"By the bye, Mr. Mortomley, I have been asked if you could manufacture a few tons of a colour such as that into your new blue."
Mortomley never even touched the sample before him, though he answered at once,
"No, I could not."
"But you have not examined it, sir," expostulated Mr. Swanland.
"I do not want to examine it," was the reply, "the colour is dry. Do you suppose, for a moment, it is possible to do anything with a colour after it has dried?"
Now Mr. Swanland had supposed it was quite possible to do so, and therefore entreated Mr. Mortomley to look closely at the parcel lying before him.
"What is it?" asked the trustee.
"It is very inferior Prussian blue," was the reply, "and if your friend have, as you say, got a few tons of it, he had better make it up into balls, and sell it to the wholesale houses that supply the oil shops, which in turn supply the laundresses. Ball blue is all it is fit for."
That unhappy Mortomley could not have made a less fortunate reply had he studied the subject for a week. Mr. Swanland's patience had been so exercised with allusions to the getting up of his linen; offers to give him the names and addresses of washerwomen who might buy a pound or two of blue if he allowed a liberal discount; inquiries as to whether he had not been obliged to apply for a few policemen to keep the staircase at Salisbury House clear for ladies of the washtub persuasion, who had heard of the great bargains Asherill and Swanland were offering in colours, that the slightest allusion to a laundress now affected him as a red rag does a turkey cock.
"You are pleased to be facetious," he observed in a tone which caused Mortomley to turn round and stare at the trustee, while he answered,