“Oh, of course it might have been worse; but a lot of us have lost, eh, neighbour?”
“Dixons’ and Sir Gordon have come down very handsome over it,” said Gorringe, who was designing a garment, as he called it, with a piece of French chalk.
“And the parson,” said Gemp; “only to think of it—a parson, a curate, with one-and-twenty thousand pound in his pocket.”
“Ay, it come in handy,” said Gorringe.
“Now, where did he get that money, eh? It’s a wonderful sight for a man like him,” said Gemp, with a suspicious look.
“London. I heerd tell that he said he had been to London to get it.”
“Ay, he said so,” cried Gemp, shaking his head, “but it looks suspicious, mun. Here was he hand and glove with the Hallams, always at their house and mixed up like. I want to know where he got that money. I say, sir, that a curate with twenty thousand pound of his own is a sort o’ monster as ought to be levelled down.”
The tailor pushed up his glasses to the roots of his hair, and left off his work to hold up his shears menacingly at his crony.
“Gemp, old man,” he said, “I would not be such a cantankerous, suspicious old magpie as you for a hundred pounds; and look here, if you’re going to pull buttons off the back o’ parson’s coat, go and do it somewhere else, and not in my shop.”
“Oh! you needn’t be so up,” said Gemp. “Look here,” he cried, pointing straight at his friend, “what did Thickens say about the writings?”