“Gammon! Don’t be absurd, man, and talk rough just because we were a little out last time I was down. That’s all over. You talk as if you wanted to throw me over, and get your millions without my help; but you can’t do it, my dear boy. Let alone what you owe me, you know, I must stand in here.”
“Stand in! What do you mean?”
“You know.”
“Why, you scoundrel—”
“Now, there you go again. You force me to take up the cudgels in my defence.”
“Leave this room.”
“Cabin, dear boy, cabin. But what for? To go ashore, walk up to Gartram’s Fort—I mean Glyddyr’s Fort, if I like it to be—ask to see the young lady, and tell her exactly what you are, and how you stand with a certain person.”
Glyddyr stared at him helplessly.
“No: you wouldn’t drive me to do such a thing—such a cowardly thing as it really would be—in self-defence. No, no, my dear boy; you are really too hard on an old friend—far too hard.”
Glyddyr’s teeth grated together in his impotent rage.