Mr. Shifnal regarded Mr. Liversedge curiously. “How did you come to be diddled by a greenhorn, Sam? It ain’t like you, I’ll cap downright! By what Joe tells me, you shouldn’t have had trouble in plucking that pigeon.”
Mr. Liversedge described an airy gesture with one white hand. “The greatest amongst us must sometimes err. I own that I erred. Talking pays no toll, or I might be tempted to say much in extenuation of what I admit to have been a misjudgment.”
“It wouldn’t be no use talking them breakteeth words to Nat,” said Mr. Mimms caustically. “He ain’t had your advantages, Sam, for all he’s able to pay his shot, and don’t have to come down on me for the very bread he puts in his mummer.”
Mr. Liversedge’s bosom swelled perceptibly, but after looking hard at his brother for a moment he apparently decided to ignore his lapse from good taste. He said: “What I ask myself is, Who was he?”
“If you was to be asking yourself how you was to set about making a living, there’d be some sense in it,” commented the aggressive Mr. Mimms. “It don’t matter to none of us who that downy young ’un was. I’ll allow he looked like a flat, but he knocked you into horse-nails, which I hope and pray as it will be a lesson to you not to meddle with swells again!” He perceived that he was not being attended to, Mr. Liversedge having fallen into a brown study, and added bitterly: “There you go! A-thinking up some more of your cork-brained lays! You won’t be happy till you’ve got yourself into the Whit, and me along with you!”
“Be silent, Joseph!” commanded Mr. Liversedge. “I must and shall make a recover!” He passed a hand across his brow as he spoke, and rather impatiently tore off the Duke’s handkerchief. “That young addle-plot was very perfectly acquainted with all the circumstances of this affair,” he said. “In a word, he was deep in Ware’s confidence. I hold to my original conviction that his purpose in coming here was to treat with me. Had I not, for a fatal instant, lowered my guard, I fancy I should now be in possession of a substantial sum of money—of which you, Joe, would have had your earnest, I assure you.”
“That’s handsomely said, Sam,” approved Mr. Shifnal. “What’s more, Joe don’t doubt you’d have paid him his earnest, nor no one that knows you.”
“No, I don’t,” said Mr. Mimms. “Because I’d ha’ seen to ityou did. But not one meg have I had out of you, Sam, and all I got is you borrowing from me to take and hire a shay to fetch that silly wench here, which I never wanted, nor don’t hold with!”
Mr. Liversedge disregarded him. “He was well-breeched,” he said slowly. “I perceived it at the outset. That olive coat—I caught but a glimpse of it beneath his Benjamin, but I flatter myself I am not easily deceived in such matters—was only made by a tailor patronized by members of the haut ton. Not a dandy, no! But there was an air of elegance—how shall I put it? A—”
“He was a flash-cull,” suggested Mr. Shifnal helpfully.