"Well, how much have you got?"
"About fifty pounds."
"It ought to be more than that."
"That's what I say, but you know what those banks are. Actual merit counts for nothing with them."
"Well, what did you want to do with it?"
"Exactly. That was why I rang you up. I—er——" This was really my moment, but somehow I was not quite ready to seize it. My vast commercial enterprise still lacked a few trifling details. "Er—I—well, it's like that."
"I might get you a few ground rents."
"Don't. I shouldn't know where to put them."
"But if you really have fifty pounds simply lying idle I wish you'd lend it to me for a bit. I'm confoundedly hard up."
("Generous to a fault, you have a ready sympathy with the distressed." Dash it, what could I do?)