“I know you don’t like his style,” murmured Porson; “but won’t you come in, it is so hot out here in the sun?”
“Thank you, yes, but let us go to that place you call your den, not to the drawing-room. If you can spare it, I want half-an-hour with you. That’s why I came over in the afternoon, before dinner.”
“Certainly, certainly,” murmured Porson again, as he led the way to the “den,” but to himself he added: “It’s those mortgages, I’ll bet. Oh dear! oh dear! when shall I see the last of them?”
Presently they were established in the den, the Colonel very cool and comfortable in Mr. Porson’s armchair, and Porson himself perched upon the edge of a new-looking leather sofa in an attitude of pained expectancy.
“Now I am at your service, Colonel,” he said.
“Oh! yes; well, it is just this. I want you, if you will, to look through these figures for me,” and he produced and handed to him a portentous document headed “List of Obligations.”
Mr. Porson glanced at it, and instantly his round, simple face became clever and alert. Here he was on his own ground. In five minutes he had mastered the thing.
“Yes,” he said, in a quick voice, “this is quite clear, but there is some mistake in the addition making a difference of £87 3s. 10d. in your favour. Well, where is the schedule of assets?”
“The schedule of assets, my dear John? I wish I knew. I have my pension, and there are the Abbey and estates, which, as things are, seem to be mortgaged to their full value. That’s about all, I think. Unless—unless”—and he laughed, “we throw in Morris’s patent electrical machine, which won’t work.”
“It ought to be reckoned, perhaps,” replied Mr. Porson gravely; adding in a kind of burst, with an air of complete conviction: “I believe in Morris’s machine, or, at least, I believe in Morris. He has the makings of a great man—no, of a great inventor about him.”