“Oh, that’s what you thought, hey?” he said; and then, after a pause, he continued: “I fancy you must have lost sight of some of the facts when you thought that. Let me just remind you how the case stands. To begin with, you start your career with a little playful forgery and embezzlement; you blew the proceeds and you are mug enough to be found out. Then I come in. I compound the affair with old Marston for a couple of thousand, and practically clean myself out of every penny I possess, and he consents to regard your temporary absence in the light of a holiday.
“Now, why do I do this? Am I a philanthropist? Devil a bit. I’m a man of business. Before I ladle out that two thousand, I make a business contract with you. I happen to possess the means of making and the skill to make a passable imitation of the Bank of England paper: you are a skilled engraver and a plausible scamp. I am to supply you with paper blanks: you are to engrave plates, print the notes and get them changed. I am to take two-thirds of the proceeds; and, although I have done the most difficult part of the work, I agree to regard my share of the profits as constituting repayment of the loan. Our contract amounts to this: I lend you two thousand without security—with an infernal amount of insecurity in fact—you ‘promise, covenant and agree,’ as the lawyers say, to hand me back ten thousand in instalments, being the products of our joint industry. It is a verbal contract which I have no means of enforcing; but I trust you to keep your word and up to the present you have kept it. You have paid me a little over four thousand. Now you want to cry off and leave the balance unpaid. Isn’t that the position?”
“Not exactly,” said Varney. “I’m not crying off the debt; I only want time. Look here, Dan: I’m making about five-fifty a year now. That isn’t much, but I’ll manage to let you have a hundred a year out of it. What do you say to that?”
Purcell laughed scornfully. “A hundred a year to pay off six thousand! That’ll take just sixty years; and as I’m now forty-three, I shall be exactly a hundred and three years of age when the last instalment is paid. I think, Varney, you’ll admit that a man of a hundred and three is getting a bit past his prime.”
“Well, I’ll pay you something down to start. I’ve saved about eighteen hundred pounds out of the note business. You can have that now, and I’ll pay off as much as I can at a time until I’m clear. Remember that if I should happen to get clapped in chokee for twenty years or so, you won’t get anything. And, I tell you, it’s getting a risky business.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” said Purcell.
“I daresay you are!” Varney retorted passionately; “because it’s my risk. If I am grabbed, it’s my racket, you sit out. It’s I who passed the notes and I’m known to be a skilled engraver. That’ll be good enough for them. They won’t trouble about who made the paper.”
“I hope not,” said Purcell.
“Of course they wouldn’t; and you know I shouldn’t give you away.”
“Naturally. Why should you? Wouldn’t do you any good.”