“No, of course not, eh? Not to anybody, eh, Mr Hallam?” said the old man eagerly. “You could not oblige me now with a hundred, say at seven and a half? I’m a safe man, you know. Say at seven and a half per cent, on my note of hand. You wouldn’t, would you?”
“No, Mr Gemp, nor yet at ten per cent. Dixons’ are not usurers, sir. I can let you have a hundred, sir, any time you like, upon good security, deeds or the like, but not without.”
“Ha! you are particular. Good way of doing business, sir. Hey, but I like you to be strict.”
“It is the only safe way of conducting business, Mr Gemp.”
“I say, though—oh, you are close!—close as a cash-box, Mr Hallam, sir; but what do you think of the new parson?”
“Quiet, pleasant, gentlemanly young man, Mr Gemp.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the visitor, hurting himself by using his crook quite violently, and getting it back round his neck; “but a mere boy, sir, a mere boy. He’s driven me away. I’m not going to church to hear him while there’s a chapel. I want to know what the bishop was a thinking about.”
“Ah? but he’s a scholar and a gentleman, Mr Gemp,” said the manager, blandly.
“Tchuck! so was the young doctor who set up and only lasted a year. If you were ill, sir, you wouldn’t have gone to he; you’d have gone to Dr Luttrell. If I’ve got vallerable deeds to deposit, I don’t go to some young clever-shakes who sets up in business, and calls himself a banker: I come to Dixons’.”
“And so you have some valuable deeds you want us to take care of for you, Mr Gemp,” said the manager sharply.