Paul did not like the quiet tone of authority and rebuke in which his friend appeared to speak; but he felt that the barrister was in the right, and had his interest at heart.
“You don’t sympathise with me much?” said Paul, moving uneasily in his seat, and smoking by fits and starts.
“O yes, I do, Lieutenant—O yes, I do; I fancy that Macshawser’s a humbug; but I interrupt your narrative.”
“Well; these losses, and some extra expenditure which I felt called upon to make in a little dinner to some fellows belonging to the Guards, run away with my allowance twice over before I knew where I was.”
“You have been going it, as the saying is,—been fast in the double sense. We say a man is fast who is fond of gaiety, keeps late hours, bets on horse races, and takes ‘tips.’ In Yorkshire, a man who is ‘hard up’ is said to be fast,—fast for money. Are you fast for money now? If so, how much do you want?” said Mr. Williamson still, looking before him far away at the ships in the distance.
“You had better let me tell you the whole story through,” Paul replied. “I was ashamed to let anybody know that I wanted money; I could not summon courage even to tell you, and should not have had courage to do so even now but for another circumstance which has arisen out of it.”
“You are too modest,” said Mr. Williamson.
“I thought of a hundred ways of raising money, and I knew that some of our fellows borrow money of Jews; I did not know what to do. Whilst I was sitting over the Times and a cigar in my own quarters, my eye caught an advertisement about ‘money to lend.’”
Mr. Wilkinson grew particularly interested at this point, for a detective friend of his had told him some time ago that he had been on the trail of Shuffleton Gibbs, who had slipped him, in the character, he believed, of an advertising money-lender.
“I replied to the advertisement, and had a letter by return of post requesting me to call at No. 15, Chaucer-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields. I called, and was requested to fill up a long form, in which I answered a great many questions; but I concealed my connection with the army. My life was to be insured, and a bill of exchange, backed by one good name besides my own, for two hundred and fifty pounds would secure to me two hundred for three months. I paid the two guineas and a fee the next day for medical examination. Two days afterwards they informed me that the medical officer of the company had made an unfavourable report with regard to the state of my health, and that the loan could not therefore be granted.”