"Twenty-five!" Rehoboam looked horrified. "Twenty-five? Brother, you are going mad! How can you talk such a sum as twenty-five per cent. when—"
"I'll give ten," said Anthony, interrupting him. "So make out the paper, and let's have an end to the matter."
With many lamentations, but with sly glances of glee, the twins set about drawing up a new bill for Charles' signature; this they gave to Anthony, protesting that they were undone and that ruin itself would not surprise them. But the young man buttoned it up in his breast pocket with plain unbelief; then he gave them a curt nod and left the room, with Captain Weir behind him. At the next landing Weir paused.
"Mademoiselle Lafargue," said he. "Has she left this place?"
"No," said Anthony. "She has gone to speak to the other leech of whom they told her."
"Nevens was the name, I think," said Weir. He made it out, painted upon a door in the darkest corner of an obscure passage. "If you don't mind," said he, "we shall go in for a moment. We may be of some assistance."
Anthony readily followed him into a low-ceilinged room, where daylight crept through the dirty glass of a single window. Huddles of time-stained and dusty papers were upon shelves, and in cubbyholes, and impaled upon hooks. A crazy old desk was all but buried under them; a corner cupboard was so gorged that papers bulged from doors and drawers that could not have been closed for years.
A little man with a short nose, a snuffy neck-cloth, and red-rimmed eyes was talking with Mademoiselle Lafargue. She turned a look upon Anthony that was surprised and grateful.
"Good day to you, gentlemen," said the little man in a squeaky voice. "I will give you my best attention in a moment." To the girl he said: "Pay heed to what I tell you. Women are not fitted for the carrying of important words. Say to your father that he is the person I desire to see. And I must see him immediately."
Weir stepped toward the usurer.