"What does it mean?" demanded Robinson, scowling fearfully. "Would you hint to me that she is false?"
"False! No! she's not false that I know of. She's ready enough to have you, if you can put yourself right with the old man. But if you can't,—why, of course, she's not to wait till her hair's grey. She and Polly are as thick as thieves, and so Polly has been to Aldersgate Street. Polly says that the Jones's are getting their money regularly out of the till."
"Wait till her hair be grey!" said Robinson, when he was left to himself. "Do I wish her to wait? Would I not stand with her at the altar to-morrow, though my last half-crown should go to the greedy priest who joined us? And she has sent her friend to Aldersgate Street,—to my rival! There must, at any rate, be an end of this!"
Late on that evening, when his work was over, he took a glass of hot brandy-and-water at the "Four Swans," and then he waited upon Mr. Brown. He luckily found the senior partner alone. "Mr. Brown," said he, "I've come to have a little private conversation."
"Private, George! Well, I'm all alone. Maryanne is with Mrs. Poppins, I think."
With Mrs. Poppins! Yes; and where might she not be with Mrs. Poppins? Robinson felt that he had it within him at that moment to start off for Aldersgate Street. "But first to business," said he, as he remembered the special object for which he had come.
"For the present it is well that she should be away," he said. "Mr. Brown, the time has now come at which it is absolutely necessary that I should know where I am."
"Where you are, George?"
"Yes; on what ground I stand. Who I am before the world, and what interest I represent. Is it the fact that I am the junior partner in the house of Brown, Jones, and Robinson?"
"Why, George, of course you are."