"Not for a thousand pounds?" said Mr. Winlass calculatingly.
"Not for a thousand pounds, sir."
"Not even," said Mr. Winlass pleadingly, "for two thousand?"
"No, sir."
"Not even," suggested Mr. Winlass, with an effort which caused him acute pain, "if I offered you three thousand?"
The young man's head continued to shake.
"I do only just have bought 'er, sir. I must do my work somewhere. I wouldn't want to sell my house, not if you offered me four thousand for 'er, that I wouldn't."
"Five thousand," wailed Mr. Winlass, in dogged anguish.
The bidding rose to seven thousand five hundred before Peter Quentin relieved Mr. Winlass of further torture and himself of further lingual acrobatics. The cheque was made out and signed on the spot, and in return Peter attached his signature to a more complicated document which Mr. Win-lass had ready to produce from his breast pocket; for Mr. Vernon Winlass believed in Getting Things Done.
"That's splendid," he boomed, when the formalities had been completed. "Now then, my dear sir, how soon can you move out?"