'Well—it was a friend of mine—perhaps I won't mention the name—who came and told me something—something that quite upset me. That's what I'm going to town about, Mr. Lott. I'm—well, the fact is, I was going to call upon Mr. Bowles.'
'Oh, you were!' exclaimed the timber-merchant, with gruffness, which referred not to his friend but to his son-in-law. 'I don't particularly want to see him, but I had thought of seeing my daughter. You wouldn't mind saying whether it was John Roper—?'
'Yes, it was.'
'Then we've both heard the same story, no doubt.'
Mr. Lott leaned back and stared out of the window. He kept thrusting out his lips and drawing them in again, at the same time wrinkling his forehead into the frown which signified that he was trying to shape a thought.
'Mr. Lott,' resumed the tailor, with a gravely troubled look, 'may I ask if
John Roper made any mention of my son?'
The timber-merchant glared, and Mr. Daffy, interpreting the look as one of anger, trembled under it.
'I feel ashamed and miserable!' burst from his lips.
'It's not your fault, Mr. Daffy,' interrupted the other in a good-natured growl. 'You're not responsible, no more than for any stranger.'
'That's just what I can't feel,' exclaimed the tailor, nervously slapping his knee. 'Anyway, it would be a disgrace to a man to have a son a bookmaker—a blackguard bookmaker. That's bad enough. But when it comes to robbing and ruining the friends of your own family—why, I never heard a more disgraceful thing in my life. How I'm going to stand in my shop, and hold up my head before my customers, I—do—not—know. Of course, it'll be the talk of the town; we know what the Ropers are when they get hold of anything. It'll drive me off my head, Mr. Lott, I'm sure it will.'