"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty," replied Gordon, promptly.
"That would do very well indeed," said Bob. "Please go on, sir, till it's that. Or shall I take half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with it? He offered to help me."
"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily. "Plant's a reckless speculator and a liar, and he'll wake up some day worth half a million less than nothing. I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."
"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob. "Good night, Mr. Gordon. I'm sorry if I've worried you."
And he went off to worry Goby. Gordon walked up and down the room weeping.
"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried. "By Moses and all the prophets, I'll put Amalekites up sky-high, and squeeze the bears till they howl. Oh, Pen, Pen!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
By breakfast-time or a little later, Goby and Gordon and De Vere and Rivaulx knew not only what was said about Timothy Bunting, but also that every one of them had told the Duchess of Goring that he was married to Penelope. When the bishop looked in to see the marquis, he found him exceedingly difficult to manage. He wanted the duelling-swords back in order to fight every one. His especial desire now was to put cold steel through Gordon, and this led to a general evacuation of Spilsborough.
"I say, Mr. Gordon," said Bob, rushing in upon the financier while he was shaving, "I've just met the bishop, and he wanted to know if I knew you, and I said 'rather,' and he said would I ask you, in the interests of peace, to go back to London, because the marquis wanted to cut your throat with swords hanging in the bishop's dining-room. I say, will you go, or stay and fight?"
Gordon cut himself, and then, as Bob said, "cut his stick" and went back to town shaved on one side and not on the other. As a result of this, several men in the city sold bears of everything that Gordon was interested in, and they got left most horribly, especially on Amalekites. Never afterward did they venture to think that any financier was on the borders of ruin if he came into the city partially shaved. In fact, three very shady Jews, with some wildcat stock to boom, played the trick successfully, and, through not being shaved themselves, they shaved others.