Once upon a time there was a bank. It would be called a dodgy bank now: but in the 1890s, when our story begins, they would have called its position precarious. It was severely under-capitalised, with substantial amounts lent which were unlikely to be repaid.

Its directors proposed to pay a dividend far in excess of what was prudent – a dividend which wasn’t illegal then, as distribution of profits was governed by some rather contradictory case law, but certainly would be now under the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006).