"It's quiet, you know," said Grimes. "But it warn't me as named Sunday morning. It was Mr. Vavasor here. But it is quiet; ain't it, Mr. Scruby?"
Mr. Scruby acknowledged that it was quiet, especially looking out over the river, and then they proceeded to business. "We must pull the governor through better next time than we did last," said the attorney.
"Of course we must, Mr. Scruby; but, Lord love you, Mr. Vavasor, whose fault was it? What notice did I get,—just tell me that? Why, Travers's name was up on the liberal interest ever so long before the governor had ever thought about it."
"Nobody is blaming you, Mr. Grimes," said George.
"And nobody can't, Mr. Vavasor. I done my work true as steel, and there ain't another man about the place as could have done half as much. You ask Mr. Scruby else. Mr. Scruby knows, if ere a man in London does. I tell you what it is, Mr. Vavasor, them Chelsea fellows, who lives mostly down by the river, ain't like your Maryboners or Finsburyites. It wants something of a man to manage them. Don't it Mr. Scruby?"
"It wants something of a man to manage any of them as far as my experience goes," said Mr. Scruby.
"Of course it do; and there ain't one in London knows so much about it as you do, Mr. Scruby. I will say that for you. But the long and the short of it is this;—business is business, and money is money."
"Money is money, certainly," said Mr. Scruby. "There's no doubt in the world about that, Grimes;—and a deal of it you had out of the last election."
"No, I hadn't; begging your pardon, Mr. Scruby, for making so free. What I had to my own cheek wasn't nothing to speak of. I wasn't paid for my time; that's what I wasn't. You look how a publican's business gets cut up at them elections;—and then the state of the house afterwards! What would the governor say to me if I was to put down painting inside and out in my little bill?"
"It doesn't seem to make much difference how you put it down," said Vavasor. "The total is what I look at."