"Da-a-md exhausting," interposed Mr. Levi.
"Well, pray allow me my own superlative," said the attorney, with religious grandeur. "I do say it is very exhausting; though we are all, I hope, cheerfully contributing——"
"Curse you! to be sure you are," said Mr. Dingwell, with an abrupt profanity that startled Mr. Larkin. "Because you all expect to make money by it; and I'm contributing my time, and trouble, and danger, egad! for precisely the same reason. And now, before you go—just a moment, if you please, as we are on the subject—who's Chancellor of the Exchequer here?"
"Who advances the necessary funds?" interpreted Mr. Larkin, with his politest smile.
"Yes," said the old man, with a sharp menacing nod. "Which of you two comes down, as you say, with the dust? Who pays the piper for this dance of yours, gentlemen?—the Christian or the Jew? I've a word for the gentleman who holds the purse—or, as we Christians would say, who carries the bag;" and he glanced from one to the other with a sniff, and another rather vicious wag of his head.
"I believe, sir, you may address us both as voluntary contributors towards a fund for carrying on, for the present, this business of the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, who will, of course, recoup us," said Mr. Larkin, cautiously.
He used to say sometimes to his conducting man, with a smile, sly and holy, up at the yellow letters of one of the tin deed-boxes on his shelves at the Lodge, after an adroit conversation, "I think it will puzzle him, rather, to make an assumpsit out of that."
"Well, you talk of allowing me—as you term it—four pounds a week. I'll not take it," said Mr. Dingwell.
"My hye! That'sh liberal, shir, uncommon 'anshome, be Ga-a-ad!" exclaimed Mr. Levi, in a blessed mistake as to the nature of Mr. Dingwell's objection.
"I know, gentlemen, this business can't advance without me—to me it may be worth something; but you'll make it worth a great deal more to yourselves, and whatever else you may find me, you'll find me no fool; and I'll not take one piastre less than five-and-twenty pounds a week."