Macloud smoked his cigar, and smiled.
“There’s nothing queer about the letter!”—he said. “Blaxham’s customer may have the willies—indeed, he as much as intimates that such is the case—but, thank God! we’re not obliged to have a commission-in-lunacy appointed on everybody who makes a silly stock or bond purchase. If we were, we either would have no markets, or the courts would have time for nothing else. No! no! old man! take what the gods have given you and be glad. There’s ten thousand a year in it! You can return to Northumberland, resume the old life, and be happy ever after;—or you can live here, and there, and everywhere. You’re unattached—not even a light-o’-love to squander your money, and pester you for gowns and hats, and get in a hell of a temper—and be false to you, besides.”
“No, I haven’t one of them, thank God!” laughed Croyden. “I’ve got troubles enough of my own. The present, for instance.” 222
“Troubles!” marvelled Macloud. “You haven’t any troubles, now. This clears them all away.”
“It clears some of them away—if I take it.”
“Thunder! man, you’re not thinking, seriously, of refusing?”
“It will put me on ‘easy street,’” Croyden observed.
“So, why hesitate an instant?”
“And it comes with remarkable timeliness—so timely, indeed, as to be suspicious.”
“Suspicious? Why suspicious? It’s a bona fide offer.”