“I will have a drink,” he said; and, in fact, before he would condescend to utter another word, he had two.
“Ha!” he said then, ejaculating a little spirituous cloud, and his lean, pantomimic face was all at once benign. “Richard’s himself again, and eager for the fray! To the charge, my passive resister, my heavy lead! Ye need Theophilus Bolton! Ye must pay!”
“As to that there,” began Mr. Plumley, stuttering and glowering; but the other took him up coolly——
“As to that, dear boy, there’s no question. You’ve withheld me from a profitable engagement——”
“O, blow profitable!” interposed Mr. Plumley. “And you didn’t jump at the chanst neither!”
“To play a part for you,” went on the actor unruffled “Well, am I to be Agnew, or Christie, or Sotheby, or who? My commission’s five per cent.”
“Well, I don’t object to that,” said Plumley, relieved. “On the vally of the picture to Gardener, that’s to say. Call it done, and call yourself what you like.”
“One man in his time plays many parts,” murmured Mr. Bolton. “Put it on paper, dear boy. I have a weakness for testaments.”
Mr. Plumley protested; the actor whistled. In the end, the latter pocketed a document to the effect that Joshua Plumley agreed to pay Theophilus Bolton a sum to be calculated at the rate of five per cent on the ultimate selling price at auction (on a date hereafter to be filled in) of a picture known as the “The Wood Shop.”
“You’ll be close?” said Mr. Plumley uneasily. “It might—it might injure me, you know, if it got about. Short o’ fifty pound’s the figger—you understand? Let Gardener secure it at that. I’ve my reasons. You come to me quick and quiet after the sale, and you shall have your two pound ten on the nail, and slip off with it as private as you wish.”