“Why should I?” I asked. “I spoke quite clearly and you seemed to understand.”
“You are right,” replied Sir Alexander; “to waste time is useless.” He wheeled round on Woodden, who was standing near the door still holding the paper-wrapped plant in front of him. “Now, Blockhead,” he shouted, “tell me why you brought that thing.”
Woodden made no answer, only rocked a little. Sir Alexander reiterated his command. This time Woodden set the plant upon a table and replied:
“If you’re aspeaking to me, sir, that baint my name, and what’s more, if you calls me so again, I’ll punch your head, whoever you be,” and very deliberately he rolled up the sleeves on his brawny arms, a sight at which I too began to swell with inward merriment.
“Look here, father,” said Mr. Stephen, stepping forward. “What’s the use of all this? The thing’s perfectly plain. I did tell Woodden to buy the plant at any price. What is more I gave him a written authority which was passed up to the auctioneer. There’s no getting out of it. It is true it never occurred to me that it would go for anything like £2,300—the odd £300 was more my idea, but Woodden only obeyed his orders, and ought not to be abused for doing so.”
“There’s what I call a master worth serving,” remarked Woodden.
“Very well, young man,” said Sir Alexander, “you have purchased this article. Will you be so good as to tell me how you propose it should be paid for.”
“I propose, father, that you should pay for it,” replied Mr. Stephen sweetly. “Two thousand three hundred pounds, or ten times that amount, would not make you appreciably poorer. But if, as is probable, you take a different view, then I propose to pay for it myself. As you know a certain sum of money came to me under my mother’s will in which you have only a life interest. I shall raise the amount upon that security—or otherwise.”
If Sir Alexander had been angry before, now he became like a mad bull in a china shop. He pranced round the room; he used language that should not pass the lips of any respectable merchant of bullion; in short, he did everything that a person in his position ought not to do. When he was tired he rushed to a desk, tore a cheque from a book and filled it in for a sum of £2,300 to bearer, which cheque he blotted, crumpled up and literally threw at the head of his son.
“You worthless, idle young scoundrel,” he bellowed. “I put you in this office here that you may learn respectable and orderly habits and in due course succeed to a very comfortable business. What happens? You don’t take a ha’porth of interest in bullion-broking, a subject of which I believe you to remain profoundly ignorant. You don’t even spend your money, or rather my money, upon any gentleman-like vice, such as horse-racing, or cards, or even—well, never mind. No, you take to flowers, miserable, beastly flowers, things that a cow eats and clerks grow in back gardens.”