“I have, sir; and looked below the varnish.”
“To the point, then, Dick. There is a general proposal 'to relax our system.' The boy uses good words, Skinner, don't he? and here are six particulars over which you can cast your eye. Hand them to him, Skinner.”
“I will take things in that order,” said Richard, quietly running his eye over the papers. There was a moment's silence. “It is proposed to connect the bank with the speculations of the day.”
“That is not fairly stated, Dick; it is too broad. We shall make a selection; we won't go in the stream above ankle deep.”
“That is a resolution, sir, that has been often made but never kept—for this reason: you can't sit on dry land and calculate the force of the stream. It carries those who paddle in it off their feet, and then they must swim with it or—sink.”
“Dick, for Heaven's sake, no poetry here.”
“Nay, sir,” said old Skinner, “remember, 'twas you brought the stream in.”
“More fool I. 'Flow on, thou shining Dick'; only the more figures of arithmetic, and the fewer figures of speech, you can give old Skinner and me, the more weight you will carry with us.”
The young man colored a moment, but never lost his ponderous calmness.
“I will give you figures in their turn, But we were to begin with the general view. Half-measures, then, are no measures; they imply a vacillating judgment; they are a vain attempt to make a pound of rashness and a pound of timidity into two pounds of prudence. You permit me that figure, sir; it comes from the summing-book. The able man of business fidgets. He keeps quiet, or carries something out.”