‘You needn’t think there’s no clean money in my hands,’ said Jervase. ‘I don’t owe everything to that blasted brine-pit. You can take your own rights. You can take what I offer you, and feel as you’re an honest man all the same. And Polly, if you’re going out as a private soldier you’ll want money. It isn’t as if an untravelled man was talkin’ to you. I know the Black Sea Coast I spent one Febiwerry there, a man before the mast. I’ll back it again the Pole for cold. You’ll miss a lot o’ comforts, Polly, as a pound or two would buy for you.’
‘I must go back to duty,’ said Polson, ‘or I shall get into hot water.’
‘Take a hundred pound, Polly. It’s clean money. I’ll swear it on my Bible oath. Look here, Polly. Look here!’
Jervase rose and shook his son by both shoulders in a frenzy.
‘Look here, Polly, look here. Listen.’
‘I am listening, father.’
‘Then look as if you was listening for Heaven’s sake! I’m worth half a million, if I’m worth a penny. I never owned to it before, but if it isn’t true God strike me dead. Outside that salt mine, I’ve been an honest man. You won’t believe it, but I have. I saw a chance of making money elsewhere, and I wanted a start, and I turned rogue for the sake of it. Polly, Polly. I’ll pay every penny with a three per cent, interest—compound, mind you—compound—and I shall be a rich man still!
‘Pol, you’re hard. I don’t know where you get it from. But, mind you! One of these days you might find yourself led into a temptation, and then perhaps you’ll think of your old father. How many business men have gone through life, and never done but one thing as they had a call to be ashamed of? I’ve done one; and I’ve been bowled out at it! There’s men that does hundreds, Polly, and are never bowled out at all! I’ll tell you what. It ain’t me having been dishonourable as stands between us. It’s your own pride, Polly. It’s a good pride. It’s what you might call a righteous pride. But if I was just what I am, without being your father—if I was just what you might call an average old sinner, you wouldn’t let me beg like this, Polly. No, you wouldn’t! And look here, Polly. Money’s money, and here’s a thousand pound——’
‘Damn your thousand pounds,’ cried Polson. He turned to face his father in an agony, and struck his own clenched fist upon his breast three several times. Then he turned to his original position and stared through the window across the empty square.
‘Yes,’ said John Jervase slowly. ‘Damn the thousand pounds. Damn it, and damn it, and damn it over again. You think I’m trying to bribe you, Polly? No! You wait till you’re a father, with your only son a-going to the wars without a penny in his pocket, and hating you too much to take what you can give him. Then you’ll feel what I feel. Damn the thousand pounds! Damn all the money as was ever coined. But, Polly, there’s my hand again. I’d rather you took it full—but won’t you take it empty?’