“That’s all; and it isn’t worth the candle, for there’ll be no more to sell. The shares are going up tremendously.”
“So I hear—so I hear,” said Wrigley thoughtfully; “and you are left out in the cold, and have to come borrowing. Jessop, old man, over business matters you and I are business men, and there is, as the saying goes, no friendship in business.”
“Not a bit,” said Jessop, with an oath.
“But we are old friends, and we have seen a little life together.”
“Ah! we have,” said Jessop, nodding his head.
“And, as the world goes, I think we have a little kind of pleasant feeling one for the other.”
“Humph! I suppose so,” said Jessop, watching the other narrowly with the keen eye of a man who deals in hard cash, and knows the value of a sixteenth per cent, in a large transaction. “Well, what’s up?”
“I was thinking, my dear fellow,” said the young lawyer, in a low voice, “how much pleasanter the world would be for you and me if we were rich. But no, no, no. You would not care to fight against your father and brother.”
“Perhaps before long there will only be my brother to fight against,” said Jessop meaningly.
The lawyer looked at him keenly.