“What’s o’clock now?” interrupted the Duke, taking out his watch, which had stopped. “I must thank you, by the way, for not robbing me of my watch!”
“Ay, and it isn’t many as wouldn’t have had it off of you, and the ready and rhino in your pockets as well,” said Mr. Shifnal frankly. “I don’t see what it matters to you what time of day it is, because down in this cellar it don’t make any difference, but since you’re so particular anxious to know, it’s close on nine in the morning. And a fine, bright day it is, with the sun a-shining, and the birds all a-singing. Just the kind of day for a cove to be out and about!”
The Duke set his watch, and wound it up. Mr. Shifnal looked at it wistfully. “It’s a rare loge that,” he said. “It went to my heart not to snabble it.”
“Never mind!” said the Duke, sitting up with an effort. “You may have it, and the money in my pockets as well, if you leave that door unlocked.”
Mr. Shifnal smiled indulgently upon him. “I had a look in your pockets, guv’nor, and it’s low tide with you. It ain’t coachwheels I want, but flimseys.”
The Duke picked up the bowl of thin gruel, and sipped it resolutely. “How much?” he enquired.
“What do you say to fifty thousand Yellow Georges?” suggested Mr. Shifnal winningly.
“Why, that I thank you for the compliment you pay me in rating me at so high a figure, but that I fear I am not worth it.”
“Call it thirty!” said Mr. Shifnal. “Thirty wouldn’t seem no more to a well-blunted swell like you than what a Goblin would be to me!”
“Oh, I couldn’t pay you the half of thirty thousand!” said the Duke, swallowing some more of the gruel.