“When I mentioned actuaries, I merely meant to say that demands of this kind are not arbitrary or capricious—that they are based on laws established by long and abstruse calculations.”
“Perhaps it is my fancy to imagine myself an exceptional case,” said Sir Within, with a faint smile.
“They would take little count of this. They would say, ‘Here is a man aged——‘” he paused for the other to fill up the blank.
“Let us say one hundred,” said Sir Within, bowing.
“Who has lived long in warm climates——”
“Participating freely in the dissipations of his class and order,” said Sir Within, throwing back his head, and looking as though, with all the daring of this avowal, he defied scrutiny.
“They’d not say forty thousand. I have my doubts if they’d give you five-and-thirty,” said the banker, curtly.
“And under these circumstances, I should consider it my duty to break off the negotiation, and retire from the conference.”
“Let us suppose, for talk sake, the arrangement possible. I conclude you would not insist upon that other matter—the settlement clause, I mean. You remember that Sir Hugh Rivers decided it was not to be maintained in law?”
“The Attorney-General, with due submission, Sir, never saw the original document; he saw the draft, which was subsequently cancelled, and if there be any point upon which I will waive nothing—positively nothing—it is this.”