"You think it over. Take your time."
"Don't like it!" growled the little man.
"I call it a perfectly legitimate transaction."
"Come off it, Tom!"
"Are you thinkin' o' your inside or your outside? Yer skin or yer conscience? If it's conscience——"
"Well——?"
"I'll make this remark. One way and t'other I've paid you more than a thousand pounds for 'restoration' work done by James Miggott during the past four years or more. Don't forget that! So long!"
Quinney heard him chuckling as he made his way downstairs.
III
He became a party to the projected fraud, but not without perturbations of spirit and rumblings of conscience. Ultimately he salved the latter with the soothing reflection that he was much more honest than Tomlin or Lark or Bundy. It is affirmed, with what truth I know not, that gluttons who happen to be total abstainers are peculiarly virulent against drunkards. Quinney, poor fellow, son of a dishonest father, dishonest himself during his earlier manhood, reflected joyously that he was an admirable husband and father. He said to Susan, who was in blissful ignorance of his dealings with Tom Tomlin: