"Yes, I have. It isn't so easy to have a hundred thousand pounds secured. The squire is a poor man, and I don't choose to allow a poor man to owe me such a sum as that. Besides, I mean to invest it in land. I tell you fairly, therefore, I shall foreclose."
Mr Gazebee, using all the perspicuity which his professional education had left to him, tried to make Sir Louis understand that he had no power to do anything of the kind.
"No power! Mr Gresham shall see whether I have no power. When a man has a hundred thousand pounds owing to him he ought to have some power; and, as I take it, he has. But we will see. Perhaps you know Finnie, do you?"
Mr Gazebee, with a good deal of scorn in his face, said that he had not that pleasure. Mr Finnie was not in his line.
"Well, you will know him then, and you'll find he's sharp enough; that is, unless I have some offer made to me that I may choose to accept." Mr Gazebee declared that he was not instructed to make any offer, and so he took his leave.
On that afternoon, Sir Louis went off to Boxall Hill, transferring the miserable task of superintending his self-destruction from the shoulders of the doctor to those of his mother. Of Lady Scatcherd, the baronet took no account in his proposed sojourn in the country, nor did he take much of the doctor in leaving Greshamsbury. He again wrapped himself in his furs, and, with tottering steps, climbed up into the barouche which was to carry him away.
"Is my man up behind?" he said to Janet, while the doctor was standing at the little front garden-gate, making his adieux.
"No, sir, he's not up yet," said Janet, respectfully.
"Then send him out, will you? I can't lose my time waiting here all day."
"I shall come over to Boxall Hill and see you," said the doctor, whose heart softened towards the man, in spite of his brutality, as the hour of his departure came.