“Look here, Sir Mark,” replied the founder, looking the speaker full in the face; “you turned angry when I talked of giving you a recompense for this order, and called it bribery. What does it all mean? Thou would’st not do all this for naught.”
“Is there no such thing as gratitude in the world, Master Cobbe?”
“Plenty, sir; but court gallants don’t come spreading it out like beaten gold over a rough country work-master, unless they want to get something back.”
“You are witty at the expense of court gallants, as you call them, Master Cobbe,” said Sir Mark, laughing. “Tut, man, be not so dense. Is it a surprise to you that I should have spent my time in London working hard on thy behalf? Here was an order for ordnance going a-begging. What more natural for me to say than—Here is honest Jeremiah Cobbe, who can make better pieces than his Majesty will get elsewhere, and it will force him back into the King’s esteem, instead of his lying under the stigma of being a traitor? What more likely for me to do than to get him the order?”
“Then, thou hast gotten me the order, eh, Sir Mark?”
“Nay, I have obtained for myself the power to give thee that order, Master Cobbe.”
“And at what price?”
“Tush, man, speak not of price,” cried the other, eagerly. “What are prices to us? Can you not see that our interests are one, and that I am working for myself as well as thee?”
“Nay,” said the founder, bluntly; “I see it not.”
“You will not see it, Master Cobbe,” said Sir Mark, smiling. “Why, man, I have but one thought—for thy welfare.”