"So am I! It is a terrible bore!"
A pause followed. Alister burst into a laugh that was not merry.
"It makes me think of the look on my father's face," he said, "once at the market, as he was putting in his pocket a bunch of more than usually dirty bank-notes. The look seemed almost to be making apology that he was my father—the notes were SO DIRTY! 'They're better than they look, lad!' he said."
"What ARE you thinking of, Alister?"
"Of nothing you are not thinking of, Ian, I hope in God! Mr.
Palmer's money is worse than it looks."
"You frightened me for a moment, Alister!"
"How could I, Ian?"
"It was but a nervo-mechanical fright. I knew well enough you could mean nothing I should not like. But I see trouble ahead, Alister!"
"We shall be called a pack of fools, but what of that! We shall be told the money itself was clean, however dirty the hands that made it! The money-grubs!"
"I would rather see you hanged, than pocketing a shilling of it!"