Tresco held his hat in his hand.
“I want this yer money now,” said the digger. “In three weeks money’ll be no object to you or me, but what I lent you last night must be paid to-day.”
Tresco went to the door.
“I’ll get it if I can,” he said. “Stay here till I come back, and make yourself at home. You may rely on my best endeavours.” He put on his hat, and went into the street.
Mr. Crookenden sat in his office. He was a tubby man, with eyes like boiled gooseberries. No one could guess from his face what manner of man he might be, whether generous or mean, hot-tempered or good-humoured, because all those marks which are supposed to delineate character were in him obliterated by adipose tissue. You had to take him as you found him. But for the rest he was a merchant who owned a lucrative business and a few small blunt-nosed steamers that traded along the coasts adjacent to Timber Town.
As he sat in his office, glancing over the invoices of the wrecked Mersey Witch, and trying to compute the difference between the value of the cargo and the amount of its insurance, there was a knock at the door, and Benjamin Tresco entered.
“How d’e do, Tresco? Take a chair,” said the man of business. “The little matter of your rent, eh? That’s right; pay your way, Tresco, and fortune will simply chase you. That’s been my experience.”
“Then I can only say, sir, it ain’t bin mine.”
“But, Tresco, the reason of that is because you’re so long-winded. Getting money from you is like drawing your eye-teeth. But, come, come; you’re improving, you’re getting accustomed to paying punctually. That’s a great thing, a very great thing.”
“To-day,” said the goldsmith, with the most deferential manner of which he was capable, “I have not come to pay.”