‘Upon my life and soul!’ said a low voice in the next box to the shopman who was in treaty with him, ‘you must make it more; you must make it a trifle more, you must indeed! You must dispense with one half-quarter of an ounce in weighing out your pound of flesh, my best of friends, and make it two-and-six.’
Martin drew back involuntarily, for he knew the voice at once.
‘You’re always full of your chaff,’ said the shopman, rolling up the article (which looked like a shirt) quite as a matter of course, and nibbing his pen upon the counter.
‘I shall never be full of my wheat,’ said Mr Tigg, ‘as long as I come here. Ha, ha! Not bad! Make it two-and-six, my dear friend, positively for this occasion only. Half-a-crown is a delightful coin. Two-and-six. Going at two-and-six! For the last time at two-and-six!’
‘It’ll never be the last time till it’s quite worn out,’ rejoined the shopman. ‘It’s grown yellow in the service as it is.’
‘Its master has grown yellow in the service, if you mean that, my friend,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘in the patriotic service of an ungrateful country. You are making it two-and-six, I think?’
‘I’m making it,’ returned the shopman, ‘what it always has been—two shillings. Same name as usual, I suppose?’
‘Still the same name,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘my claim to the dormant peerage not being yet established by the House of Lords.’
‘The old address?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr Tigg; ‘I have removed my town establishment from thirty-eight, Mayfair, to number fifteen-hundred-and-forty-two, Park Lane.’