“Then twelve quid buys it!”
Mr. Lane again probed the ragged upholstery of the seat with an investigatory forefinger.
“I’ll give you ten,” he offered.
“You seem to think I ain’t a man of my word,” complained Mr. Dobb, indignantly.
“Ten!” offered Mr. Lane, again. “That’s my limit!”
Twenty minutes later they had arrived at a compromise, and the sum of eleven pounds ten shillings changed ownership. With his own hands Mr. Lane lifted the chair and staggered out with it to the handtruck Mr. Dobb had obligingly placed at his disposal.
“There he goes with ’is ’idden treasure,” said Mr. Dobb, smiling, as Mr. Lane’s small back bent in energetic propulsion of his purchase.
That same evening Mr. Dobb paid thirty shillings into the willing grasp of each of his three old shipmates, and fully endorsed their flattering statements as to his mental ingenuity.
A fortnight elapsed, and then, one afternoon, Mr. Lane walked into the emporium. Mr. Dobb, mastering a primitive impulse to point derisively at his visitor, addressed him in honeyed tones of courtesy.
“Ain’t seen you lately, sir,” he remarked.