The old man’s voice faltered and stopped. He was going to have made a remark that would have cast a slur on the character of his late partner, so he checked himself and sighed.
“Well, then, it shall be a hundred,” said Guy, jotting down the sum on a slip of paper. “I would not advise more to be given to that particular district just now, because it might tend to check the efforts of the people on the spot. If they fail to raise the requisite sum, we can then give what is necessary. Now, there is an urgent appeal for funds being made just now to the public by the Lifeboat Institution. I think this a good opportunity to give away some of the cash which ought to have been—”
Guy hesitated. He too was about to make a remark that would have been unfavourable to the character of his late uncle, so he checked himself.
“What do you say to giving them a thousand pounds?”
Mr Crumps said nothing to it. He was too much taken aback to say anything; but when he saw that Guy had jotted the sum down, and was apparently in earnest, he nodded his head, blew his nose violently, for a man of his years and character, and chuckled.
“Well, then,” continued Guy, “there is another subject which occurs to me just now, although it does not come under the head of charities. I wish to supply a ship’s lifeboat to every vessel that belongs to us, and a set of life-belts, besides other things. I estimate that this will require a sum of nearly two thousand pounds. Let me see—”
Here Guy began to jot and calculate, and to talk to himself in an undertone, while Mr Crumps, utterly bereft of speech, sat staring in amazement and delight at his young partner.
While they were thus engaged, the tiger in blue who had supplanted Peekins entered, and said that three gentlemen wished to see Mr Foster.
“Show them in,” said Guy. “Sit still, Mr Crumps, I have not yet done with my calculations.”
In a few seconds Bax, Bluenose, and Tommy Bogey were ushered into the office. The latter had become a tall, handsome stripling during his residence abroad, and bid fair to rival Bax himself in stature. They shook hands cordially with Guy and Mr Crumps.