“All right!”
A slip of blue stamped paper was taken out of a drawer, filled up, passed over for signature, and as Jessop now took up a pen he uttered a loud growl.
“Hundred and twenty in four months! Sixty per cent. Bah! what a blood-sucker you are!”
“Yes, aren’t I?” said the other cheerily. “Don’t take my interest first, though, and give you a cheque for eighty, eh?”
He took the bill, glanced at it, and thrust it in a plain morocco case, which he replaced in a drawer, took out a cheque-book, quickly wrote a cheque, signed it, and looked up.
“Cross it?” he said.
“Yes. I shall pay it in. Thanks!”
“There you see the value of a good reputation, my dear Reed; but you oughtn’t to be paying for money through the nose like that.”
“No,” said the visitor, with a snarl, “I oughtn’t to be, but I do. If the dear brother wants any amount, there it, is; but if I want it—cold shoulder.”
“So it is, my dear fellow; some are favourites for a time, some are not: Let me see. He’s engaged to the rich doctor’s daughter, isn’t he?”