"They are as handsome eyes as ever I saw," was the answer.
"They may be handsome, but I don't like them. But that it is wrong to say it, I could almost say I hate them. They frighten me, David."
"That's just one of your foolish fancies," cried Mr. Dundyke, in wrath. "You are always taking them up, you know."
A day or two after this, Mr. Hardcastle came straight into the presence of Mr. Dundyke, some papers in his hand. "My dear sir," he said, "I want you to do me a favour."
The common-councilman jumped up and placed a chair for the great man, delighted at the prospect of doing him a favour.
"I wrote home a few days ago for them to send me a letter of credit on the bankers here. It came this morning, and just see what they have done!"
Mr. Hardcastle tossed, as he spoke, the letter of credit to Mr. Dundyke. Now the latter, shrewd man of business though he was amid his own chests of tea, knew very little of these foreign letters of credit, their forms, or their appearance. All he could make out of the present one was, that it was a sort of order to receive one hundred pounds.
"Don't you see the error?" exclaimed Mr. Hardcastle. "They have made it payable to my uncle, Stephen Hardcastle, instead of to me. My name's not Stephen, so it would be perfectly useless for me to present it. How the clerks came to make so foolish a mistake I cannot tell. Some one of them I suppose, in the pressure of business, managed to give unintelligible orders to the bankers, and so caused the error."
"Dear me!" said Mr. Dundyke.
"Now I want to know if you can let me have this sum. I shall write immediately to get the thing rectified, and if you can accommodate me for a few days, until the needful comes, I will then repay you with many thanks."