"I trust you will have no cause to repent of your sanction to your daughter's flight, Mr. Guyon," said Streightley, in a somewhat marked tone. "You recollect, before she left your roof, that----"
"My dear Robert! my dear Robert!" interposed the old gentleman; "do you think I have forgotten the confidence in which I told you that I was unworthy of the blessing of such a daughter--that I was by nature more fitted for--for less domestic delights. And indeed I--in Paris I have enjoyed myself most amazin'ly, most amazin'ly! That fellow, sir--whom I recklect when he lived in King Street--used to drive a doosid good cab, I recklect; he certainly has improved Paris wonderfully. But it's horribly expensive, my dear boy, horribly expensive. I--I ran rather short before I came away, and I was obliged to draw on you for a hundred--I was indeed!"
Streightley's face looked very stern as he heard this. "Do I understand you to say that you have drawn a bill on me for a hundred pounds, Mr. Guyon?"
"Yes, my dear boy, at a month; it'll be due----"
"That is a liberty which I permit no one to take, and which must never be repeated."
"A liberty, Robert?"
"A liberty, Mr. Guyon. Any man who draws a bill on another without first asking his friend's permission, takes what we of the City think an unwarrantable liberty. I am sure you erred in ignorance; but I must ask you to put a stop entirely to what seems to have become a habit with you--the reliance on me for money. I cannot make you any further advances, at least for the present."
This was a great blow for Mr. Guyon, who had been boasting, as was his wont, amongst his English acquaintances in Paris of the great wealth and generosity of his son-in-law. Nor had his French friends been unenlightened on the subject; "eel a milyonair--com voter Roschild vous savvy," the old gentleman had remarked with great self-satisfaction. And now to find his milch-cow refusing her supply, and as it were threatening him with her horns and heels, was any thing but pleasant. However, Mr. Guyon's temperament was light and elastic; he thought this determination of Streightley's would not last; that some business matters had "put him out;" that his anger would soon "blow over:" so he assured his son-in-law that he would remember what he had said; and shaking hands fervently with him, skipped back to the cab, with the pleasant feeling that at least a quarter of the hundred pounds so judiciously drawn was at that moment safe in his trousers-pocket.
Then Robert Streightley called Foster into his room, and over books and ledgers, and commercial documents of all kinds, they held a consultation which lasted until late in the afternoon, and which proved to them both that the financial position of Streightley and Son had recently had the hardest blow, in the stopping of Messrs. Nick's bank, which it had received since it commenced operations of any magnitude.
"It comes at an awkward time too for you, sir," said old Mr. Foster. "We wanted all the ready cash we could lay our hands on just now; there are the calls on the Benares Railroad, and the deposits upon the Indian Peninsular--we're pretty deep in both of them--and there's six thousand for the lease in Portland Place, which of course must be paid at once. However, there's no reason to hold the Indian lines; they're both at a high premium; and as this bothering bank has crippled us for a bit, perhaps we had better sell and----"