"Thanks, you've done well."
"Then you want nothing further?" Bofinger said, smiling at the way his hand fumbled in his coat.
"No, no," Fargus said hastily. "You've done enough. That's what I wanted. You've done fine."
He turned his back on the lawyer and examined the pocketbook, close to his nose, for he was short-sighted. After long weighing of reasons, he plucked forth two bills as one might draw out a thorn, and spinning about hastily he thrust them into the lawyer's hand, as though mistrusting his second thoughts. Bofinger saw that each was for twenty dollars. With a flash, he stiffened and said sternly:
"My dear sir, I would like you to know that, in my profession, we fix the remuneration."
Fargus, believing himself entrapped, looked with repressed rage at the money he had surrendered. Bofinger allowed him this moment of torture, before continuing on the same key:
"My fee, sir, for these services is twenty dollars."
And with a gesture that was sultanesque he returned the other bank-note.
Fargus received one of the shocks of his life. The idea that any one could refuse money so confounded him that he did not have wit enough to extend his hand. But only for a moment; then, with a grunt of joy, he snatched up the bill, crying with genuine feeling: