"Pish, tush," said Adrian. "A fico for the phrase. I 'll bet a shilling, all the same,"—and he scanned Anthony's countenance apprehensively,—"that you 'll be wanting money?"
"It's considered rather low," Anthony generalised, "to offer a bet on what you have every ground for regarding as a certainty."
"A certainty?" groaned Adrian. He tossed his plump arms heavenwards.
"There it is! He 's wanting money."
And his voice broke, in something like a sob.
"Do you know," he asked, "how many pounds sterling you 've had the spending of during the past twelvemonth? Do you know how many times your poor long-suffering bankers have written to me, with tears in their eyes, to complain that your account was overdrawn, and would I be such a dear as to set it right? No? You don't? I could have sworn you did n't. Well, I do—to my consternation. And it is my duty to caution you that the estate won't stand it—to call that an estate," he divagated, with a kind of despairing sniff, "which is already, by the extravagances of your ancestors, shrunken to scarcely more than three acres and a cow. You 're wanting money? What do you do with your money? What secret profligacy must a man be guilty of, who squanders such stacks of money? Burst me, if I might n't as well be steward to a bottomless pit. However, Providence be praised,—and my own supernatural diligence,—I 'm in command of quite unhoped-for resources. Craford New Manor is let."
"So you remarked before," said Anthony, all but yawning.
"And shall again, if the impulse seizes me," Adrian tartly rejoined. "The circumstance is a relevant and a lucky one for the man you 're fondest of, since he's wanting money. If it were n't that the new house is let, he 'd find my pockets in the condition of Lord Tumtoddy's noddle. However, the saints are merciful, I 'm a highly efficient agent, and the biggest, ugliest, costliest house in all this countryside is let."
"Have it so, dear Goldilocks," said Anthony, with submission. "I 'll ne'er deny it more."
"There would be no indiscretion," Adrian threw out, "in your asking whom it's let to."
"Needless to ask," Anthony threw back. "It's let to a duffer, of course. None but a duffer would be duffer enough to take it."