“Once or twice,” observed Jack. “But that don’t matter one way or the other. I asked you a question: and before I open my mind any farther——”
“Well—I candidly admit, then,” interrupted Green, wishing to bring the matter to the point as speedily as possible—“I candidly admit that I did hope you could help me in some way or another. But it was only the hope of a desperate man: for as to the idea that you could assist me to eight hundred or a thousand pounds, it would have been insane to harbour it even for an instant. To speak more frankly still, I almost thought of asking you to let me join you in your own way of life, although I hardly know what your pursuits positively are.”
“They require courage and firmness, at all events,” answered Jack Rily, with a coarse laugh; “whereas you have got into such cursed cringing, bowing, and scraping ways, that you are only fit for a toad-eater. Excuse me for speaking frankly—but as we are talking on matters of business——”
“Quite correct,” interrupted Green, swallowing his resentment: for he felt but little pleased at the home-truth which had just been told him. “And now for the information which is to relieve me from such cruel suspense.”
“First answer me one or two questions,” said the Doctor. “I suppose you are often in the habit of changing Bank-notes for your master?”
“Yes: but not to any considerable amount at a time,” answered Green: “he is too suspicious to trust me with a sum sufficiently large to tempt me to run away with it.”
“Nevertheless, I suppose you could manage to change a few heavy notes, if you had them?” pursued the Doctor.
“Heavy notes?” repeated Green, turning pale and trembling. “Are they—fo—or—ged?”
“Not they!” exclaimed Rily, half disgusted with his timorous companion. “They are genuine Bank of England flimsies: but as they didn’t come into my hands in a very regular manner, and as my appearance isn’t altogether in my favour, I can’t pass them myself.”
“Oh! I—I—can get cash for them,” said Green, with all the eagerness of a man in a desperate predicament. “Heathcote’s bankers would do me as many as you can possibly have.”