“There, there, there! don’t trouble yourself, my dear Sir Thomas. There is a little amount to meet; but you are not, as you used to be, worried about money matters. You can pay.”
“Yes,” snarled Tom Candlish; “and you seem to know it, too.”
“Come, that’s unkind. It isn’t generous, my dear sir. Surely if a man lends money he has a right to claim repayment.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that—the old, old jargon of the craft. I don’t want to borrow now. If I did I suppose I should hear all about your friend in the City, eh?—your client who advances the money, eh?”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Thompson. “One needn’t ask how you are. The old vein of fun is coming back flushed with health and strength.”
“Cursed slowly. Now, then, what do you want?”
“Oh, it is a mere trifling business.”
“A trifle.”
“It would have been serious to you once; but it is a trifle now.”
“Well, let’s have it.”