"Take your chance, Batsby," said the Member of Parliament.
"What chance?"
"Take your chance of the money. I'd have done it; only, of course, it was different with me. He was glad to catch me, and therefore the money was settled."
"I've got a tidy income of my own, you know," said the Captain, thinking that he was entitled to be made more welcome as a son-in-law than the younger son of a peer who had no income.
"Take your chance," continued Traffick. "What on earth can a man like Tringle do with his money except give it to his children? He is rough, as you say, but he is not hard-hearted, nor yet stubborn. I can do pretty nearly what I like with him."
"Can you, though?"
"Yes; by smoothing him down the right way. You run your chance, and we'll get it all put right for you." The Captain hesitated, rubbing his head carefully to encourage the thoughts which were springing up within his bosom. The Honourable Mr. Traffick might perhaps succeed in getting the affair put right, as he called it, in the interest rather of the elder than of the second daughter. "I don't see how you can hesitate now, as you have been off with the girl," said Mr. Traffick.
"I don't know about that. I should like to see the money settled."
"There would have been nothing settled if you had married her at Ostend."
"But I didn't," said the Captain. "I tell you what you might do. You might talk him over and make him a little more reasonable. I should be ready to-morrow if he'd come forward."