“We’re so far from likely to keep fingering them, Mr. Burns,” said Cosmo, “that our chief reason for wishing you to see them was that you might, if you would oblige us, take them away, and dispose of them for us!”
“A-ah!” rejoined Mr. Burns, “I fear I am getting too old for a transaction of such extent! I should have to go to London—to Paris—to Amsterdam—who knows where?—that is, to make the best of them—perhaps to America! And here was I thinking of retiring!”
“Then let this be your last business-transaction. It will not be a bad one to finish up with. You can make it a good thing for yourself as well as for us.”
“If I undertake it, it shall be at a fixed percentage.”
“Ten?” suggested Cosmo.
“No; there is no risk, only labour in this. When I took ten for that other diamond, I paid you the money for it, you will remember: that makes a difference. I wish you would come with me; I could help you to see a little of the world.”
“I should like it greatly, but I could not leave my father.”
Mr. Burns was a little nervous about the safety of the portmanteau that held such a number of tiny parcels in silver paper, and would not go inside the coach although it rained, but took a place in sight of his luggage. I will not say what the diamonds brought. I would not have my book bristle with pounds like a French novel with francs. They more than answered even Mr. Burns’s expectations.
When he was gone, and all hope for this world vanished in the fruition of assured solvency, the laird began to fail. While Cosmo was yet on the way with Mr. Burns and the portmanteau to meet the coach, he said to his faithful old friend,
“I’m tired, Grizzie; I’ll gang to my bed, I think. Gien ye’ll gie me a han’, I winna bide for Cosmo.”