“There’s lots more where that came from,” he cried, “and I’ll work up that mine until I’ve got a pretty trifle out on it.”
Jukes looked at the note with the eyes of a vulture, and bent towards Chewkle with the manner of a spaniel. He adored money, and reverenced those who possessed it. Being himself a myrmidon of the law, one of its harshest and most brutal, he feared its operation, because he only too well knew its power. He had been suffering his tongue to wag very freely in defamation of Chewkle, and the mention of an action made him sweat with nervous apprehension. He wrung Chewkle’s hand, as though he would twist it from the wrist.
“I am glad of this, old boy,” he said; “I’m precious glad o’ this, old Chewk; I’ve had a precious fight for you, old boy; I said you’d come back to shame ’em all.”
“And here I am,” said Chewkle, with the sternness of assumed innocence. “I’ll serve ’em out, you’ll see. But come, Jukes, I want this flimsy changed, and I want you to take it for me to the old gal in Threadneedle Street.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Jukes, looking blank, and by no means fascinated with the proposition, “ha! ha! its all re’glar, I s’pose, ha! ha! I say its all right and square, old Chewk, eh?”
“You ain’t one of ’em who ’s been speaking agin’ me behind my back, eh?” asked Chewkle in a very significant tone. Mr. Jukes laughed vacantly, and suggested that such a notion was utterly preposterous.
“Well,” said Chewkle, “then look there,” pointing as he spoke to a name written on the back of the note; “you see that name, ‘Grahame Regent’s Park,’ don’t you? now you can put the name and address of Chewkle on it, that will do, won’t it?”
Mr. Jukes did not think, he said, that half of that was necessary; the word of “old Chewk” was all he required; and he took the note, leaving Chewkle to await his return.
He returned with the money, and Chewkle, in pursuance of a plan he had formed, took some of his best clothes out of pledge, got shaved and scoured, for it required that labour to get his flesh cleaned; had his hair cut and brushed, his whiskers trimmed, and really came out quite smart, and looking very much, as of old—like an individual engaged in the recovery of small debts.
Making a variety of promises, largely interlarded with boasts to Juke, not one of which he intended to redeem, he made his way to his friend Scorper, a lawyer’s clerk, and, having secured his services, proceeded to face his creditors.