"I'll take the money first; that's a trifle, the other's not. You remember some time ago, when I told you I was always hard up, you offered me your quarter's allowance. Fifty pounds it was—all you had."
"That was different."
"And you said that surely one friend could do a little thing like that for another. Did I fly out at you then?"
"But you didn't take it."
"Because I didn't want the money. You do. There are those bills you told me about."
"I would never have told you, had I thought you'd take advantage like this. That's not what I did it for."
"I know that as well as you do, but all the same you did tell me, and you said that, when you reached London, they'd probably serve a writ on you. Now, I'm not going to have you bothered by beastly tradespeople, and so I did the little thing you said one friend might do for another—I wrote you a cheque."
"Hector, will you swear that was all you meant?"
"Certainly I will."
"Oh ... We'll let that pass, then, though I don't say I believe it, mind. And now for the other, rather more difficult of explanation, I imagine."