“Renew, my lord?” exclaimed the money-lender, expressing with eyebrows and hands the greatest of surprise. “Impossible! I’ve renewed till I’m as sick of it as of your broken faith.”
“No, you’re not; so don’t be a humbug!” said the Viscount. “I’m not very sharp, I know; but I’m keen enough to see through that. You’ve milked me pretty well, and worked me nicely with all your professional cant. I don’t recollect how much I’ve had in cash—I did put it down on old envelopes, but they’re lost—but I know that those pictures and the wines were horrible stuff; and one way and another you’ve made those bills grow till now they amount to—”
“Four thou—”
“There—there, that’ll do; I can’t pay it, so what’s the good of bothering one about how much it is? I’ve got it down somewhere, I tell you, and perhaps I can find it when I want to know, and I don’t now. Well, as I was going to say, you’ve made the bills grow to that size, now make them grow a little bigger.”
His lordship yawned, stretched himself, and then poured some pale brandy into a coffee-cup, before filling it with the rich fluid in the biggin.
“Totally impossible, my lord,” said the money-lender, rising. “I’m very sorry, my lord, but I must set the law to work. I have, as you well know, always been most desirous of aiding you during pressing necessities; and when unable to help you myself, I have always introduced you to some one who would. But, to speak plainly, this trip of yours to Italy, without a word to me first—”
“Why, confound it all! was I to come and ask you if I might go abroad?” exclaimed his lordship, furiously.
“Oh, dear me, no! Of course not, my lord; but as I was saying, this trip to Italy looks so much like trying to bilk me, that I must, for my own sake—”
“And that of the gentleman in the City,” sneered his lordship.
“No, my lord, I don’t do business with men in the City,” said the Jew, in injured tones; “and for my own sake alone I must take strenuous measures for the recovery of the debt.”