“Safe in your hands,” repeated Jericho. “Well, then, why should we waste time? I want to be quit of this. I want, at a thought, to melt all you see and have seen, into ready money. I know I must be a mighty loser. Oh yes! For money never was so scarce—trade never so very dead. This I knew before; so not a word about it now. Well then, worthy gentlemen, princely dealers, take counsel with yourselves, and to save a public hubbub—for I would pass from this fiery furnace of a house, this mansion burning with gold, to the peaceful corner I have provided me. You understand?”—
Again Israel, Laban, and Issachar, bowed. They understood perfectly.
“Take counsel, I say, and make me an offer, a lumping offer for the whole. Eh?”
Israel, Laban, and Issachar were impressed with the comprehensive largeness of the thought. It would save time, and trouble, and the liberal, the right royal Jericho would be a gainer—there could be no doubt of it—a great gainer in the end.
“Fellow,” and Jericho turned to his serf, “conduct the merchants into every corner. And gentlemen, let me have your offer—be it ever so rough a guess, still something like it—your offer to-night. No later; to-night.”
Israel, Laban, and Issachar, with their hearts glowing in their eyes, and smiling at their mouths, rubbed their hands, and promised. The magnificent Jericho should have their offer in the evening. They, the merchant friends—old associates, time-tried fellows—with one another would soon decide; and—there should be no miss in the matter—a plain, distinct offer should be made in the evening.
Whereupon, the Man of Money ascended to his garret, and the dealers pursued their occupation. There was only one apartment shut against them. And here, Mrs. Jericho and her daughters defied a siege. Every other place was searched, and every article scanned by the dealers, who at length with a grave joy departed from the house, big with the belief in a glorious pennyworth.
The Man of Money sat alone in his garret. Evening closed in, and the moon rose, and looked reproachfully at the miser. The same moon that looked so tenderly upon millions; the same moon that shone upon the silvery sails of the Halcyon, flying like a sea-bird to its home.
The Man of Money started in his chair. “What’s that?” The garret door opened. “You,—is’t not?”
“I,” answered the slave Plutus.