“Nor have I, if by business you mean some low handicraft. It is brain work I mean, my boy; and that’s what I do.”
“I don’t doubt that a bit,” answered the elder guest coaxingly.
“Come on! Tell us what it is,” broke in the other. “You don’t expect us to take your word.”
“It is as easy as lying,” replied Toto. “Listen a bit, and you shall have the whole bag of tricks. Suppose I saw Polyte steal a couple of pairs of boots from a trotter-case seller’s stall——”
Polyte interrupted the narrator, protesting so strongly that he would not commit such an act, that Tantaine perceived at once that some such trifling act of larceny weighed heavily on his conscience.
“You needn’t kick up such a row,” returned Toto. “I am only just putting it as a thing that might happen. We will say you had done the trick, and that I had twigged you. Do you know what I should go? Well, I would hunt up Polyte, and say quietly, ‘Halves, old man, or I will split.’”
“And I should give you a crack in the jaw,” returned Polyte angrily.
Forgetting his fine dress, Toto playfully put his thumb to his nose and extended his fingers.
“You would not be such an ass,” said he. “You would say to yourself, ‘If I punch this chap, he will kick up no end of a row, and I shall be taken up, and perhaps sent to the mill.’ No; you would be beastly civil, and would end by doing just as I wished.”
“And this is what you call your business, is it?”