“Lend him the money.”
“No, no. There, I’ll let him have fifty.”
“Not half enough. Better let him have it. You’ll be ill, or I shall, one of these days, and if you don’t let him have the money, he might give it us rather strongly.”
“Absurd. He dare not.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Chynoweth. “When one’s on one’s back one is in the doctor’s hands, you know.”
“There: let him have the money, but it must be at higher interest. But stop a moment,” continued Mr Penwynn, as his managing man’s pencil gave its first grate on the slate. “You’re a great friend of Rumsey: why not lend him your name to the note?”
Mr Chynoweth had no buttons to his trousers pockets, but he went through the process of buttoning them, and looked straight now at his employer.
“How long would you keep me here if you found me weak enough to do such a thing as that, Mr Penwynn? No, no,” he said, lowering his head once more, and looking through his eyebrows, “I never lend, and I never become security for any man. I shall put it down that he can have the money.”
Mr Penwynn nodded, and his manager wrote down on one side and marked off on the other.
“Any thing else?”