“Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Not much. Have you?”
There was a sternness about the speaker’s laconic reply which caused Mr Vallance to quail involuntarily. He made a step towards the bell-pull. The other laughed.
“No, no. Don’t exert yourself. I’m not going yet—and if you bring in all the pap-fed flunkeys and swipe-guzzling stable-hands on your establishment, the poor devils’ll only get badly hurt without furthering your object. I mean what I say—you’ve got to quit sooner or later. If you’re wise it’ll be sooner.”
“Indeed! And why?” was the answer, given with cutting politeness.
“Well, it’s this way. If you agree to clear at once, I’ll give you five hundred a year—no, I’ll make it six—out of the property for your life. That and the parsonic pickings will keep you in clover. If you mean fighting, I’m your man. But I warn you I’m prepared to plank down ever so many thousands of pounds to get you out—and when I’ve got you out I’ll come down on you for every shilling of arrears, by George, I will!”
“Oh, you will?”
“You may bet your life on it.”
For some moments the two men looked full in each other’s faces without speaking. The sneer of conscious power on that of the one was matched by the expression of defiance, hatred, mingled with fear, on that of the other.
“Well, well,” said Mr Vallance at length. “Take your own course. Only, let me remind you that you are in England now, and that in this country we don’t settle important matters in any such rough and ready fashion.”