CHAPTER XVII.
MR. LONGCLUSE AT MORTLAKE HALL.
“If you let me go this time, Mr. Wheeler, you'll not catch me a-walking out here again,” said Mr. Davies sourly. “If there's business to be done, now's the time.”
“Well, I can't make it no plainer—'tis as clear as mud in a wine-glass,” said the mounted man gaily, and again he shook the bridle and hitched himself in the saddle, and the horse stirred uneasily, as he added, “Have you any more to say?”
“Well, supposin' I say ay, how soon will it be settled?” said Paul Davies, beginning to think better of it.
“These things doesn't take long with a rich cove like Mr. Longcluse. It's where they has to scrape it up, by beggin' here and borrowin' there, and sellin' this and spoutin' that—there's a wait always. But a chap with no end o' tin—that has only to wish and have—that's your sort. He swears a bit, and threatens, and stamps, and loses his temper summat, ye see; and if I was the prencipal, like you are in this 'ere case, and the police convenient, or a poker in his fist, he might make a row. But seein' I'm only a messenger like, it don't come to nothin'. He claps his hand in his pocket, and outs with the rino, and there's all; and jest a bit of paper to sign. But I won't stay here no longer. I'm getting a bit cold myself; so it's on or off now. Go yourself to Longcluse, if you like, and see if you don't catch it. The least you get will be seven-penn'orth, for extortin' money by threatenin' a prosecution, if he don't hang you for the murder of the Saloon cove. How would you like that?”
“It ain't the physic that suits my complaint, guvnor. But I have him there. I have the statement wrote, in sure hands, and other hevidence, as he may suppose, and dated, and signed by respectable people; and I know his dodge. He thinks he came out first with his charge against me, but he's out there; and if he will have it, and I split, he'd best look slippy.”
“And how much do you want? Mind, I'll funk him all I can, though he's a wideawake chap; for it's my game to get every pig I can out of him.”