“His interest, sir,” replied Kennyfeck, calmly, “although more valuable to you than to any one else, must be a matter of small amount; for years back, he has done little more than vegetate on the property, without capital or skill to improve it.”
“I 'm not asking you to appraise it, just yet,” said Roland, snappishly; “I was simply informing you of the object of the gentleman's visit. It is the advantage of this purchase that I wished you to consider, not its cost.”
“The cost will define the advantage, sir,” rejoined Kennyfeck, “particularly as the demand may be high, and the payment inconvenient.”
“How do you mean, inconvenient?”
Kennyfeck hesitated. There was something in the hurried abruptness of the question, as well as in the excited expression of the questioner's face, that confused him; so that Cashel had time to repeat the words before he could reply.
“Is it that I am straitened for money?” said he, passionately.
“Not quite—that—sir,” replied Kennyfeck, stopping between every word. “You have resources—very great resources—untouched, and you have considerable sums in foreign securities, intact—”
“Never mind these,” broke in Roland, hurriedly. “How do we stand with those London fellows?”
Kennyfeck shook his head gravely, but without speaking.
“I pray you, sir,” said Roland, in a voice of hardly suppressed passion, “keep pantomime for another moment, or a keener interpreter of it, and condescend, in plain English, to answer me my last question.”