But Maude was not there for small talk. ‘Dear dad,’ said she, ‘I want you to stand by me, for I am in trouble. Now, my dear good dad, please see things from my point of view, and don’t make objections, and do exactly what I ask you.’ She threw her arms round his neck and gave him a hearty squeeze.
‘Now I call that exerting undue pressure,’ said he, extricating his white head. ‘If this sort of thing is allowed in the city of London, there is an end of all business.’ However, his eyes twinkled and looked as if he liked it. ‘Now madame, what can I do for you?’
‘I’m going to be perfectly business-like,’ said she, and gave him another squeeze before sitting down. ‘Look here, dad. You give me an income of fifty pounds a year, don’t you?’
‘My dear girl, I can’t raise it. Jack’s expenses in the Hussars—’
‘I don’t want you to raise it.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I seem to remember, dad, that you told me that this fifty pounds was the interest on a thousand pounds which was invested for me.’
‘So it is—five per cent. debentures.’
‘Well, dad, if I were content with an income of twenty-five pounds a year instead of fifty pounds, then I could take five hundred pounds out of my money, and nobody would be the worse.’
‘Except yourself.’