“Stay and dine with me, Buckleton,” I interposed. “Dinner is all ready, and I should be delighted to have you.”
“Thank you! Thank you! I should be glad to do so, but I have to meet a gentleman at the store in half an hour,” he replied, consulting his watch.
“Let him wait; you needn’t be over half an hour behind time.”
“I can’t do that, for the fact is he owes me some money, and I am desperately short just now.”
Bah! I had given him the opportunity to say that, and it was now an easy step for him to dun me.
“Well, come up next Sunday, won’t you? And bring your wife with you. We shall be delighted to see you,” I continued, hoping to throw him off the track.
“I will, if possible; but I often find that Mrs. Buckleton has made engagements for me, and, if I remember rightly, her father and mother dine with us next Sunday. Besides, I have been so annoyed with business matters for a week, that I have not felt much like going into company. I expected a remittance of six thousand dollars from Havana, and learned the other day that the party had stopped payment. I don’t know what we shall do to meet our own notes. By the way, Glasswood, would it be perfectly convenient for you to pay the amount you owe us in a few days?”
“It would not be perfectly convenient,” I replied, squarely.
“I know very well that I proposed to wait for it, but, you see, this confounded Cuban affair throws us all out of groove; and we are in hot water up to the eyes. Isn’t it possible for you to pay it?”