"I know where to trust, and I know where not to trust. If you'll once say as how you'll pop the question to Polly, fair and honest, on the square, you shall have five hundred;—bless me, if you shan't. If she don't take you after all, why then I must look for my money by-and-bye. If you're on the square with me, Captain, you'll never find me hard to deal with."
"I hope I shall be on the square, at any rate."
"Then you step out to her and pop." Hereupon Ralph made a long and intricate explanation of his affairs, the object of which was to prove to Mr. Neefit that a little more delay was essential. He was so environed by business and difficulties at the present moment that he could take no immediate step such as Mr. Neefit suggested,—no such step quite immediately. In about another fortnight, or in a month at the furthest, he would be able to declare his purpose. "And how about Moggs?" said Neefit, putting his hands into his breeches-pocket, pulling down the corners of his mouth, and fixing his saucer eyes full upon the young man's face. So he stood for some seconds, and then came the words of which Waddle had spoken. Neefit could not disentangle the intricacies of Ralph's somewhat fictitious story; but he had wit enough to know what it meant. "You ain't on the square, Captain. That's what you ain't," he said at last. It must be owned that the accusation was just, and it was made so loudly that Waddle did not at all exaggerate in saying that there had been words. Nevertheless, when Ralph left the shop Neefit relented. "You come to me, Captain, when Moggs's bit of stiff comes round."
A few days after that Ralph went to Sir Thomas, with the object of declaring his decision;—at least Sir Thomas understood that such was to be the purport of the visit. According to his ideas there had been quite enough of delay. The Squire had been liberal in his offer; and though the thing to be sold was in all its bearings so valuable, though it carried with it a value which, in the eyes of Sir Thomas,—and, indeed, in the eyes of all Englishmen,—was far beyond all money price, though the territorial position was, for a legitimate heir, almost a principality; yet, when a man cannot keep a thing, what can he do but part with it? Ralph had made his bed, and he must lie upon it. Sir Thomas had done what he could, but it had all amounted to nothing. There was this young man a beggar,—but for this reversion which he had now the power of selling. As for that mode of extrication by marrying the breeches-maker's daughter,—that to Sir Thomas was infinitely the worst evil of the two. Let Ralph accept his uncle's offer and he would still be an English gentleman, free to live as such, free to marry as such, free to associate with friends fitting to his habits of life. And he would be a gentleman, too, with means sufficing for a gentleman's wants. But that escape by way of the breeches-maker's daughter would, in accordance with Sir Thomas's view of things, destroy everything.
"Well, Ralph," he said, sighing, almost groaning, as his late ward took the now accustomed chair opposite to his own.
"I wish I'd never been born," said Ralph, "and that Gregory stood in my place."
"But you have been born, Ralph. We must take things as we find them." Then there was a long silence. "I think, you know, that you should make up your mind one way or the other. Your uncle of course feels that as he is ready to pay the money at once he is entitled to an immediate answer."
"I don't see that at all," said Ralph. "I am under no obligation to my uncle, and I don't see why I am to be bustled by him. He is doing nothing for my sake."
"He has, at any rate, the power of retracting."
"Let him retract."