"That's no comfort. Look here, missis, just cast your eye over this"--he pulled out a tattered penny account book--"it's all set down in plain figures. Twelve months ago--here's the date--he lent me four pounds, and took a bill of sale on my bits of sticks. I didn't get the four pounds--it was eighteen shillings short, for expenses and inquiries and interest in advance. Three pound two, that's as much as I got, and I had to pay half-a-crown a week for fifty-two weeks. If I was a week behindhand there was a fine of sixpence, which kept on being charged and put down against me till that week was paid up. It was all a muddle, and I don't pretend to understand it, but a mate of mine that's quick at reckoning has figured it out, and he says it comes to more than six hundred per cent, interest. All I know is that I've paid five pound ten for that three pound two I got from him, and now he makes out I owe him twice as much again. And the law gives him right. What I say is, damn the law, and them that made it, and them that fatten on it!"
It was pitiable to witness the passion and the helplessness of the man.
Gracie, listening to this tale of wrong-doing, and never losing sight of Ezra Lynn's door, saw it opened, and saw a man come from the house, a thin, slinking, sly-faced man in rusty black, whom she supposed to be Ezra Lynn; but she was presently undeceived.
"There's his jackal," said the man in the baker's shop, "that collects for him, and grinds the poor chaps down that's drawn into his mill. Grinds 'em down, blood, bones, heart, and soul. Mr. Lynn's too grand now to do the small dirty work himself. It was different once I've been told, missis."
"Yes," said the woman, "I remember when Mr. Lynn first set up as a money-lender in the neighbourhood; they say he started with a hundred pounds, but a man like that, who wouldn't step aside to save a human creature's life, soon grows rich."
"He's worse than the lowest pickpocket," said the man "I've heard he could set up his carriage, if he liked. He's got big fish to look after now; he leaves his jackal to look after the sprats."
"I warned you, you know," said the woman, "when you told me you were getting a loan from him."
"I know you did, but I had a child to bury, and I couldn't get the money anywhere else. Then my missis fell ill----"
He broke off suddenly. "I've had my share of trouble, I think."
"That you have, and I'm sorry for you. You're not the first by many a score that that man's ruined. And to talk to him you wouldn't believe that he'd pull a leg off a fly."