, and that feel hard to 32 million dollars.  Hence, many miners will be pushed out of business and shut down their operations, with only the most efficient being able to survive. Everyone is worried for the halving, even the most efficient operations just because the block subsidy reducing is out of everyone's control. Why should you care, you may ask? Well, because miners guarantee Bitcoin's fundamental properties, namely security and censorship resistance. By producing a large amount of computational power or hash power, Bitcoin miners make it incredibly difficult for anyone to manipulate the Bitcoin blockchain. By the way, if you want to know more about how the halving actually works, check out our video for beginners in the description.  Some say that could pose a long-term risk to Bitcoin, which could become increasingly vulnerable to the so-called 51% attack, which is when a single entity gains the majority of the Bitcoin hash rate and therefore can attack the network. But let's not panic. Since the halving is an entirely predictable event that happens about every four years, miners have had time to prepare. Some have been upgrading their mining rigs, making them more efficient. And under fund these upgrades, many miners have been selling large amounts of their BTC reserves, taking advantage of the latest Bitcoin rally. Other miners have moved older, less efficient equipment to areas with cheaper electricity. If you continuously have to upgrade your machine to have the last machine in order to be profitable, it means that you're actually paying too much for your electricity. Therefore, the only real long-term viable way of building a mining operation is having access to extremely cheap electricity. You have to go into, for example, Africa to find that. So hashlabs mining, we are expecting to accommodate a lot of these machines in Africa to give them a prolonged life. We'll see a lot of miners start to diversify energy-wise. A lot of miners are going to migrate towards stranded energy. They go to landfills and they'll use the trash for mining Bitcoin. Other mining firms are using the halving as an opportunity to win market share over less efficient competitors. For example, Marathon Digital has announced its plans to use its $1 billion strong balance sheet to double its hash rate, bringing it to 50 Exa hash by the end of 2025. Lastly, let's not forget that besides the block rewards, miners have a second source of revenue, transaction fees. But at the moment, transaction fees only constitute a small percentage of the miners' revenue. For example, in March this year, only 4% of revenue came from transaction fees. But this situation is likely to change in the future. We're going to see more and more activity on the Bitcoin blockchain. This increased demand for block space will lead to a very big surge in transaction fees. I think there will be a point, I don't know if it'll be this having or the next or the next that transaction fees do pass the block subsidy. In 2025, I can foresee a situation where the transaction fees periodically are higher than the block subsidy. One of the reasons why transaction fees are likely to increase in the future is the emergence of ordinals, or NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. This new Bitcoin use case has gained traction in the last year and a half, significantly boosting transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain. Thus far, ordinals have generated approximately $240 million in transaction fees. And this trend is growing. So even though the halving will decrease mining profitability, I still think and the hash rate will continue to increase. I don't think we will see a very large drop in hash rate after the halving, maybe around 10% or less. Finally, the widespread expectation is that Bitcoin's price will increase significantly in the months following the Bitcoin halving, which should compensate for the diminished rewards in terms of block subsidies. If you're selling 100% of your Bitcoin to cover your expenses and your capital expenditures, and the Bitcoin price doubles, well now you only need to sell 50% of your Bitcoin to get the same amount of dollars. The impact of the halving on pricing is what we're going to discuss next. Will the halving impact Bitcoin's price let's distinguish between the short and long-term impacts on price surrounding the Bitcoin halving? From a price perspective, the halving may initially appear as a non-event, primarily because its occurrence is fully anticipated and thus already factored into market prices. However, given high levels of speculation and anticipation surrounding this event, heightened volatility is to be expected, particularly around the halving date. We may even witness a post halving pullback due to the classic buy-the-rumors-sell-the-news phenomenon. However, it's in the medium to long-term that we can expect the most significant impact on prices. The halving effectively slashes the supply of new Bitcoin in half. According to the fundamental law of supply and demand, a decrease in the supply of new Bitcoin, coupled with stable or increasing demand, should theoretically lead to a surge in Bitcoin's value over time. At least that's what happened on the occasions of the previous Bitcoin halving. As you can see in the chart, Bitcoin has surged in the 12 months before and after each halving. The biggest appreciation has happened in the months following the event. You can also notice the impact of the halving on Bitcoin's price has been decreasing over time. This is because the reduction in new supply decreases with every halving. And this is why most analysts believe Bitcoin's price increase will be significantly less than in previous halvings. Bitcoin volatility will continue to decline versus beta and versus gold. So right now it's about 3x. It used to be 10x. As you get more and more people involved in this asset, arbitrazing, buying, selling, and involved, it will continue to squash it volatility. Still, many analysts believe Bitcoin's price could double in value before the end of the year. Again, we need to stress that these are just predictions. There's no guarantee that Bitcoin's price will surge after the halving. At the end of the day, there were just three previous Bitcoin halvings, which is a pretty small sample size to base a whole theory on. Also, the Bitcoin halving doesn't happen in a vacuum. There are other external factors that could influence its outcome, some of which were not present during previous halvings, one of which is the spot Bitcoin ETF, which was approved in the US in January. Spot Bitcoin ETFs has been attracting billions of dollars from institutional investors in just a couple months. This unprecedented demand, coupled with the supply shock of the halving, could lead to potentially huge Bitcoin's price surges. It had already happened. It was the first time in history that Bitcoin broke through its previous all-time highs before the Bitcoin halving. The further rise of Bitcoin's price following the halving will significantly depend on whether the inflows to these ETFs will continue. Total inflows in Bitcoin ETFs this year is about $12 billion. Unless something happens to radically shift that demand negative, price must go up over time. If that is the case, observers even say that the ETF factor could invalidate the trend of diminishing returns after each halving. In other words, that we should expect an even bigger price increase than in the previous cycles. Analysts at Standard Chartered highlighted the rise of gold prices following the approval of the first Gold ETF, and came to the conclusion that Bitcoin could reach $250K by the end of 2025. The big picture of the economy is another factor that will determine Bitcoin's price after the halving. In the past, post-having rallies happened when there was a lot of money floating around the global economy, which was good for risky investments like Bitcoin. For example, the last having occurred during the COVID pandemic, when governments were pumping lots of money into the economy to help it recover. But now, things aren't the same. There's not as much money floating around globally, and the Federal Reserve still has interest rates quite high. The key thing I'm concerned about is a backup in beta, and the impact it'll have on Bitcoin. If you look at 10-year-old yields in the US, they're 4.3 or so, and most of the rest of the world in Europe, they're 3 and 2 handles. In China, it's a 2-handle. That's an indication that bond yields see global recession coming, and we just have to see if Bitcoin can trade more like gold when beta goes down than more like beta. And I suspect with a high volatility, it's still at risk of a decent drawdown. Regardless of what the impact on prices might be, the halving remains one of the properties at the core of Bitcoin's fundamental value. It's the foundation of Bitcoin's unalterable monetary policy. Unlike traditional fiat currencies, Bitcoin operates on a fixed supply schedule, with a maximum cap of 21 million Bitcoins. This property positions Bitcoin as a potential hedge against currency devaluation and inflationary pressures. In fiat currencies, what you have is essentially a regulated monopoly. That is that there are certain people who are legally authorized to counterfeit the money, to print more of it. And this is really what differentiates Bitcoin from any other kind of asset in the world, which is that no other asset has a halving. The halving is a crucial milestone that solidifies one of Bitcoin's fundamental properties, being a scarce asset, similar to gold. If past cycle patterns repeat themselves, the halving will likely be followed by a spectacular surge in price in the months to come. Despite the initial shock, miners will likely adapt to reduced revenues by improving hardware and relocating to areas with cheaper electricity. However, history doesn't always repeat itself. Factors such as Bitcoin ETFs, the rise of ordinals, or different macroeconomic conditions could lead to different outcomes this time. Therefore, let's be prepared for all the different possible scenarios. If you enjoyed our content, consider giving a like and subscribing to the channel. I'm Max, and we'll see you next time.


These two things just got dropped off by the Peer Later Man and this is my Breyerfest loot. So I ordered a couple other things from Breyerfest. I didn't order very much this year. I only got basically what's here in this unboxing plus one more resin on the actual Breyerfest weekend and that resin was Joyride so he should be coming at some point and then I ordered two biter resins from Raven and then this was my Breyerfest loot that I also purchased. It's kind of cool because we had Breyerfest virtually. I did it virtually. I participated in video tutorials. I did get a t-shirt for that and then my stuff just came in so this is like my purchasing model special runs day. So we're going to start with this little box and this is the celebration horse and I know about this is a celebration horse because they send him separately. So there he is Nicholas. Very, very cute Nicholas. I really like him. He's buckskin. I'm kind of sad that like he's really nice like as a model but when you compare him to the real horse the real horse is very creamy colored. He's very dilute and this guy is almost edging towards bae. He's just not quite the right shade of buckskin so I kind of wish they like made him a little bit closer to the real guy but he's still really cute as a standalone model and this is my big box of special runs. So I bought a few things. I didn't order a special run, special run surprise because I was really scared. It was expensive for online people. It was a hundred dollars and it was randomized. So I was really scared that I was gonna get the bears that I really didn't want. Now the only gamble that is in here is this rented strap on top that I'm not gonna look at because we're gonna do that at the end. That's the only gambler situation that we have. I got a chablis I think is how they said it on the livestream. He's very very nice. Oh my gosh. Very very pretty bae. I really like the braided Atticus. I think it makes him look more sophisticated, more fancy. It's funny because I have now three baes on the Atticus mold and then to feed my flash obsession this guy is flawless. This is Chardonnay. Yay. Sorry I have to look at them first. You guys don't get first look. I'm a sucker for anything flash. Ever since I bought a chestnut horse I'm more inclined to buy chestnut briars because chestnut used to be like a really boring color that I would always pass over but after having one and like watching him transition through the seasons chestnut is really fascinating and it actually is a really pretty color. Then I had some fun on the Briar website and this guy is fun.  I don't try and collect them. I have like one unicorn and I have one actually decorator that lives in my kitchen because it happens to be my kitchen colors so I bought it. This also works in my kitchen so he may also live in the window but I do I am starting to pick out a few decorators that I actually really like just as like fun pieces to have and this is one of my all-time favorite molds. So this guy I didn't realize was glossy. This is a very American patriotic horse and I do not live in America but this blue speaks to me and red is like one of my favorite colors so I was like I don't really care that he's American. He could be French for all we know. And the last but not least, well this is the second last but not least, comes in a Briar box. This is one that I wanted to order off the website for a while but like I didn't want to just buy it randomly so then I was like oh it's Briar Fest. This is a good time to buy it and I was actually thinking of buying a couple of the regular ones as well but none of them were in stock but this is a online exclusive chestnut tractor who is super cute and super solid. I love this mold and I can't explain to you why I really I don't know why. I have three on the mold and why is this the moment of truth. This is the runnish draft and they listed this guy and I was like yep I'll get one of those. Then they just announced later that half of the run was glossy and half of it was matte. I don't collect glossy so I'm hoping that this guy's matte unlike the rest of the world that's hoping that they get a glossy so I think I'm in like the clear. If I get a glossy it'll be easy to find a matte but I'm just hoping that he's not shiny. This is the surprise as far as I get in the surprise round of shopping. The matte is way more common than the glossy so I'm hopeful he's not looking super shiny. It's so stressful. Why is it so stressful? He's matte! Yes! Thank you! He's matte guys. I've gotten everything I wanted so far for Briar. There he is in all his smushed faced glory but he's matte so I'll take it. They've done a really good job of taking his color and giving him that faded belly. So there we go! Perfect! Love it! Love it! Love it! Five Briars and the celebration pony. So six Briars total. I had a mini Briar Fest sale and thank you so much to everyone that ordered. That was great. That'll actually ship out today as well so it's a Briar Fest day. Then like I said I'm doing a live show next weekend and so I have a really busy summer for the rest of the summer now too. We're doing like live show and then I'm doing a camping trip, then I'm doing a sculpture show with family visiting. Anyways thank you so much for watching and happy collecting. I hope you all had a great Briar Fest and thanks again for supporting mine.