"Don't be waspie, man. I'll ring the bell for lemons, and make some punch. That's the thing for putting people up to the unknown tongues," said Mr. Christian, starting up and slapping Scales's shoulder as he passed him.
"What I mean, Mr. Crowder, is this." Here Mr. Scales paused to puff, and pull down his waistcoat in a gentlemanly manner, and drink. He was wont in this way to give his hearers time for meditation.
"Come, then, speak English; I'm not against being taught," said the reasonable Crowder.
"What I mean is, that in a large way of trade a man turns his capital over almost as soon as he can turn himself. Bless your soul! I know something about these matters, eh, Brent?"
"To be sure you do—few men more," said the gardener, who was the person appealed to.
"Not that I've had anything to do with commercial families myself. I've those feelings that I look to other things besides lucre. But I can't say that I've not been intimate with parties who have been less nice than I am myself; and knowing what I know, I shouldn't wonder if Transome had as much as five hundred thousand. Bless your soul, sir! people who get their money out of land are as long scraping five pounds together as your trading men are in turning five pounds into a hundred."
"That's a wicked thing, though," said Mr. Crowder, meditatively. "However," he went on, retreating from this difficult ground, "trade or no trade, the Transomes have been poor enough this many a long year. I've a brother a tenant on their estate—I ought to know a little bit about that."
"They've kept up no establishment at all," said Mr. Scales, with disgust. "They've even let their kitchen gardens. I suppose it was the son's gambling. I've seen something of that. A man who has always lived in first-rate families is likely to know a thing or two on that subject."
"Ah, but it wasn't gambling did the first mischief," said Mr. Crowder, with a slight smile, feeling that it was his turn to have some superiority. "New-comers don't know what happened in this country twenty and thirty years ago. I'm turned fifty myself, and my father lived under Sir Maximus's father. But if anybody from London can tell me more than I know about this country-side, I'm willing to listen."
"What was it, then, if it wasn't gambling?" said Mr. Scales, with some impatience. "I don't pretend to know."