Out here in the counting-house, Gosling’s thrill of fear was rapidly subsiding, and he had no intention of passing over his own important part in the house’s decision to buy for a rise; so he bulged out his cheeks, shook his head and said:
“Not by a long chalk it ain’t, Flack; not by a long chalk. There was that young feller, Thrale, as I was tellin’ you about; ’e gave me a hidea or two, and now s’mornin’ we ’ave this very serious news from Berlin.”
“Papers ’ave to make the worst of everything,” said Flack. “It’s their livin’.”
“Anyways,” continued Gosling, “I put it quite straight to the ’ouse this mornin’, as we might do worse under the circumstances than buy ’eavily....”
“You did?” asked Flack, and he cocked up his spectacles and looked at Gosling underneath them.
“I did,” replied Gosling.
“What did Mr Barker say to that?” asked Flack.
“He took my advice.”
“Lord’s sakes, you don’t tell me so?” said Flack, his spectacles on his forehead.
“I’m now about to dictate various letters to our ’ouse in Dundee,” replied Gosling, dropping his voice to a whisper, and assuming an air of mysterious importance, “advising them to send our Mr Stewart to Vienna immediate, from where ’e is to proceed to Berlin. ’E is, also, to ’ave private instructions from the ’ouse as to the extent of ‘is buyin’—which I may tell you in confidence, Flack, will be enormous—e-normous.” Gosling raised his head slowly on the first syllable, brought it down with a jerk on the second, and left the third largely to the imagination.