Again the lawyer nodded, making notes, as he listened, on a sheet of foolscap.
“That’s plain speaking,” went on Mr. Tinker, “but where’s the £300 to come from? That’s the difficulty. Mills aren’t easy to let, and the bigger they are the fewer people want them. I suppose there’s nothing for it but the hammer. It’s enough to make us Tinkers all turn in our graves. But there it is.—Even if Dick—you won’t remember my brother, Richard,—if he’d had a son, it would have been different.”
“But we all know he left a very charming daughter,” said Wimpenny with a bow and a smirk.
“Dorothy’s right enough,” said her uncle, curtly. “But you can’t turn her into a manufacturer. Though she’s a sort of partner all the same. You know her father died suddenly.”
Of course Wimpenny knew.
“And her father was part owner of the mill and business. Well, the girl’s money is in the business still.”
“Phew! that’s bad, Mr. Tinker.”
“I know it is, and the worst of it, I’ve kept no separate accounts. I’ve treated Richard’s share just as my own. But my will must put all that right. Subject to my wife’s provision Dorothy must have all. There’ll be nob’dy else for it.”
Wimpenny did not speak for some time. He chewed the end of his quill instead, a way he had when absorbed in thought.
“It’s a bad business Mr. Tinker;” he said at length; “it was scarcely like you to confound accounts in that loose fashion and to put trust money into what was practically your own business. People might call it by an ugly name.”