“But you will if the lady gives security,” says my wife hastily.
The poor woman gave such a woe-begone look at us that it made me more out of temper than ever, for I could feel that if I stopped I should have to let her have one at her own terms. And so it was; for, there, if I didn’t let her have a first-class machine, as good as new, she only paying seven and six down, and undertaking to pay half-a-crown a week, and no more security than nothing!
To make it worse, too, if I didn’t send the thing home without charge!—Luke going with it, for he was back at home now keeping my books, being grown into a fine young fellow of five-and-twenty; and I sat and growled the whole of the rest of the day, calling myself all the weak-minded idiots under the sun, and telling the wife that business was going to the dogs, and I should be ruined.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom,” she said.
“So I am,” says I. “I didn’t think I could be such a fool.”
“Such a fool as to do a good kind action to one who was evidently a lady born, and come down in the world!”
“Yes,” I says, “to living in Bennett’s Place, where I’ve sunk no less than ten machines in five years.”
“Yes,” says the wife, “and cleared hundreds of pounds. Tom, I’m ashamed of you—you a man with twenty workmen busy upstairs, a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of stock, and in the bank—”
“Hold your tongue, will you!” I said roughly, and went out into the shop to try and work it all off.
Luke came back just after, looking very strange, and I was at him directly.