“Now to business!” said Horace, dragging out from under a sofa the black tin box which held the Minster papers, and throwing back its cover. “I’ve told you pretty well what there is in here.”
Mr. Tenney took from his pocket-book the tabular statement Horace had made of the Minster property, and smoothed it out over his pointed knee.
“It’s a very pretty table,” he said; “no bookkeeper could have done it better. I know it by heart, but we’ll keep it here in sight while you proceed.”
“There’s nothing for me to proceed with,” said Horace, lolling back in his chair in turn. “I want to hear you! Don’t let us waste time. Broadly, what do you propose?”
“Broadly, what does everybody propose? To get for himself what somebody else has got. That’s human nature. It’s every kind of nature, down to the little chickens just hatched who start to chase the chap with the worm in his mouth before they’ve fairly got their tails out of the shell.”
“You ought to write a book, Schuyler,” said Horace, using this familiar name for the first time: “‘Tenney on Dynamic Sociology’! But I interrupted your application. What particular worm have you got in your bill’s eye?”
“We are all worms, so the Bible says. I suppose even those scrumptious ladies there come under that head, like we ordinary mortals.” Mr. Tenney pointed his agreeable metaphor by touching the paper on his knee with his joined finger-tips, and showed his small, sharpened teeth in a momentary smile.
“I follow you,” said Horace, tentatively. “Go on!”
“That’s a heap of money that you’ve ciphered out there, on that paper.”
“Yes. True, it isn’t ours, and we’ve got nothing to do with it. But that’s a detail. Go on!”