“I do not know,” Arthur replied; “I should have supposed one part of it to be about as important as the other.”
“Well, you would have supposed wrong, then,” retorted Mr. Black; “because, though I am deucedly short, and shall be short for the next twelvemonth, still I could make a pinch of meeting my bills; but how you are to take up yours, until the shares become marketable, I confess puzzles me to imagine—unless, indeed, you decide to raise a few thousands on Berrie Down.”
“A few thousands!” repeated Arthur, in amazement, “a few thousands! Why, my bills altogether cannot amount to more than a few hundreds!”
“Don’t they, by Jove!” said Mr. Black, coolly. “Just run your eye over that little list—there is not sixpence of mine among it,—and you will soon change your opinion. You have had a lot of money, one time and another. Then you bought this place; then there is the discount.”
“I thought you were going to pay that?” Arthur interrupted.
“On those which were drawn for my accommodation, of course,” replied Mr. Black. “I am now talking of yours. Then there was the doing up of this house——”
“You told me the Company would put it in proper order for me to live in,” once again interposed Mr. Dudley.
“So they would, had it been for any other person excepting the owner of the house,” answered Mr. Black. “I had, as I told you, to waive that point. I wrote you all about it after you were up at the beginning of the year.”
“Indeed, you are mistaken,” said Arthur; “you never wrote a syllable to me on the subject!”
“All I can say is, then, that I either wrote or intended to write,” answered Mr. Black; “but I had such a deuce of a lot of things to attend to about that time, your letter may have slipped my memory. However, that’s nothing to do with what we are talking of now. If you will consider the affair, it was absurd to expect the Company both to pay you rent and to paint and paper your house. They could not do it. I forgot about its being your own property—about your, in fact, being landlord and our being tenants, till you were back at Berrie Down. We pay you a very good rent, so you must not be dissatisfied. Then, you see, there is the furniture.”