“Pounded? No, not a bit; nothing of the kind,” said Beecher, blushing. “I was thinking how Lackington would take all this; what my Lady would say to it; whether they 'd regard it seriously, or whether they 'd laugh at my coming out so far about nothing.”
“They'll not laugh, depend on't; take my word for it, they won't laugh,” said Davis, dryly.
“Well, but if it all comes to nothing,—if it be only a plant to extort money?”
“Even that ain't anything to laugh at,” said Davis. “I 've done a little that way myself, and yet I never saw the fellow who was amused by it.”
“So that you really think I ought to go out and see my brother?”
“I'm sure and certain that we must go,” said Davis, just giving the very faintest emphasis to the “we.”
“But it will cost a pot of money, Grog, even though I should travel in the cheapest way,—I mean, the cheapest way possible for a fellow as well known as I am.”
This was a bold stroke; it was meant to imply far more than the mere words announced. It was intended to express a very complicated argument in a mere innuendo.
“That's all gammon,” said Grog, rudely. “We don't live in an age of couriers and extra-post; every man travels by rail nowadays, and nobody cares whether you take a coupé or a horse-box; and as to being known, so am I, and almost as well known as most fellows going.”
This was pretty plain speaking; and Beecher well knew that Davis's frankness was always on the verge of the only one thing that was worse than frankness.