"No, be hanged if I think it is!" he said vehemently, though still in lowered tones. "I want two hundred a year—it's little enough: or two or three thousand on the nail. Give me that, and I'll not trouble you or Rosy any more."
"And where do you suppose that I'm to get two or three thousand pounds, or two hundred a year?"
"I don't care where you get it, so long as you hand it over to me."
"Very sorry I can't oblige you," said Oliver, nonchalantly "but as your proposition is a perfect impossibility, I don't see my way to saying anything else."
"You think I don't mean it, do you?" growled his brother. "I tell you that I will have it. And if I don't have it I'll not hold my tongue any longer. I'll ruin you."
"Don't talk in that melodramatic way," said Oliver, quietly. But his lip twitched a little as if something had touched him unpleasantly. "You know very well that you have no more power of ruining me than you have of flying to yonder moon. You can't substantiate any of your stories. You can blacken me in the eyes of a few persons who know me, perhaps; but really I doubt your power of doing that. People wouldn't believe you, you know; and they would believe me. There is so much moral power in a good hat and patent leather boots."
"Do you dare to trifle with me——" the man was beginning, furiously, but Oliver checked him with a slight pressure on his arm, and went on suavely.
"All this threatening sort of business is out of date, as you ought to know. One would think that you had been to the Surrey-side Theatres, lately, or the Porte St. Martin, and taken lessons of a stage villain. 'Beware! I will be revenged,' and all that sort of thing. It doesn't go down now, you know. The fact is this—you can't do me any harm, you can only harm yourself; and I think you had better be advised by me and hold your tongue."
Francis was silent for a minute or two. He was evidently impressed by Oliver's manner.
"You're right in one way," he said, in a much more subdued tone. "People wouldn't listen to me because I am so badly dressed—I look so poor. But that could be remedied. A new suit of clothes might make all the difference, Oliver. And then we could see whether some people would believe me or not!"