‘Umph!’ growled the squatter doubtfully. ‘Well, as long as the missus says it’s all right, I s’pose it is. How much?’
He paid without a murmur. Mrs M. was a lady who stood no trifling.
‘Wrap the thing up and put it in the buggy,’ said he. ‘Gad, it’s as big as the station ledger! Look sharp, now, I’m in a hurry!’
‘So am I,’ quoth Mr Potts, as he returned. ‘John, what time does the next train start?’
. . . . . . . . . .
When the manager reached home that afternoon with ‘Don Quixote,’ and compared notes and books, there was a row, the upshot of which was that he received orders to hurry off at once in pursuit, and avenge the trick played upon them.
‘You’re a J.P.,’ stormed the lady, ‘and if you can’t give that oily villain three months, what’s the use of you? Besides, isn’t five pounds worth recovering?’
Mr Morris would much sooner have let the matter drop quietly. No man likes to publicly advertise [206] ]the fact of his having been duped, least of all by a book-fiend.
‘Well, well, my dear,’ said he at last, ‘never mind. I’ll go directly. I’ve got some letters to write first But I’ll send M‘Fadyen into town to see the fellow doesn’t get away.’
‘Tell him,’ said the manager, as the overseer was preparing to start, ‘tell him I’m coming in presently, about—um—er—about a book. Oh, and if he gives you anything, perhaps you’d better take it. No use,’ he muttered to himself, with a side glance to where his wife sat, ‘letting all hands and the cook know one’s business. The beggar ’ll only be too glad to stump up when he finds I’m in earnest. Thought, I suppose, that I wouldn’t bother about it, eh, what!’