“For a young man you are careful, merchant.”
“Alas! such as I need to be who must guard our small earnings in these troublous times of war and tumult. Such a sum as you speak of would take all that John Grimmer and I have laid by after years of toil.”
Again he looked at the furnishings of the room and shrugged his shoulders, then said:
“Good, it shall be done for the need is urgent. To whom is the letter to be sent?”
“To John Grimmer, at the Boat House, Cheapside.”
“But you told me that John Grimmer was dead.”
“And so he is, my lord, but his name remains.”
Then we returned to the sop and as we went I said,
“If your lordship’s lady should set her heart upon the ruby the cost of it can stand over a while, since I know that it is hard for a husband to disappoint a wife of what she desires.”
“Man, she is my distant cousin, not my wife. I would she were, but how can two high-placed paupers wed?”