He said in a strangled voice:
“Don’t tell the Squire, Master Lionel. He has trouble enough. I—I will give you the money gladly.”
Lionel leapt up. Many surprises, during the past twenty-four hours, had prepared him for others, but this was the greatest.
“You dear old chap,” he gasped, “what are you saying? Give me five hundred pounds?”
“With all my heart.”
Volubly, he continued, protesting with uplifted finger against interruption. Lady Alicia Pomfret had left him a thousand pounds. He had never touched the interest on this nest egg, reinvesting it year after year. For a man in his position he was rich—rich! He wanted to help. It was his pleasure and his duty to help those to whom he owed everything. Lionel, for the second time that morning, felt dazed and stupid. He could understand, easily enough, Fishpingle’s wish to help, but his ability to do so involved other issues. If he were rich, if, for example, the nest egg were four times its original size, why, in the name of the Sphinx, had he remained in his present position? Why hadn’t he cut loose long ago, married, and set up a snug business of his own? These thoughts chased each other through his mind till Fishpingle stopped speaking. Lionel grasped his hand.
“I shall remember this all my life,” he began. “But I couldn’t take five hundred from you, Fishpingle, either as a gift or a loan. And, believe me, I shall have no difficulty in raising the money with a guarantee from my father. I made a clean breast of it to you, because I thought that together we might work out the best way of breaking beastly news to him. It is beastly to find out that he has been pinching while I have been squandering. He put the thing in a phrase at breakfast. Wait! Let me get his own words. They sunk in. I can promise you. Yes; I have ’em. ‘It is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch, when you’ve given the ell cheerfully.’ Asking for his guarantee is just that extra inch clapped on to the ell of my allowance. Now—tackle him I must. Together we’ll settle the where and the when and the how. But you’re a topper, the very best in the world!”
He gripped his hand fiercely.
Fishpingle accepted the situation. He perceived that here was a point of honour and principle. No Pomfret could be swerved from that. So he said simply:
“If the Squire must be told, Master Lionel, tell him to-night, after dinner, when he is sipping his port.”