“Eh! I didn’t say so, did I?”
“Yes; and you want a hundred pounds. Shall I look at the deeds?”
Mr Gemp brought his oaken crook down over his breast, and his quick, shifty eyes turned from the manager to the lethal weapons over the chimney, then to the safe, then to the bank, and Mr Thickens’s back.
“I say,” he said at last, “arn’t you scared about being robbed?”
“Robbed! oh, dear no. Come, Mr Gemp. I must bring you to the point. Let me look at the deeds you have in your pocket; perhaps there will be no need to send them to our solicitor. A hundred pounds, didn’t you say?”
The old man hesitated, and looked about suspiciously for a few moments before meeting the manager’s eyes. Then he succumbed before the firm, keen, searching look.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I said a hundred pounds, but I don’t want no hundred pounds. I want you—”
He paused for a few moments with his hands at his breast, as if to take a long breath, and then, as if by a tremendous wrench, he mastered his fear and suspicion.
“I want you to take care of these for me.”
He tore open his breast and brought out quickly a couple of dirty yellow parchments and some slips of paper, roughly bound in a little leather folio.