'Pardon me, sir,' I told him quietly; 'but I can only discuss this matter in private.'
'All right,' he hiccoughed. 'You'd better slide, Jack. Evado, you blackguard! Hidi! git! chabouk!'
'You are merry, my friend,' said my unwholesome countryman, who was very drunk indeed. 'But I am not a Hamal that you speak to me so.'
'There's half-a-crown,' said young Grammont, throwing a coin on the carpet. 'Wait at the Red Lion. It's all right.'
My unwholesome countryman took himself out of the room with the half-crown, and went downstairs in a series of dangerous slides and tumbles.
'Now, then,' said my client, throwing himself insolently upon the sofa and lighting a pipe. 'You can say what you have; to say, and get it over as soon as you like.'
One is not angry with this kind of person. 'If you are in a fit condition to listen, sir, you may know all about the matter in five minutes. Your father just before his death invested a large sum of money. The receipt for that sum of money was lost, but the gentleman with whom he invested it is honourable and is ready to pay it. He will only pay it on one condition, and that is that it be divided into equal portions between your two sisters and yourself.'
He sat up with the pipe between his finger and thumb.
'Whatever my father left,' he said, 'belongs to me.'
'Then,' I answered, 'claim it!'