“Oh, you do not care a fig for that silly game! I wish you may not break my aunt’s faro-bank.”
“If you will inform the stalwart person at your door that I am free to enter the house, I promise I shall endeavour to do so when I come again.”
“You must know that all doors are open to the rich Mr Ravenscar—particularly such doors as this.”
“Make it plain, then, to your henchman, or you may have a brawl upon your doorstep.”
“Ah, Silas is too knowing a one! Only law-officers and their spies are refused admittance here, and he would smell one at sixty paces.”
“What a valuable acquisition he must be to you!”
“It would be impossible to imagine an existence without him. He was my father’s sergeant. I have known him from my cradle.”
“Your father was a military man?” said Mr Ravenscar, slightly raising his brows.
“Yes, at one time.”
“And then?”