Gideon looked rather puzzled.
"You don't seem to understand even yet, Bannister," he said. "You don't pay so much in the pound of the assets; you pay so much in the pound of the debts."
I didn't pretend to understand what Gideon meant by this complicated way of putting it, and told him so.
"All I want," I said, "is to do the strictly honourable thing and pay so much in the pound, which I have handed over to Gideon for that reason."
But Gideon, much to my surprise, seemed to feel rather annoyed at this.
"I wish you'd try and understand the situation," he said. "When you speak of so much in the pound, it's a figure of speech in a sort of way. It isn't a real, single, solitary pound."
"It's real enough," I said; "Thwaites gave it to me in exchange for a postal order."
"This pound is real, but——" Then Gideon broke off in a helpless sort of way, and then he began again.
"You owe two pounds—d'you see that?"
"Of course," I said. "That's the whole thing."