I had no hesitation whatever, then, in asking her in my weekly letter for help to carry out my plan, and that was to find Revitts and Mary the money to buy the lease of the house in Great Ormond Street, so that Mary would be better able to attend to her friends, and, while acting as their landlady, supply me with better rooms as well.
I broached the subject to Revitts and his wife that very evening, and the former nodded.
“How much would it take, Ant’ny?” he said.
“The lease would be a hundred pounds,” I said. “Then the rent is eighty.”
“That’s a deal of money, my dear,” said Mary; “and then there’s the rates.”
“Yes,” I said; “but then look here, Mary; I should like a sitting-room as well as a bedroom now, and I could pay you twenty-five or thirty pounds a year for that. I know Mr Hallett pays twenty-six for what he has, and you could, as you often said you would like to, let another floor; for it is a large house. I think you would live rent-free.”
“There,” cried Revitts, giving the table a slap. “What do you think of that, Polly?”
“Think of what?” she said tartly; for the seriousness of the subject unsettled her.
“What he says. D’ye hear his business-like way of reckoning it up: so much for this here, and so much for that there? He couldn’t have talked like that when he come up to London first, as green as a bit o’ grass. That’s my teaching, that is. I knew I could sharpen him up.”
“Don’t be so conceited, Bill,” she exclaimed. “But a large house means lots of furniture, Master Antony. No, I don’t think it would do. We haven’t enough.”