“Why, we goes halves in what turns up,” said Mrs Gross, who had a famous eye for business, though she would keep dimming its...
Some lines missing here from the scans.
“Gross!” cried a sepulchral voice, which made Septimus start, till he found that it had proceeded from Mr Isaac himself, though his face did not betray that he had spoken.
“Gross, then,” growled Matt. “Now look here,” he continued; “it’s nothing but an old entry as I once saw in some doctor’s books on your counter here, and we want to see it; for I hadn’t sense then to know it was any good; but if we find it, and it’s what we want, my guv’nor here will stand a sovereign, I dessay.”
“Put it down on paper, then,” said Isaac, “and make him sign;” to the great admiration of his partner, who patted him upon the back for his display of business ability; and then, before a paper was touched, Septimus Hardon, greatly to Matt’s disgust, signed a promissory and conditional note for the amount named.
“Ikey,” growled Matt, “I didn’t think you had been such a Jew. If you haven’t let my rooms, you can get yourself a fresh tenant.”
But Isaac only smiled, and the task commenced—no light one—of turning over the huge stack of waste-paper piled up before them. Dust, dirt, and mildew; brief-paper, copying-paper, newspaper, old books, old magazines and pamphlets, account-books with covers and account-books without; paper in every phase; while eagerly was everything in the shape of an account-book seized upon, and the search continued until, faint and weary, they had gone through the whole heap, when with a despairing, doleful look Septimus gazed upon Matt.
“I’ll take my Bible oath it was in a book I saw laid upon that heap. Now then, where’s some more?” and the old man said it feebly, as if nearly exhausted.
“No more anywheres,” said Mrs Gross assuringly, as she smoothed her husband’s oily hair.
“Sure?” cried Matt.