“But, look here,” cried Richard, angrily, “you are insinuating that I received part of this money!”
“Wouldn’t it be better, Sir Richard, to say no more about it?” said the tailor. “Money is money, sir; gold’s gold; and, as for silver, why it’s quicksilver, ain’t it, now? Of course, I know what young gents is, as I said before; and I don’t want to make any trouble about it.”
“But listen,” said Richard, trying to be quite calm and cool. “Do I understand you aright?”
“Oh, yes, sir; I’m right about money.”
“That I shared the borrowed money?”
“Why, sir,” said the man with a smile, “you don’t suppose I should have lent it to Mr Mark Frayne, whose father’s only a poor parson? Not me!”
“Then you lent it to him because you believed I was to have part?”
“I lent it to you, sir, because I knew you was a barrynet, and would come in for your money in three or four years’ time, and, of course, to oblige you—being short.”
“But—”
“For I says to myself, ‘There’s the money a-doing nothing in the bank, and it’s obliging a gent who won’t be above orderin’ a few garments to make up for you obliging him, and—’”