Mr. Barnaby came in. A simple-looking man of quiet manners, a corn-dealer, who kept an account at the Bank. He had a canvas bag in his hand. George asked him to take a seat.
“I was going to pay in two thousand pounds, sir,” said he, slightly lifting the bag to indicate that the money was there. “But I should like, first of all, to be assured that it’s all right.”
George sat and stared at him. Was Prior’s Ash all going mad together? George honestly believed that nothing yet had transpired, or could have transpired, to set these doubts afloat. “Really, Mr. Barnaby, I do not understand you,” he said, with some hauteur: just as he had answered Mr. Hastings.
“I called in at Rutt’s, sir, as I came along, to know what had been done in that business where I was chiselled out of that load of barley, and I happened to mention that I was coming on here to pay in two thousand pounds. ‘Take care that it’s all right,’ said Rutt. ‘I heard the Bank talked about yesterday.’ Is it all right, sir?”
“It is as right as the Bank of England,” impulsively answered George. “Rutt shall be brought to account for this.”
“Well, I thought it was odd if there was anything up. Then I may leave it with safety?”
“Yes, you may,” replied George. “Have you not always found it safe hitherto?”
“That’s just it: I couldn’t fancy that anything wrong had come to it all of a sudden. I’ll go and pay it in then, sir. It won’t be for long, though. I shall be wanting it out, I expect, by the end of next week.”
“Whenever you please, Mr. Barnaby,” replied George.
The corn-dealer retired to leave his money, and George Godolphin sat on alone, biting his pen as before. Where could these rumours have had their rise? Harmlessly enough they might have fallen, had nothing been rotten at the core of affairs: George alone knew how awfully dangerous they might prove now, if they got wind.