The man withdrew.
“You’ll have to go,” pursued Scrivener, as he followed his host to the table.
“I do not intend to; I have another engagement.”
“But no one else speaks Spanish; you are the only one among us who has the slightest smattering of the tongue. You alone can do the work.”
Adrian drew the great joint of beef towards him.
“I am sorry to disoblige,” he said, as he cut huge slices from the joint and piled them on his guest’s plate, “but the fact is, I am going to be married next week.”
“Great Heaven!” cried Scrivener. “Is this the time for marrying? What do we want with a woman in the business?”
Rowton’s black eyes flashed.
“Do you think I would bring her into your accursed business?” he said. “Not I; but now listen once for all, Scrivener. I marry the girl I love next week, and I go away with her on a holiday and don’t return to business for a month. For five weeks from now I take complete holiday. You can tell Long John so from me. At the end of that time I am once more at his service. Now he can take me or leave me. I am quite willing to cut the concern, notwithstanding your threats. I can get off to Australia as knowingly as anybody else.”