“Not that I mind telling you everything,” said Sowerby. “I am infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it.”
“Could not Harold Smith give it you?”
“Ha, ha, ha! you don’t know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life?”
“Or Supplehouse?”
“Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark—I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might—but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn’t it? I must give up the whole game if I can’t put my hand upon £400 within the next two days.”
“Ask her for it, herself.”
“What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I’m not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that.”
Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this £400; and he knew also that he had not £400 in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr. Sowerby. But nevertheless he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.
“Lufton owes it to me to do more than this,” continued Mr. Sowerby; “but then Lufton is not here.”
“Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you.”