“Passive resister, sir.”
“Thank you, Robert; being the one most concerned in disputin’ the justice of the law. But a hint from you might settle the question at once. We aren’t very good friends, Bull and me; and, if he thought I prized the article, he’d be moral sure to seize it, slap away, to spite me.”
“The picter?”
“The picture, Robert. There it is.”
It hung in an obscure corner, a dingy enough article, in an old damaged frame.
“It don’t look the price,” said Gardener doubtfully.
“It cost me more in a bad debt,” said the ex-remover, busying himself with the whisky in his heavy, observant way.
“Very like, sir,” answered the other, and coughed behind his hand.
“I know what you mean,” said his patron; “that I was took in. Well, I’ve reason to think not, my man. I’ve reason to think that picture’s worth a deal—say, fifty pun. Anyhow, I mean to try.”
“A dealer’s after it, you say?”