“Shave me!” exclaimed he, when this was done. “The thoushand gone! every rag! and” (glancing at his watch) “only two twenty-five! Won't it be rayther young, though, backin' such a run o' bad luck, and throwin' good money after bad, Mr. Harden?”
“That's my affair, I fancy; what I want to know is whether you have got a few hundreds more, on the same terms—I mean, from the same lender. Hang it, say yes or no—can't you?”
“Well, Mr. Harden, there's five hundred more—but 'twasn't expected you'd a' drew it so soon. How much do you say, Mr. Harden?”
“I'll take it all,” said Richard Arden. “I wish I could have it without these blackguards seeing.”
“They don't care, blesh ye! if you got it from the old boy himself. That is a rum un!” There were pen and ink on a small table beside the wall, at which Mr. Levi began rapidly to fill in the blanks of a bill of exchange. “Why, there's not one o' them, almost, but takes a hundred now and then from me, when they runs out a bit too fast. You'd better shay one month.”
“Say two, like the other, and don't keep me waiting.”
“You'd better shay one—your friend will think you're going a bit too quick to the devil. Remember, as your proverb shays, 'taint the thing to kill the gooshe that laysh the golden eggs—shay one month.”
Levi's large black eye was fixed on him, and he added, “If you want it pushed on a bit when it comes due, there won't be no great trouble about it, I calculate.”
Richard Arden looked at the large fierce eyes that were silently fixed on him: one of those eyes winked solemnly and significantly.
“Well, what way you like, only be quick,” said Richard Arden.