“Bother your sentiment, Richards. He owes me over forty thousand pounds. Think of that. I declare I believe I’d be a better landlord than Mack himself. Forty thousand pounds, Richards, and I don’t see any way of getting a penny, except by—”
“Except by foreclosing?”
Richards sighed as he bent once more over his desk. He had been family lawyer to Mackenzie before he joined the firm of Griffin, Keane, and Co., and dearly loved the family, or what was left of it.
He tried to work but couldn’t now. Presently he closed the ledger with a bang and got down off his stool.
“I say, Keane.” he said, “I see a way out of this. Look here. You have nobody to leave your wealth to except dear little Gerty—”
“Well, Jack is precious fond of her; why not—”
“He, he, he! ho, ho, ho!” laughed Keane. “Why, Richards, you’re in your dotage, man! I’ve a baronet in view for Gerty. And Jack is a beggar, although he does swing a sword at his side and fight the French.”
Richards went back to his stool quiet and subdued. “Poor Jack!” he muttered.