"I should have left you to say that, in any case, Mr. Thacker. I presume you come to me on business. Have the goodness to explain its nature."
Charley Yeldham had not been gifted by nature with great powers of making himself disagreeable, but on this occasion he exerted all he possessed.
"I always heard you were a cool hand, Mr. Yeldham," said Thacker, in admiration, "and I find they did not say a bit too much. You don't mind my smoking a cigar, do you, while I stop?"
"Not in the least," replied Mr. Yeldham, with immovable gravity, "if you find smoking conducive to the despatch of business."
Mr. Thacker looked at him with an unmoved expression of countenance, and Yeldham began to experience a strong inclination to kick him. He restrained it, however, and kept his seat and his countenance, while Mr. Thacker lighted a peculiarly fine cigar by the aid of a peculiarly fine light-box which hung from his prodigious watch-chain.
"I allow all that," said Mr. Yeldham; "so, Mr. Thacker, fire away."
"You wonder what brings me here," said Thacker, settling himself into his chair; "but you'll wonder a great deal more when I tell you. I suppose you think I'm not particularly friendly to your friend Streightley, eh?"
"I didn't think about it one way or the other," said the imperturbable Yeldham.
"But you knew that I held the mortgages on most part of his property--that place down in the country where the Freres are living, and his town-house--you knew I held those, and that it was I who mainly helped to sell him up?"
"Yes, I knew that; but as I also knew that gentlemen in your profession were men of business, and not usually swayed by sentiment, I did not see much to wonder at in the proceeding. I imagine any one else would have done the same."