“You mean,” said Mr. Petre slowly, as he gathered some wandering, foggy idea that there was an avenue of escape somewhere, “that ... Mr. Trefusis....” he was glad that the “Mr.” went down; it might have been Sir Ezekiel or Lord Trefusis for all he knew, “won’t take action if he thinks that I...?”
“Yes, exactly,” said Charlie, impatient at such play-acting, but restraining his impatience. “If he knows that you’re bringing your thing over here against him, he’ll take it for granted you’ve marked him and he’ll die game. He’ll attack first. If you approach him, that’s another matter. I tell you, he’d come right down and feed out of your hand.”
“Ah!” echoed Mr. Petre, “if I approach him, yes; if I approach him, he’ll feed out of my hand.”
“He knows you might even start a paper—and that would sink him with the grumbling that’s going on. He knows of your campaign in the States, Mr. Petre, and your—I mean Jevons’—purchase of the ... the ... what was the name of that paper...?”
Charlie’s inquiry was honest enough, he knew the name of that great American organ, but he couldn’t recall it for the moment, “You know, Mr. Petre, the...? ... the...?”
“Oh, Lord!” thought Mr. Petre, “oh, Lord!” He would say anything, do anything to prevent another such extreme of danger.
To his unspeakable relief Terrard babbled on. “Oh I never mind!” he said. “Anyhow, the paper did the trick. Yes,” he continued, with a little half laugh, “the Trefusis brothers—they’ve only got to know that you’re coming in and they’ll make their proposals all right. They know their way about.” It was not an echo of Charlbury; it was a phrase that every one had used of the brothers Trefusis, even in the old obscure days when the one had been hammered and the other had wriggled out of the police court proceedings over the check business. Men said “They knew their way about” in the tone of admiration due to such master minds. “All you’ve got to say is that you’re quite agreeable to an arrangement with the Company as it stands, and that if they don’t like it you’re out for an independent proposition. It binds you to nothing.”
“No,” said Mr. Petre (he understood that phrase at any rate, and a blessed one it was!), “it binds me to nothing. What were your exact words, by the way, Mr. Terrard? I mean that about the present Company, and an arrangement, and the proposition? It was ‘proposition’ you said, I think, wasn’t it?”
Terrard was used to pretty well anything by this time, but he did marvel a little at the affectation of simplicity in manner that was so admirably done. But the matter of it was surely extravagant.
However, millionaires must be humored, and he fell in with the great man’s affectation of not knowing the A.B.C. of blackmail.