This intelligence discomposed Mr. Hardie terribly; it did away with all hope that Alfred meant to keep his suspicions to himself. “Why did you not tell me this before?” said he reproachfully.
Skinner's sharp visage seemed to sharpen as he replied, “Because I wanted a thousand pounds first.”
“Curse your low cunning!”
Skinner laughed. “Good-bye, sir: take care of yourself and I'll take care of mine. I'm afraid of Mr. Alfred and the stone jug, so I'm off to London, and there I'll un-Skinner myself into Mr. Something or other, and make my thousand pounds breed ten.” And he whipped out, leaving his master filled with rage and dismay.
“Outwitted even by this little wretch!”
He was now accountable for fourteen thousand pounds, and had only thirteen thousand left, if forced to reimburse; so that it was quite on the cards for him to lose a thousand pounds by robbing his neighbour and risking his own immortal jewel. This galled him to the quick; and altogether his equable temper began to give way; it had already survived half the iron of his nerves. He walked up and down the parlour chafing like an irritated lion. In which state of his mind the one enemy he now feared and hated walked quietly into the room, and begged for a little serious conversation with him.
“It is like your effrontery,” said Mr. Hardie: “I wonder you are not ashamed to look your father in the face.”
“Having wronged nobody I can look anybody in the face,” replied Alfred, looking him in the face point-blank.
At this swift rejoinder, Mr. Hardie felt like a too confident swordsman, who, attacking in a passion suddenly receives a prick that shows him his antagonist is not one to be trifled with. He was on his guard directly, and said coldly, “You have been belying me to my very clerk.”
“No, sir: you are mistaken; I have never mentioned your name to your clerk.”