"Impossible! How can that be, since you think so well of any thing which I may devise?" asked Greenwood.
"God bless your soul!" cried the other; "money is money now-a-days. For my part I can't think where the devil it all gets to! One hears of it—reads of it—but never sees it! In fact," he added, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper, "I do believe that there is no such thing now as money in the whole City."
"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Greenwood. "Complaints from you are absurd—because every one knows that you have made an enormous fortune since that time when I was so happy to save you from bankruptcy."
"Yes—yes," said the capitalist: "I remember that incident—I have never forgot it—I always told you I never should."
"Then, in plain terms," continued Greenwood, "do me the service of advancing two or three thousand pounds to set my new project in motion."
"Impossible, Greenwood—impossible!" cried the capitalist, buttoning up his breeches-pockets. "Things are in such a state that I would not venture a penny upon the most feasible speculation in the world."
"Perhaps you will lend me a sum——"
"Lend! Ah! ha! Now, really, Greenwood, this is too good! Lend, indeed! What—when we are all in the borrowing line in the City!"—and the capitalist chuckled, as if he had uttered a splendid joke.
"In one word, then," said Greenwood, relishing this mirth as little as a person in his situation was likely to do; "will you assist my temporary wants—even if you do not choose to enter into my speculation? You know that I am proud, and that it must pain me thus to speak to you: but I declare most solemnly that fifty pounds at this moment would be of the greatest service to me."
"Nothing gives me more pain than to refuse a friend like you," answered the capitalist: "but, positively, I could not part with a shilling to-day to save my own brother from a gaol."