'Then, when I've paid Mr. Glover, I can give you a bill of sale over my stock.' He looked round upon his wigs and other theatrical property. 'It is worth the money.'
'I can't lend to you upon that security, Turk. The first you mentioned is the only security I can accept.'
He laughed a little huskily.
'All right, Chris, my boy. I'll borrow the money on those terms. This may be a good night's work for all of us. I never thought that Turk West's word would be good for eighty pounds. But stranger things than that might occur, eh, Chris?'
I acquiesced, although I had not the slightest idea of his meaning.
'If you knew,' he continued, 'the relief it will be to me to get out of Mr. Glover's clutches, as you called it, you would be surprised.'
I was sufficiently surprised at the change that was apparent in his tone concerning Mr. Glover, whom he had hitherto extolled so highly.
'Curse all professional moneylenders, I say!' he exclaimed excitedly. 'And if ever I believe again in a man with a handle on the top of his head, my name's not Turk West.'
I could not help laughing at these singular words.
'Ah, you may laugh, Chris; but when he sat in that chair--the very one you are sitting in now, Chris, my boy--for the first time last week, and asked me to shampoo him, and I felt the knob, it made me curious. I thought he had been fighting, or had knocked his head against something, but he told me he was born with it. That sort of thing runs in families, I should say. If he had it, his father must have had it before him. Look here, Chris; you are good at figures--I never was. See how I stand with him.'