"As I don't care much about it, whether I get what I buy or not, it does not much matter for me. But in truth, in such an affair as this I would trust you. Why should not I go in your place?"
"I don't think you are the man who ought to go there."
"I am too old? I'm not a cripple, if you mean that. I don't see why I shouldn't go to the diamond-fields as well as a younger man."
"It is not about your age, Mr Whittlestaff; but I do not think you would be happy there."
"Happy! I do not know that my state of bliss here is very great. If I had bought your shares, as you call them, and paid money for them, I don't see why my happiness need stand in the way."
"You are a gentleman, Mr Whittlestaff."
"Well; I hope so."
"And of that kind that you would have your eyes picked out of your head before you had been there a week. Don't go. Take my word for it, that life will be pleasanter to you here than there, and that for you the venture would be altogether dangerous. Here is Mr Tookey." At this point of the conversation, Mr Tookey entered the hall-door, and some fashion of introduction took place between the two strangers. John Gordon led the way into a private room, and the two others followed him. "Here's a gentleman anxious to buy my shares, Tookey," said Gordon.
"What! the whole lot of the old Stick-in-the-Mud? He'll have to shell down some money in order to do that! If I were to be asked my opinion, I should say that the transaction was hardly one in the gentleman's way of business."
"I suppose an honest man may work at it," said Mr Whittlestaff.