“Yes; but your schemes always want money first.”
“Well, hang it all, lad! you can’t expect a crop of potatoes without planting a few bits first. It wouldn’t want much. Only about fifty pounds. A hundred would be better, but we could make fifty do.”
Harry shook his head.
“Come, come; you haven’t heard half yet. I’ve the genuine information. It would be worth a pile of money. It’s our chance now—such a chance as may never occur again.”
“No, no; don’t tempt me, Vic,” said Harry, after a long whispered conversation.
“Tempt? I feel disposed to force you, lad. It makes me half wild to see you degraded to such work as this. Why, if we do as I propose, you will be in a position to follow out your aunt’s instructions, engage lawyers to push on your case, and while you obtain your rights, I shall be in a position to ask your sister’s hand without the chance of a refusal. I tell you the thing’s safe.”
“No, no,” said Harry, shaking his head; “it’s too risky. We should lose and be worse off than ever.”
“With a horse like that, and me with safe private information about him!”
“No,” said Harry, “I won’t. I’m going to keep steadily on here, and, as the governor calls it, plod.”
“That you’re not, if I know it,” cried Pradelle, indignantly. “I won’t stand it. It’s disgraceful. You shan’t throw yourself away.”