“Oh, well, if you put it like that, I suppose she might.”
“Freddie, my boy,” said Mr. Keeble weakly, “I daren’t do it!”
The vision of his thousand pounds slipping from his grasp so wrought upon Freddie that he expressed himself in a manner far from fitting in one of his years towards an older man.
“Oh, I say, don’t be such a rabbit!”
Mr. Keeble shook his head.
“No,” he repeated, “I daren’t.”
It might have seemed that the negotiations had reached a deadlock, but Freddie, with a thousand pounds in sight, was in far too stimulated a condition to permit so tame an ending to such a promising plot. As he stood there, chafing at his uncle’s pusillanimity, an idea was vouchsafed to him.
“By Jove! I’ll tell you what!” he cried.
“Not so loud!” moaned the apprehensive Mr. Keeble. “Not so loud!”
“I’ll tell you what,” repeated Freddie in a hoarse whisper. “How would it be if I did the pinching?”